Easter in a Nutshell

Dear Jesus,
Thank You!

Marquee of New Hope Church, Oklahoma City

Building to Last

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.

Peter F. Drucker

Action

If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.

Ecclesiastes 11:4 NLT

Before I Answer that Question...

Source: What the Duck

Leadership: Growth

Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

Jack Welch

Perspective on National Debt

Our debt is currently about 11 trillion dollars ($11,000,000,000,000). To put that into perspective, if you had started a business at Christ's birth - in the year 0 - and lost a million dollars a day, you could keep that up for another 700 years to equal 1 trillion in debt. Remember, we're 11 trillion dollars in debt.

Source: Rick Warren mentioned this in a web video at Purpose Driven Connection.

Sag' es mit der Rose

Sag' es mit der Rose means, "say it with the Rose" and illustrates the concept of saying things kindly by not being too direct and getting the point across subtly. My daughter has made progess on this matter, I'm sure, but there is still room for growth...

I was at church after the service, having picked the girls up from children's church, and Ly still had some work to take care of. So I stayed in the gym with the girls, and since the basketballs were out, I took a few shots. I did miss a couple, which prompted La to say,

"Why don't we go home, because - it's not working."

The gift of encouragement, no doubt.

Aha!

[You need to read the preceding post first for this to make sense.]

She noticed that she had forgotten the original message. Behold, it was all in response to my e-mail this morning, which ended in,

I noticed that this change must have already occurred, so no further action is needed.

Work Conversation

I know you would all love to know what I do at work. Here's to satisfy your curiosity: I read e-mails. Revealing messages like this one:

Fwd: Re: Wrong wording

The change has been made.

Thanks,

[Person's Name]


>>> Can you fix this?
>>> [Original Requestor's Name]

I'm glad they copied me in, so I'm in the know.

Christlikeness

Lord, help me to understand, rather than to be understood.
To love, rather than to be loved.

Mother Theresa

Ouch.

Perspective on Failure

Vincent Van Gogh failed as an art dealer, flunked his entrance exam to theology school, and was fired by the church after an ill-fated attempt at missionary work. In fact, during his life, he seldom experienced anything other than failure as an artist. Although a single painting by Van Gogh would fetch in excess of $100 million today, in his lifetime Van Gogh sold only one painting, four months prior to his death.

Before developing his theory of relativity, Albert Einstein encountered academic failure. One headmaster expelled Einstein from school and another teacher predicted that he would never amount to anything. Einstein even failed his entrance exam into college.

Prior to dazzling the world with his athletic skill, Michael Jordan was cut from his sophomore basketball team. Even though he captured six championships, during his professional career, Jordan missed over 12,000 shots, lost nearly 400 games, and failed to make more than 25 would-be game-winning baskets.

Source: Failing Forward

So, if you feel like you've failed at something, remember: it's not how often you fall, but whether you get back up (that's a quote from someone, too, I don't remember who).

Dreams

God inspired dreams are not placed in your heart as a taunt. If your dream is truly God-given, you can reach it.

Steve Moore, The Dream Cycle