“Half time adjustments” made by football and basketball coaches represent an understanding of what the other team has been doing well or taken advantage of and what your team has been failing to take advantage or of failed to defend. The adjustment isn’t a new game plan but a respond to “how we are doing so far.” Sometimes that looks like a radical reset, and may be more of a reset if there is an injury or foul trouble puts a key player on the bench or out of the game. That is, personnel changes or maturity demands a half-time or in-game adjustment.
Leaders are going to see that the last seven years have set them up for the next seven years, but the present moment may indicate that the game plan requires a radical reset. Look closely at key players to see if they are performing as expected or if some have matured and outperformed while some others have gotten into foul trouble or injuries that require adjustments to the roles they play.
Leaders often fail to see themselves in this light. Leaders as players and leaders as coaches, to mix up the metaphor a bit. Hopefully, the leader has grown up. If the leader’s leadership has matured, it means that the leaders have matured. And, leaders do not mature at the same or predictable rate. You should have prepared them for adjustments so they are prepared to make changes in their roles. In the kingdom, leaders tend toward specialization as they mature so they can invest their best in their highest.
Be particularly focused upon the outcome God wants at the point of history marked by 2020, not by the point of history marked as 2015 or 2016. While these marks in the timetable may have measurable goals or identifiable arrivals and locations in terms of what God wants, the whole your planning should be about what God wants by 2020.
Coaches certainly consider the present season but they also consider where individual players will be their senior years or in the best years of their contracts or careers. Sometimes a key player must take the sideline to allow for a full recovery from injury – the kingdom is woefully inept in this aspect – or a player needs a season to develop a whole new role for his play by building muscle or losing weight or developing different skills. In this sense, consider where they should be in 2020 as well the next game and the present season.
In seven years, you will have seven summers, springs, autumns, and winters. You will have seven years in which the cycles of life repeat, and these can be opportunities for measuring progress and making seasonal adjustments. Adjustments are necessary when people are maturing, so if you aren’t making adjustments you may not be seeing the maturity that God expects in these seven years of accelerating growth and maturity.
