The irritation I've had for the past three days finally went away. The splinter FINALLY worked its way out of my thumb. As small as it was, I felt it drop away as I brushed my teeth this morning. Saturday in the backyard is when I picked up this irritant. It wasn't a large enough splinter to be worth that enjoyable task of digging a hole in your own flesh with tweezers to immediately expel. It was just the size you know to leave in, the size splinter the body is made to isolate and heal in a way that pushes the little obnox-iousity out. Maybe you can see the red-mark on my thumb that's still there?
But I felt it there all weekend. If I pressed my thumb onto something, or took a firm grip, 'ouch.' Not a big pain, but an irritant. So when the splinter dropped away this morning, it was no occasion for grand celebration, just a pleasurable relief.
There are things in our lives as people, and in the lives of those who are leaders, that irritate. But aren't worth the time, pain, or focus to operate on radically. Some irritants simply do not warrant the attention it would take to remove them - they are better left to fall away in their own manner. Because they are, to use one of my favorite rapper words, triflin.'
For example, complainers in your life. Now what kind of radical operation would it take to actually be the agent to turn a complainer into a celebrator? Not worth the effort. How about the effort involved in taking mere complaints (as opposed to constructive critique) into your mood, into your energy, into your enjoyment of important groups you are part of in your life (your child's school, the place you work, your church, the team you're on, etc.).
Complainers, and the complaints they fill your ears with about 'whatever' in their life, should be included in the very definition of triflin.' And unless you can move your cubicle at work, or quit your role as a leader, they are a triflin' part of reality. You can choose to expend energy being brought down by complainers, or treat them like a minor irritant not worth the time or expense of the mercurachrome and band-aid. (Now if all your closest friends are in general passive complainers about every area of their life, you need radical surgery on who you include in your life's inner circle - you will become that very, very soon; in fact you probably already are the same way to other people outside that circle, but don't know it).
Perhaps another example is one of those annoying habits your spouse or children or roomate has. Now really, do you think its going to end up having been worth the emotional and relational angst you created for years by fixating on it, looking back, when in the long run they were never ever going to stop ______ (put their annoying habit here. And if its chewing their toenails with their own teeth - that's not triflin,' its worth making a big deal out of ! In case you were wondering).
Hebrews 12:1 says "Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."
I love this race God allows me to run called life. For me, it's a life of following Jesus into the abundant life laid out for me, for the good of the world and to the glory of God. You are trying to faithfully run the course God is leading you down. Entangling sin is to be dealt with severely in our lives - radical surgery through repentance and involving others in healing and coming up with a new plan for that part of my life.
Anything else you allow to push you off the good and highest course for your life you've discerned from the Spirit of God? Its called a 'hindrance.' Some hindrances need to be dealt with. And some hindrances are merely triflin.' And to spend time and energy on a triflin' thing turns it into a hindrance from running the race God has set before you today.
So how about it - give me a few more examples of a 'triflin'' hindrance, in leadership and/or life???
