Tolerating the intolerable

Now, how can you possibly sum up a learning experience that’s been arranged by one of the greatest teachers alive today - John Maxwell himself? Well, let me give it a shot.  If you’re not familiar with John Maxwell or are not a part of the John Maxwell Team, you should certainly check it out.

There we were, standing on one of the peaks of the Golan Heights, the territory of northern Israel bordering Lebanon and Syria. To say there is an eerie feel to the land would be a vast understatement. As we drove in jeeps on dirt roads, deeply rutted and lined by barbed wire fences warning of the minefields right beyond, I looked around and just took it in.

The energy...Tenuous. Paranoid. Fragile.

Such an atmosphere filled the space. We were “safe”, certainly. They wouldn’t take a group of tourists to a currently active zone, although it is not really a place where they do take tourists (...a special experience that John Maxwell was able to arrange for us).

And yet, even with the declared safety of that location, in such a small geographical area, anything can change in as little as an hour.

Our group was being led by an outstanding educator, a Major in the Israeli army. He was saying something in context of the geopolitical climate that we stood right in the midst of, but what he said was so profound and truly transcends more than just this one part of the world and this one geographical political situation. What he said applies to all areas of our lives, I do believe.

It was this one statement that inspired this thoughts that I am sharing with you now. He said, “When we make the intolerable tolerable, we sow the seeds of our own future disaster.”

I guarantee there are things in your life that are intolerable but that you are nonetheless tolerating. What are those things, you may ponder? I encourage you to do so.

What is keeping you from growing? Perhaps it’s your environment, the people with whom you are surrounding yourself; perhaps it’s the work you’re doing - “well I don’t like it but it pays the bills...” Sound familiar?

Maybe it’s the precious paradigms and the oh-so-limiting beliefs that are exceedingly hard to let go of; so difficult to separate yourself from; so agonizing when you must choose between the “familiar” and what you truly desire... the “new” thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that support your growth but that push you beyond your perceived limits into the realm of the unknown.

What are you tolerating in your life that is in fact intolerable?

Remember, you are either growing or you are disintegrating.

“When you make the intolerable tolerable, you sow the seeds of your future disaster.”

“Disaster” doesn’t have to always be a sudden outburst that leads to pain and suffering. It can be a gradual progression of events, a series of occurrences that fortify the negative beliefs, barely perceptible on the surface of your life, but nonetheless causing discomfort and even deep pain....disintegration rather than growth (it is one or the other).

Now, there can certainly be pain in growing. But it leads to restoration, freedom, and fuller expression of our creative spirit, leading to more and greater life.

The alternative is a continual demise of the spirit within you. Not physical death... but perhaps arguably worse. The disintegration of the God-given urge for more life, for greater expression, for fuller creation within and without.

What are you tolerating in your life that should not be tolerated? A valid question worth your consideration.

Not just worth your consideration but perhaps the very thing on which the survival of your dream depends.

More thoughts to come as I continue this incredible journey through Israel with my friend, business partner, and mentor, John Maxwell.

I believe in you and I believe in your dream!!

Hold Your Image!!