What I Learned From an Escape Room

Last week a group of us from my community headed out for a fun-filled day that started with going to the “Countdown 2 Escape” here in Frisco. It is an Escape Room adventure where you go into one room and through a series of opening up boxes, drawers, and closets to find riddles, puzzles and clues to get through another door where even more challenges await us. It was my second time for this kind of adventure. My family took me on one for my birthday last year in Austin. It takes a ton of mental ability (Lord, have mercy!), lots of patience, thinking outside the box, teamwork and communication. There were about 25 of us who went and were divided into three different experiences. You have an hour to escape.

That experience made me think about this life we live and figuring out God’s ways and desires for us in this room called earth to eventually escape to our home sweet home in heaven. It takes a lot of patience, sticking to the rules, communication, teamwork and if we do our part, we’ll eat the good of the land here even before we go there. Isaiah 1:19 says “If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land.” I see my co-adventurers out there in social media land. I love watching your life adventures and most of all seeing you communicate your faith and even your times of difficulty and then see you weather the season and come “out of the room” with victories.

In that Escape Room, you can’t escape with duct tape over your mouth. You have to communicate to your group when you’ve found something. If you run into a stalemate, there is a Game Master watching you from another room, and if you ask, he or she will help you via a monitor. Doesn’t that sound like us? Especially when we’ve done all we can do on our own and we turn to God for help. He gives us an idea or a creative plan to get us out. We get to share our “how-to’s” with each other.

In our Escape Room, teamwork was huge in our success. All of us shared the same goal – to escape within the allotted sixty minutes. Thank God for all the various ways that teamwork plays such a significant role in our “life’s great escape” – our church, Bible Study, loving and faithful friends, family members, support groups and so many others who assist us in being devoted followers of Christ and help us escape on time. We need each other.

Every single thing in the Escape Room had a use – be it to distract us from the real thing or the key we found in a drawer that opens another thing. Every one of our life experiences has a meaningful use to it. I know that now as I look back on my life and realize that everything was making me stronger and wiser and more on purpose.

Consistency was key in our Escape Room. Some folks found a chair and gave up, but others of us refused to give up. We were persistent and determined. Our Game Master was always there to help get us out of tough spots. So does our Heavenly Game Master Who promises to never leave us or forsake us. He ensures that we complete our mission.

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” Philippians 1:6

Being a Self Leader Before Becoming a Leader of Others

Yesterday morning, in our devotions, the subject of self leadership came up. Self leadership is a discipline that causes us to first strive for being a good leader to ourselves, even before considering being a leader to someone else. Self leadership is introspection and awareness of how and what we think and how we react. Self leadership is having a developed sense of who we are, what we can do, where we are going coupled with the ability to influence our communication, emotions and behaviors on the way to getting there.

Here's an example: Someone tells a lie about us and we take in that negativity. As a self leader, we can think I'll get even with them. I'll give them my two cents worth. I'll expose the truth about them. Or, as a self leader, we can have a little visit with ourselves and offer suggestions for a better way to handle the situation. We can say things like I need to confront them with kindness to see what caused their actions. I could speak to myself about patience and tolerance and be quick to forgive them.

I can't begin to tell you how many times the enemy pushed me beyond my strength. In reality, I wanted to throw in the towel and retreat to a place of self-pity. I longed for someone to talk to about it, and I realized the one I needed to talk to was me. I recall the story of David in 1 Samuel 30 where this future king of Israel was learning to lead his troops. He wasn't by any means a highly skilled soldier at that time. Even though God poured His favor on David, one terrible day, he and his troops returned home from fighting another enemy and David and his men discovered their camp sites destroyed and their women and children had been dragged off. That would be defined as a bad day for any leader. His soldiers were tired, angry, and worried sick about their families. They were miffed at God. Some of his men spread word that they'd had it with David's leadership. They figured it's all David's fault, and they decided to stone him to death.

In this crisis David's leadership was severely tested. Eventually, he has to decide who needs leadership the most. His soldiers? The Officers? The enemy? The answer? None of the above.

In that critical moment David realized he had to lead himself first, before he could lead anyone else. Unless he had his mind and spirit together, he had nothing to offer his team. So in 1 Samuel 30:6, we read that "David strengthened himself in the Lord his God".

David understood the importance of self leadership. And although self leadership isn't talked about much, I assure you, it is the leadership that our world seems to be most lacking. How can we expect someone else to fix what's wrong in our world, our churches, our schools, our government-- if we can't fix ourselves? How effectively can any of us lead others if our spirits are sagging, our courage is wavering, and our emotions are always on the edge where we respond with knee jerk reactions instead of weighing what our next words will be, or should be?

Here's what I considered about leading myself. If a problem comes to my attention - - first, take a deep breath and have self control. Rather than having an immediate knee jerk reaction, ponder the ways to correct the problem.

Leadership is an art that I want to master. I desire to be able to remind myself who I am and how much my Heavenly Father loves me. I want to self lead myself to be patient, calm, focused and steady in the midst of my days. I want to self lead myself to be on time, attentive to others, be laser focused on them when we're speaking, and I want my first response to be kindness, gentleness, and love. Yes, I'll probably have to take myself into my mind's conference room to keep striving to get it right, but like David, keep strengthening myself in the Lord my God, until I get it right.