Stupid Genius...

One of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons when i was a kid was the Bugs Bunny/Looney Toons Show. All those great characters, Bugs, Daffy, Elmer Fudd...classic! As i watch those Cartoons now, I realize how adult oriented they were with the political satire that was woven into the story lines and dialogue...anyway, I'm not writing to analyze the hidden political messages sent to generations through the brilliant script development of the Warner Bros. team.
However, i do want to write about one of the central characters of the later years of Looney Toondom. This is a character from whom we can learn many lessons about life, leadership and yes, even God.
This sage in a fur coat is none other than that anti-hero, Wile E. Coyote.
Wile E. was famous, or maybe infamous for chasing after the Road Runner and trying to make a meal out of that scrawny little bird. He used some far-out methods of trying to match the speed of the Road Runner in an attempt to snatch him...When that failed, Wile E. would create these intricate contraptions that were designed to capture the Road Runner, but when initiated, they always ended up catching, smashing, blowing Wile E. up, or dropping him off a cliff.
One of the things that I've learned from my observations of that self proclaimed "super-genius", Wile E., is that he was great with inspiration, but lousy with implementation.
The similarities between the coyote and me are frightening...so much so, that, in my ministry I've dreamed up these grand and glorious plans only to have them, like Wile E. Coyote, stall or even fail to launch because my inspiration never made it's way to the implementation phase.
My failure wasn't in that my ideas were necessarily bad, but in that I wasn't completely familiar with the intricacies of my personality or my gifts and consequently couldn't get the plan off the ground.
(it's actually pretty humbling to realize your personality can be summed up by a cartoon character...)
The upside is that, I now know I have to surround myself with people who are systems oriented. I need people who can take an idea and develop a strategy or a plan for executing the picture that I have in my head.
Because, I can come up with ideas and visions all day long, but if the implementation of those ideas is left solely up to me...it's going eventually blow up in my face.
The cool thing is that God has designed each of us to fill specific roles in life. When we discover how we are wired and learn how to function in our gifts and grow in our ability to mesh with others who are gifted in different ways, it is amazing to see what God does through us.
I hope you are learning some of these life lessons early on and that your journey of self-discovery begins with searching out God's design for you and not something you found in the "Acme Co." catalog.