![]() Now, in their final years, Sarai’s and Abram’s task was to tend the memories and not give way to bitterness. It’s easier to bear the burden of a painful reality when you can let go of hope that always fails to deliver. ![]() Past the age of childbearing, Sarai could finally let go of hope-the kind of hope that came around month after month only to be dashed again and again. Now at last there was a small measure of relief. Unlike our culture’s increasing embrace of those who choose to remain single, or couples who freely decide not to bear children, Abram’s and Sarai’s world abhorred a status labeled “barren.” For the ancients, the inability to conceive and bear children went far beyond disappointed yearnings to snuggle a newborn or take pride in their progeny such was cause for shame, especially for the woman.įor decades this couple deemed deficient had lived with the whispers of pity overheard wherever they wandered. Beyond the inevitable disappointments experienced by us all, Abram and Sarai bore a special grief, which is hard for us moderns to fathom. ![]() Goals and aspirations they may have held as youth were all behind them. The first tells the story of an elderly couple, Abram and Sarai, who had lived with their well-worn names to old age. Two short scriptures beckon for our attention as we find ourselves amidst this season called Lent. While technical change may involve swapping some outdated rules of the game, adaptive transformation means playing a whole new game. It’s like building the plane while it’s already in the air and flying at breakneck speed toward an unknown destination. The latter involves going where no one has gone-like NASA in the 1960’s, frantically trying to catch up with a president who declared boldly (and rather naively), “We’re going to the moon!” Those courageous few who embrace the calling to lead such second-order change assume high personal risks. The former involves the application of well-tested tricks of any trade. In their widely-acclaimed book, Leadership on the Line (Harvard Business School Press, 2002), these Harvard scholars draw the distinction between technical management and adaptive leadership.
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