Willow Creek GLS18--Erwin McManus--The Last Arrow

Erwin McManus's talk from the 2018 Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit--

If we can figure out how to conquer the darkness inside of us we can keep moving on toward the light.  Most of us are here not only to try to find out how to lead better but we’re afraid there is greatness inside us that will never be actualized. We don’t want to drown in mediocrity.

A huge part of my personal journey has been a search for my identity.  My grandfather named me after Hitler’s general in North Africa. I took my son to meet my stepdad and y stepdad told me son I was just average and my brother was exceptional.  Actually I was below average.  I think that terrifying realization haunts us all. 

I began writing this book called “The Last Arrow” about saving nothing for the next life. Life isn’t really about talent or gifting; there’s so much more. We’re terrified of breaking away from the pack and becoming who God created us to be.  

I think we’re in danger of trying to learn how to conform and belong when we should be breaking out of the momentum of mediocrity.  I found a story in 2 Kings—a conversation between Elisha and King Jehoash.  Elisha tells Jehoash to shoot the arrow through the window—a metaphor for putting your life in God’s hands and seeing Him do more with it than you could do on your own.  Then he tells the king to take the arrow and strike three times.  Then Elisha became angry and said, “Why did you stop striking? God would have given you complete victory but now you only get a partial victory.”  Why didn’t Elisha tell him that before? 

Many people need permission to get started but almost no one needs permission to quit.  How many of us have confused and thought we failed when we actually quit.  We never pushed ourselves to do more.  How many of us are saving ourselves for the next life when this one is all we have?

I’ve been trying to get life insurance for seven years and could never qualify though doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me. I tried again and kept failing the tests and said, “I’ve never been good at tests.”  Around Christmas we went for a routine exam and the doctor said, “You have cancer.”  It felt so surreal because it was unexpected.  As we were processing that right before Christmas and found it was high-volume cancer I wondered if “The Last Arrow” would be my last book.  That night I read page 93 and read a sentence I’d written a year before and I didn’t remember, “I need to tell you before you hear it from anyone else that I’m dying.” And the next sentence was “So are you.”

Most of us act like our life will last forever. You don’t get this day back.  You need to treat each moment as sacred—as if it’s the last day of your life.

Three weeks later I had a 6.5 hour surgery to remove the cancer. I gave myself permission to feel whatever I would feel.  I never felt bitter because life has been good. I never felt angry. What surprised me most was I never felt afraid.  I started processing that and I remembered when I was new in my faith journey and met Jesus.  I drove my little yellow Pinto into the ghetto and my heart was pounding so I prayed and asked God to help me.  The one verse that came to me was “To live is Christ. To die is gain.” It was as if God was telling me, “If you’ll just die right now I’ll take you where only dead men can go.”  I had dealt with death so many years before so death doesn’t scare me now.

You need to step through your fears to your freedom.  I had a little personal funeral that day decades ago and died to myself.  Death is not supposed to be in front of you; death is supposed to be behind you.  All you have in front of you is life.

I want you to know something. Before you’re ever the CEO of the company you’re a human and if you don’t deal with fear in your life you’ll never life the life you were created to live.

So many of us only have a structure to lead when the world is at peace. Leadership is facing your fears and going through them. Dick DeVoss said,”Leaders don’t run from the fires; they run into them.” 

What you fear establishes the boundaries of your freedom.  It’s only in relationship to God that perfect love casts out fear. Only God can destroy the fear and set you free with His love.  Every other master is a cruel master. 

A lot of us don’t understand that our greatness is on the other side of our pain. We don’t often recognize the pain it takes to get to greatness.

After 6.5 hours of surgery I woke up. I told my wife I was going to get up and walk.  She called the nurse who said I couldn’t get up and walk.  I refused painkillers because the point was if I could stand in the pain I could face whatever pain was ahead of me. I got off that high hospital bed and put my feet on the ground. I felt such intense pain but I took 3 or 4 steps then walked down the hall and it hurt SO much. One of the things we need to learn more of is how to walk in our pain.

Three hours later I got up and walked again around the hospital then I took a shower and got dressed. My wife said, “Why are you doing this?”  I went home and my wife had a room all set up and when she left I sneaked out of the house and walked down the street with my catheter.  Three months after surgery I went to play basketball for two hours.

I started getting emails from around the world. I got an email from a friend who was an atheist and he said, “This may be the one thing that drives me to pray.”  My atheist friends ask, “Where is the proof of life after death?”  They haven’t known life before death.  I want those friends to know pain is not the limitation of our life, but you have to be willing to go through the pain to step into your greatness.

There are many of you going through pain right now. When you live a life of pain, when you connect with the God who created you, you learn that pain is not the end of the story. Even for Jesus His greatness was on the other side of His pain.  Jesus didn’t come to give us a way out of pain but a way through the pain.

Not only is your freedom and greatness on the other side of pain but your future is on the other side of your failures. God doesn’t define you by your worst moments; He defines you by your best moments. He sees in you a future you can’t even imagine.

One day I got an email that my former business partner took millions of dollars from our company. I had to tell my wife I lost everything and she said, “I thought I was your everything.” I didn’t know how to respond so I said, “I lost my other everything.” I couldn’t eat for 30 days.  We had to talk a million dollar loan on our house to complete projects that were left undone.  I wanted God to meet me in my faith but God met me in my faithfulness.

I stand before you as a person who has had failure after failure after failure. So many times I thought I would quit. We need to stop pretending this life is easy. Your faith doesn’t make life easier; your faith makes you stronger. 

Forty years ago I had a lifechanging encounter with the creator of the universe. I didn’t care about heaven. I didn’t care about hell. But I was terrified I would live and die and drown in my own mediocrity and never live the life I was created to live. 

There’s a life waiting for you. Your faith is the strength to step into your pain and your fear and take the arrow and strike and strike and strike and strike and when you die let your last arrow be in your hand.