Chapter 10 - Impact . . . The Shalom Effect
An Early Morning Conversation with God
It is my practice to rise early and listen to God. I record a summary of what I understand in those moments. This is the summary of our conversation on February 1, 2017, as I neared completion of this book.
"You have asked for important things, and I have heard your request. Remember that the timing of my response is mine, not yours. I am answering according to my plan, which involves many aspects. I know that you want instant. You know that I want complete. Complete includes time as an important ingredient. So, it is good to wait quietly for the salvation that I bring. Keep watching with patient confidence that I am at work and that I cause everything to work together for the good of those who love me and follow me. It is My Shalom."
Isaiah 26:3
You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
Lamentations 3:25-27
The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord. And it is good for people to submit at an early age to the yoke of his discipline.
Romans 8:28
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
The Shalom Effect is a man's experience of the full work of God in and around him. There is no earning it. There is no leveraging it. There is no strategy to gain it. It is the favor of God applied as He intends in the context where He is honored.
Shalom is About a Man's Wake
I was doing some early morning photography on the west shore of Mobile Bay not long ago. My position allowed me a good long shot of a container ship leaving port, slowly emerging from behind a distant shoreline a mile or more away, headed south through the bay and out into the Gulf. She was alone on the water. Just the ship and me. No other movement. Dead calm.
Outbound ships capture my imagination. Where is she headed? What foreign port will become her next anchorage? What cargo does she carry? I love thinking about possibilities and what might be if all the pieces fit just right.
She emerged. I got the shot. Deed done. Another colorful morning on Mobile Bay in the gallery.
I moved down the shoreline and watched as she disappeared over the horizon, soon to pass through the mouth of the bay under the old guns of Forts Morgan and Gaines and out to sea.
About forty minutes later, my container ship long gone, I heard the sound of lapping water at my feet. Looking up and out on the bay, small but distinct waves were rolling to shore. Puzzled, I looked for something that had pushed the water and realized it was the wake of my ship now miles away. One last touch. She had reached out to say good morning long after her passing.
In technical terms, the ship’s wake was the complex hydrodynamic flow field generated as she moved through water, resulting from the displacement, acceleration, and energy transfer imposed on the surrounding water by her hull shape, propulsion, and weight. Less technically, the small waves of my ship's wake were letting me know she had been there.
The ship influenced me on several levels that morning. Visually, it was the subject of a nice photograph. Cognitively, my imagination was piqued regarding her destination. Physically, her wake lapped at my feet. And, here's an interesting part, all that has stayed with me ever since, allowing me to tell you the story, and no one on the ship knew anything about it.
A man's movement through life does the same thing. The way he governs or stewards the resources available to him -- his displacement, acceleration, and energy transfer through the course of his life -- is his influence. You are leaving tracks, evidence of your having been. The Influencer is one of the major roles a man will play.
Like each of your roles, Influencer has its own set of responsibilities. But it's tricky. Your wake of influence is being experienced by people. Some you know, some you intend to influence. Others you will never know. Because of that touch beyond yourself, you are responsible, not for their opinion of your wake, but for the quality of the wake itself.
Unfair accountability? No, real life under the governing authority of the Holy Spirit to ensure the best possible outcome -- the wholeness, harmony, and flourishing possible when living from position and promise -- Shalom.
Shalom is About Ever-Increasing Effectiveness
Since our feet are already wet, let's use another ship to make a point. The newest aircraft carrier in active service with the United States Navy is USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78). It is the lead ship of a new generation of nuclear-powered supercarriers commissioned in July 2017. The cost of construction was $13 billion.
As of this writing, the new Commanding Officer (CO) of the USS Gerald R. Ford is Captain David Skarosi.
To give you some idea of the complexity of Captain Skarosi's new assignment, he governs a total of 4,600 officers and enlisted personnel, air wing personnel, and additional support staff.
The purpose to be fulfilled by Captain Skarosi and crew is to place overwhelming, flexible, and sustained American combat power anywhere on earth while deterring conflict through visible strength and readiness -- all with a tab of about $6 million per day of operation. That's a lot of responsibility.
The reason Captain Skarosi can sleep at night is the effectiveness of his good ship and crew.
The heart of organizational effectiveness is accurate information perfectly communicated and precisely executed on time. Captain Skarosi knows the stakes and will test the integrity of his command system every day. He must know that his intent will be accurately communicated and translated into prescribed functions throughout the ship, that the officers and crew will respond obediently to his command, and that every individual on the ship knows his or her job. He leads an exquisitely coordinated dance of precision and heart, resulting in ever-increasing effectiveness.
On the bridge of the Ford is a raised chair. It is reserved only for the Captain of the ship. The Captain’s chair is not just furniture; it represents the authority and responsibility of command. Even when empty, it signifies that the Captain remains responsible for the ship at all times. No pretender may use it.
In the heart of a man is a place designed by and reserved for the Holy Spirit of God. It represents God's authority over that man's mind, will, and spirit. Sadly -- sometimes tragically -- a pretender gains access, and chaos evolves in and around that man. Sometimes the chaos extends for generations.
Take a lesson from the bridge of the USS Ford. The stakes are incredibly high. Test the integrity of God's command system in your life every day. Just as that massive ship is an effective free-ranging agent of the United States of America, so a man may experience effectiveness in life as an agent of God where he steps.
He can be properly positioned with God,
commissioned, empowered, and equipped with His promise,
obedient to the direction of the Holy Spirit in the conduct of His assignments,
a confident and effective agent of God in Christ.
He can master Spirit-Directed Governance in the roles he plays
and experience the wonder of such a life.
His wake can be wide, and the man's
influence can be noted by his children and friends
. . . IF . . .
He surrenders to God's exquisitely coordinated dance of precision and heart.
A Man's Force Multiplier - A Praying Corps
The British pilots knew there was a serious problem that could get them killed.
Their new 1941 American P-51 Mustangs were slick airplanes, but they experienced a sharp power drop above 15,000 feet. The problem was that the fight was happening at 30,000 feet, and contending with an effective adversary with an underpowered aircraft was tantamount to suicide.
The Mustangs simply could not compete with the Messerschmitt Bf109 and Focke-Wulf Fw190 fighters, which were designed for European combat altitudes.
An internal combustion engine needs air -- lots of it. As altitude increases, air thins. The stock Allison engine in the Mustangs simply could not breathe at higher altitudes, compromising speed and maneuverability. The pilots desperately needed a solution.
Enter the Merlin, named for the mysterious magician of Camelot, a proven British Rolls-Royce engine with a two-stage, two-speed supercharger. When mated with the P-51's excellent airframe, a star was born!
A supercharger increases an engine’s power by forcing more air into the cylinders than atmospheric pressure alone would allow. More air means more oxygen, allowing more fuel to be burned per cycle -- producing more power.
The supercharged Merlin engine is what military strategists call a force multiplier -- that which dramatically increases the effectiveness, impact, or reach of a person, group, or resource beyond what its size alone would suggest. amplifying output, power, or results without a proportional increase in effort or resources.
Simply put, the same airframe with the same size engine, plus the supercharger, transformed the P-51 into the most effective fighter of its era and an icon of propeller-driven flight.
Communal prayer as a force multiplier.
So far, we have examined a man properly positioned with God as if he were alone. He is not. The poet-theologian John Donne summarized it with words that found their way into the soul of many songs, “No man is an island, entire of itself…”
We are God-designed to need one another, interconnected, sharing the victories and challenges in community rather than as private events. So, it is necessary to expand the model of one man properly positioned with God to a man among many who are so positioned, a community of like-minded and spirited people praying for the man and for one another -- a praying corps.
Those prayers are the supercharged multiplier of a man's interconnected life, amplifying output, power, or results without a proportional increase in effort or resources -- like the transformative impact of a Merlin engine in the Mustang airframe. But you now know there is no magic involved. It is the power of God's intent and design.
Why is communal collective prayer important to God?
The simple answer is: because He wants it to be so. The evidence of Scripture is that God favors the efforts of His creation to find Him.
Communal prayer fosters unified moral and spiritual alignment among a group of people, allowing God’s presence and authority to be expressed through a gathered body. He chooses to respond to prayer that reflects shared discernment rather than isolated desire. Agreement among the praying group signals their unity in discovering God and His plan.
We also know that prayer is the conduit to God's presence. When experienced by a larger group of people united in their quest, God acts decisively. His people are unified before Him, and their unity reveals His nature. As disunity obscures His purpose, unity amplifies it.
He sovereignly chooses prayer as an instrument of His will, thus communal prayer is one of the means by which God brings about what He already intends.
The Apostle Paul explained this spiritual phenomenon in his letter to Christians in Rome.
"And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." Romans 8:26-28
No man is alone in this journey. God is the power and effectiveness for the assigned task. He surrounds a man with others on similar assignments with similar challenges. He is the power and effectiveness for each of their assignments as well. Thus, it becomes important to lean fully into the encouragement that His Spirit will produce among them all.
His promise is clear.
"For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them." Matthew 18:20
"For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another." Romans 12:4-5
A Man Among Men
So we present the Shalom Effect in a model of a man among men seeking God, a committed prayer force, communal in nature, surrendered of heart, obediently tuned to the Spirit's direction, and unified in purpose. It is a prayer corps demonstrating the wisdom of Ecclesiastes.
"A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken." Ecclesiastes 4:12
Before you move on, stop and ask the Lord to bring to your mind three men who know the importance of praying for others. I believe their faces and names will occur to you almost immediately. Write down the names. They are His gift to you. Commit to contact each within the next 24 hours and ask each if they would agree to pray for you each day for six weeks.
I find it helpful to establish a group text link to allow frequent updates of needs and answers. Try it for six weeks and note what happens. I think you will experience the spiritual version of a supercharger.
Do not neglect the impact of a committed prayer force -- the force multiplier by the grace of God.
Shalom Requires a Contrast and a Choice
I want to take you through a clear, values-level contrast between biblical Shalom and popular cultural success. But, before we go there, I want you to be aware that the distinctions will force you to make a difficult personal choice. You will be drawn to one as you desire the other. Which has the stronger pull and prevails in your life is a choice you make and will define you for a long time to come.
The choice is that dramatic and that important.
Shalom is a spiritual concept describing the perfection of God's prescribed order among people. It attaches value to wholeness, completeness, a man's right alignment with God, self, others, and all of creation.
Cultural Success is a temporal concept that describes a man's preferred order among his peers. It attaches value to achievement as measured by visible outcomes.
Shalom, the source is God's presence, His order, and His intent. It is independent of circumstance, and its nature is integrative -- nothing essential is missing or fractured. Shalom is experienced by a man as a gracious act of God for His purpose in a place and time.
Cultural Success, the source of cultural success is a man's effort applied within a selected social system of markets, status hierarchies, and performance metrics. Its nature will be fragmented, allowing one area to flourish at the expense of others.
Shalom is being rightly positioned before God. Obedience in position precedes and directs outcome and identity in Christ precedes and dictates activity. Rest contributes to the outcome.
Cultural Success quietly but surely requires being ahead of others. Prescribed outcome precedes justification. Activity creates identity. Rest is postponed until achievement.
Shalom is long-term, covenantal, and generational. It is comfortable with slow growth and values faithfulness-in-position over immediacy.
Cultural Success is short-term, transactional, and quarterly. It values urgency and acceleration and rewards speed, novelty, and visibility.
Shalom costs pride and control. It requires surrender. The cost of Shalom will seem extreme and is often not fully understood.
Cultural Success will often carry a high cost to the family. It will threaten integrity and may erode the character of interior life. It is highly visible and applauded.
Shalom is stable under pressure. It persists in loss, obscurity, or suffering. It deepens under testing and is anchored beyond circumstance.
Cultural Success is fragile under the pressure of loss or failure. Anxiety increases with threat. It depends on maintenance and favorable comparisons.
Shalom, a man can lose everything and remain whole. Peace spans change. Authority flows from a man's positional alignment with God in Christ.
Cultural Success, a man can gain his targeted prize and remain fractured. Peace is conditional and reversible. Authority flows from a titled position and perception.
Shalom asks: "Are you rightly aligned?" A man's alignment must be It must be sought and inhabited. It is long and weighty.
Cultural Success asks: "How much have you accumulated?" A man seeking accumulation can be admired from a distance, and success is loud and fleeting
Now . . . The Choice
• Wholeness - Shalom describes something that is complete, sound, or intact. A stone without cracks is shalom. A wall without gaps is shalom. A man's life without fragmentation is shalom. Nothing lacking. Everything in its proper place. It is perfection.
• Harmony – Shalom is the synchronous experience of things that fit together well. It describes a pleasing, consistent, and peaceful whole in which different aspects of community and life are aligned with core values, allowing for growth without constant struggle. It is a flowing, interconnected state of being.
• Flourishing – Sholom is to thrive, grow, or develop in a vigorous, healthy, or successful way. Biblical shalom includes the ideas of holistic well-being, security, safety, health, rest, justice…all of life flourishing as God intended.
"No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” Luke 16:13, the words of Jesus the Christ.
I stand by the radical statement that opened this book.
The most powerful thing on earth is a man properly positioned with God.
He is a man called by God, assigned to a specific tasks under the authority of the Holy Spirit;
He is humbly surrendered in the presence of God;
He seeks the Lord intently concerning each next step;
He willingly confesses and repents of any sin the Spirit brings to light;
He remains obediently tuned to the Spirit’s direction as the assignment proceeds;
Thus positioned, He will interpret accurately what he hears from the Spirit;
He will respond wisely in word and action, accurately representing the culture of Jesus;
He will experience an outcome in accordance with and fulfilling God’s intent.
He will have experienced the Shalom effect;
And
It will be good.
In that moment, as long as it may last, he is the most powerful thing on earth.
The stakes are high. The choice is yours. Choose well.
Mark Foley, Ph.D.
effectivesolutions.today