I love listening to Rick Warren, the founder and lead pastor of Saddleback Church in Orange County, CA. His podcast, Daily Hope, is an almost daily source of inspiration. I greatly appreciate how he takes very difficult Biblical topics and communicates them to people requiring additional explanation…people like me!
A series I recently listened to concluded with Pastor Rick asking if you are a thermometer or a thermostat. His question caused me to take pause and reflect on a seemingly simple question. Am I the type of man who measures and registers what others are doing, displaying through my actions their thoughts, beliefs, and the cultures they are creating (good and bad)? Are my interactions with my surroundings characterized as passive and reactionary, with no real ability to control my environment? While I acknowledge the importance of thermometers to inform where we are and provide a status, I do not envy their role.
A thermostat on the other hand, that is a tool I want to replicate! To set the culture and tone around me is truly desirable. I want to own the responsibility of creating my environment. Whether the heat needs to be turned up or down is a decision I want to influence, not a decision I want to be subject and reactionary to.
I realize that sometimes I am a thermometer, and sometimes I am the thermostat. There is a time and place for both. But I am intentional in choosing which tool best suits my current situation, never forgetting that the choice rests with me.
There is also a key difference between those two tools and us. While the thermometer and thermostat cannot choose where they are placed, you and I can. I choose to be surround by other “thermostats,” men who are intentional leaders. My thermostat buddies prioritize people – people like their spouses, kids, family, friends. They spend time creating the culture and environment they want to thrive in, and as a result, make those around them better! The impact of their actions reverberate throughout their lives, touching every aspect of who they are and whom they want to become.
So, are you a thermometer or a thermostat? If you don’t like the answer, do something about it!
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Written by David Gutierrez
