Clouds, Bricks, and Winning Today
Last weekend, I found myself in a level 5 maximum security prison for an outreach car show. To say it was wild would be an understatement. My 2003 Tacoma, with nearly 300,000 miles and not even a recent carwash, helped me initiate some great conversations.
I met a man who had come to faith a few months earlier. Despite a lifetime of a mamma and grandmamma teaching him and praying for him, he had run from them and from faith until he wound up doing 30 days in solitary confinement during his life sentence for murder. His joy was visible. Despite the fact he’ll probably never leave the prison I met him in, he seemed more free than most people I talk to on the outside of prison walls. One of the things he said that was so profound to me following his faith conversion was how his view of the clouds had changed.
He described cussing the clouds in the prison yard prior to his conversion, but afterwards seeing how the Lord had led the Israelites with clouds by day and fire by night. The clouds were the same, yet the view was so different.
This shift of perspective was incredibly impactful to me. It’s got me really thinking about the power of perspective, and how we can intentionally shift it to better align with our goals and calling. As leaders, we don’t always get to choose our circumstances, but we do get to choose our lens.
In Drownproofing, Andy Stumpf describes what he came to learn had helped him and set him up for success in his Navy SEAL career. When Stumpf was eleven years old, he got his first job on the same site where his dad worked as a brick mason. The eleven‑year‑old could carry six bricks a trip, and the 20 pallets of 500 bricks each seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. My curiosity led me to do the math: that’s 1,666 trips of six bricks for the kid. Stumpf’s father helped him learn how to focus his mind on the task at hand—the trip of six bricks—not the huge pile that remained. This focus helped Andy become one of 18 graduates out of the 180 students in his class to make it through and become a Navy SEAL.
Decades later, when Stumpf returned as an instructor, he began to see and understand the pattern. Talking with students who had quit training, he saw that their frame of time was the primary reason nearly all of them quit. It wasn’t that they couldn’t run or do push‑ups. It was that they thought, There’s no way I can run this much or do this many push‑ups before the end. Losing focus on the now and trying to carry the weight of the whole future broke their spirit, and they quit. In his book, he teaches that the more stressful or chaotic the world seems, the more benefit we get from making our world really small.
Next year’s budget seems overwhelming. Focus on today’s spending and earning. The twenty‑five pounds I want to lose will never go away. Focus on today’s meals and workout.
From a purpose standpoint, this aligns with Dr. Grummet’s teaching in Purpose Code. When you’re overwhelmed and searching for purpose and meaning, start by filling the day with the things you love to do—the things that light you up and bring you to life. Find your purpose in doing, and don’t make it so big that you lose it in the searching or the planning.
Dr. Ben Hardy, in The Gap and The Gain, says it like this: “Don’t compare today’s value to that of any other day… You’ll notice with each winning day—which is every day—that your sense of pride, confidence, and excitement expands and accelerates.”
My new friend who was looking at that cloud and seeing God’s guidance may not have heard of Andy Stumpf or Dr. Ben Hardy, but he knew something. Today is when we live. Yesterday is gone and we don’t actually know what next month or next year will look like. His circumstances didn’t change, but his Savior did—and that changed everything about his view of the clouds. I know where I’m headed, but I’m going to make my world smaller.
So, if your team is staring down a massive ministry initiative, don’t rally them around the next five years. Rally them around the next five conversations, the next five invitations, the next five people you’ll serve.
Leaders, where are you going, and where is your energy and focus directed today?