Not Good With Math... (long post)

Okay, so this week's thoughts come from a highly unlikely source (for me at least):  Oprah.  Yeah, I know.  Oprah?  Everytime I watch her (even for a minute), I can hear that line from Casting Crowns' song "What If His People Prayed?"...

"What if the life that we pursue

Came from a hunger for the truth

What if the family turned to Jesus

Stopped asking Oprah what to do!"
(see below for more)

Anyway.  This week, Ms. Winfrey did a show on corporate CEOs going undercover and working side-by-side with their unsuspecting employees.  It was fabulous!  I loved watching how these highly educated, ultra rich CEOs had their eyes opened to what it was like to do the jobs that keep them in business.  Neither of the men were rude or even upset at the work they had to do.  In fact, both men were incredibly humbled by what they learned regarding all that needs to be done in order for the company as a whole to be successful.  It was awe inspiring.

But none of that is what got me thinking.  What really struck me (and hard) had to do with an issue each CEO faced while in the trenches.  They each learned that "middle management" had been adding and/or subtracting from the rule book.  Various policies and procedures were being tweaked here and there and these tweaks were directly impacting those employees closest to the bottom rung of the coporate ladder.  For example, one amazing woman who collects garbage for Waste Management had to pee in a can while on her route because middle management had told her she couldn't stop anywhere to take care of her business.  When the CEO realized what she was doing and what she had been told, he was not happy.  It's not a policy that she cannot have a bathroom break and he seemed determined to find out where that "policy" had come from!

This is where I got convicted.  How often do I change what God tells me to make it fit my needs/wants/desires/etc. and end up totally messing up someone else's relationship with Him?  How often do I compromise what I know is right (and in the Bible, for Heaven's sake!) because it's just easier than having to do the hard thing, therefore, "teaching" someone something wrong about who God really is?

THEN I wondered... how often do leaders (spiritual and otherwise) simply change the "rules" to make life easier for themselves?  I have been a part of groups (spiritual and otherwise) that do this and then tell me to my face that I'm wrong because I'm not "going with the flow".  The flow of what?  The flow to hell? It's hot there and I'm not interested.

What I learned was that I need to do all that I can to not add or subtract from the Word of God.  And I can say that unless I really dig in and commit to being a true Christ-follower I won't know if I have added any "fuzzy math" to His already perfect Word.  And because I do believe that just calling myself a Christian no longer cuts the mustard.

To sum it up: the further I get away from my CEO and His policy and procedure manual (AND the love and grace that lays therein), I won't know if someone is trying to ease their burden while making mine heavier.

That's all.  Thank you, Oprah, for revealing something I hadn't really thought about.  And thank you, Casting Crowns, for this song...

ADDED:
I'm also really happy to know that my CEO is never apart from me and that He's with me down in those trenches each and everyday!