November 30, 2025 Devo

One of my favorite books on leadership is Max DePree’s book called “Leadership Is an Art.” He makes a statement that I think every single person needs to learn. He says, “The number one responsibility of leadership is to define reality.” In other words, you can’t really lead an organization forward until you’ve done an honest assessment of where that organization is. But that statement is not just true about leading organizations. It’s true when we’re talking about leading OURSELVES! That’s why I love this verse today. The psalmist is saying, “Lord, help me define reality ABOUT ME!” Wow. Is that a scary prayer or what?
Come on. Let’s get honest for a minute. What lies have you been telling yourself? Have you been lying to yourself about that “habit” that’s really an addiction? You keep telling yourself that it’s not that bad. But it IS that bad. You keep telling yourself you have it under control. But the truth is, it has YOU under its control. You’ve been telling yourself that you’re going to stop. But you never have. You’ve only paused a few times. But then you start back up again. Maybe it’s time you got honest with yourself. It’s hard to break chains that you don’t admit are there.
Or maybe you’ve been lying to yourself about how badly you’ve been hurt by someone. You keep telling yourself and others that it’s not really a big deal. But your heart is telling you differently. On the outside, you laughed it off or shrugged it off as if it didn’t bother you all that much. But inside that wound remains. So you find yourself withdrawing, ducking, and avoiding. But the hurt is not going to go away until you get honest about how it feels and find some healing and closure.
We lie to ourselves about our anger issues, our food issues, our control issues, and our trust issues. We lie to ourselves about so many things. Then we wonder why we can’t seem to get our lives going where we want them to go. But God can’t take us where we need to go until we get honest about where we are! We have to define reality.
So let’s get honest today. Let’s stop lying to God and ourselves about things in our lives that really need to change. Let’s open our lives completely to God’s Spirit and allow God’s Word to speak to us clearly and boldly about US. Defining reality may make me look a little less “together” than I’d like to admit. But it’s the first step today toward being a better me tomorrow. That’s God’s Word for you today.