What if the 3 Things We Avoid Most...
... Are a (Sacred) Gift?
“And then God showed up!” she said.
I was in the middle of leading a group of business leaders in an improv exercise where I invited them to collectively practice telling a story using “Yes, and…,” the fundamental rule of improv comedy (and a helpful introduction to leadership and storytelling insights).
Thus far, their story had involved stampeding elephants, wifi outages, and even a little acoustic music. One truly never knows where an improv story will go.
However, never in the many times that I have done this exercise have I ever had someone say, “Then God showed up.”
Until this time.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it took an extra couple moments for the next person to chime and add a “Yes, and…” to the story because - in a professional gathering of business leaders - where you do go with that?
—
And yet, a recent insight from famed therapist Phil Stutz invited me to wonder if that woman had not said the most relevant thing anyone could have said in an improv story filled with mishaps and messes.
Stutz believes there are three absolute, non-avoidables in life (try as we may to avoid them, and boy do we ever):
Pain.
Uncertainty.
The Need for Constant Work.
“The three domains in aggregate,” Stutz says, “make up the face of God…. (for) God does not enter your life in a way that’s comfortable. God enters it in the form of these challenges.”
Most of us spend a good bit of time setting aside, avoiding, or trying to go around anything that smacks of much pain, uncertainty, or hard work.
Can we just not deal with this?
Can we just have clear, full-proof plan?
Can we just purchase our rocket ship to success?
Can we not have to focus and show up so regularly?
But what if… what if the very things we seek to avoid above all else (pain, uncertainty, and the need to put in the work) are, in fact, what it looks like when God shows up?
What?!
Wild, I know.
But given how many leaders are navigating pain, uncertainty, and work on every possible front, I can’t help but wonder if that woman’s riff on the story - “And then God showed up!” - was not the most true thing anyone could have said.
By Stutz’s definition, God is abundantly present for those leaders!
Same for you?
If so, then the question inevitably becomes: “Ok, what does one do when the Trinity of Pain, Uncertainty, and the Need to Work are showing up big time? Where do you go with that?”
Improv.
Embrace it.
Name it.
(“Yes…I see you clearly.”)
Face it head on.
(Avoidance is its own all-consuming exhaustion)
Walk toward it.
(“…And here I come.”)
Walk THROUGH it.
(Image from True and False Magic by Phil Stutz)
Because THROUGH it is where we gain a profound sense of possibility.
THROUGH it we discover the kind of gifts for which there is no ROI metric because ROI does not know what to do with the likes of Infinite. Peace. Power. Freedom.
—
At the same time, let’s be honest… going through it is terrifying.
Which means…
…if you find yourself preparing to improv your way through one or all parts of the Unavoidable Trinity, my advice is this:
Improv with another.
Improv in community.
Sure, others cannot do our work for us.
But goodness, their presence in the valley of the shadow is, I believe, another remarkable way God shows up.
