Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 11 – No. 1209 March 21, 2009
Thought for the week: "Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." – Martin Luther King Jr.
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." – Dwight Eisenhower
"Think of the number of trees and blades of grass and flowers, the extravagant wealth of beauty no one ever sees! Think of the sunrises and sunsets we never look at! God is lavish in every degree." – Oswald Chambers
"The person who would like to make his dreams come true MUST STAY AWAKE." – Richard Wheeler
"I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves." – Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt
"Be careful of the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful of the friends you choose for you will become like them." – W. Clement Stone
"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." – Albert Einstein
A Jewish rabbi and a Catholic priest met at the town's annual 4th of July picnic. Old friends, they began their usual banter. "This baked ham is really delicious," the priest teased the rabbi. "You really ought to try it. I know it's against your religion, but I can't understand why such a wonderful food should be forbidden! You don't know what you're missing. You just haven't lived until you've tried Mrs. Hall's prized Virginia Baked Ham. Tell me, Rabbi, when are you going to break down and try it?" The rabbi looked at the priest with a big grin, and said, "At your wedding."
Every day do something you don't want to do. Pick up someone else's trash. Surrender your parking place. Call the long-winded relative. Carry the cooler. It doesn't have to be a big thing. Helen Keller once told the Tennessee legislature that when she was young, she had longed to do great things and could not, so she decided to do small things in a great way. Don't be too big to do something small.
Source: Faith for Today by Ray Lammie. To subscribe send a blank email to RIL3@aol.com.
When the books of a certain Scottish doctor were examined after his death, it was found that a number of accounts were crossed through with a note: "Forgiven—too poor to pay." But the physician's wife later decided that these accounts must be paid in full and she proceeded to sue for money. When the case came to court, the judge asked but one question: Is this your husband's handwriting? When she replied that it was, he responded: "There is no court in the land that can obtain a debt once the word forgiven has been written."
Nathaniel Hawthorne came home heartbroken. He'd just been fired from his job in the custom house. His wife, rather than responding with anxiety, surprised him with joy. "Now you can write your book!"
He wasn't so positive. "And what shall we live on while I'm writing it?"
To his amazement she opened a drawer and revealed a wad of money she'd saved out of her housekeeping budget. "I always knew you were a man of genius," she told him. "I always knew you'd write a masterpiece."
She believed in her husband. Because she did, he wrote. Because he wrote, every library in America has a copy of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
What we do to make a living plays such a critical role in our lives that it's worthwhile to ask ourselves now and again whether we're in the right job.
There are four dimensions of job satisfaction: what you do, who you work for, who you work with, and what you're paid. If there's a big deficiency in any one of these, you should consider changing your job by fixing what's broke or finding another one.
Remember, you do have a choice. Sure, you need a job, but it's a trap to believe you need the job you have. Like it or not, you could lose your job at any time for a whole lot of reasons. And if you do, you'll get a new job—often a better one.
To have a good life, you need a good job, one where you can feel a sense of achievement in what you do, where you can be proud of whom you work for, and where you like and respect the people you work with.
As Disraeli said, "Life is too short to be little." Don't belittle your life by demeaning work.
No job is inherently demeaning. Physical labor can be as rewarding and meaningful as management. Every job can be performed in a manner that is significant and worthwhile. What is demeaning is a job where you are pressured to compromise your values or where you work for or with people or a company you aren't proud to associate with—a boss who's dishonest, disrespectful, irresponsible, or unfair, or coworkers who don't care about quality and excellence.
John Ruskin said, "The highest reward for your toil is not what you get for it, but what you become by it." Your job should make you a better, as well as a happier, person.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers."1
Pastor Verne Arens writes how "he once knew someone who was a leader in the congregation. At one time or another he had filled most (if not all) of the important leadership positions in that church. More than that, however, oftentimes he was the one who would volunteer for those tough, dirty jobs that no one else wanted: washing dishes after a potluck supper, helping to teach the confirmation class, stacking shelves at the food bank.
"This is the kind of person you would like to clone and with whom you'd like to fill the congregation,right? Wrong! This person was a delight to have around until things didn't go his way, and then he was a nightmare: disruptive, divisive, even destructive. He didn't understand the meaning of community and was not a team player. And when (not for the first time) he and his wife climbed into their huff-mobile and drove away after some disagreement, the congregation finally had the good sense not to beg them to come back. Finally that congregation had learned to distinguish between the voice of a shepherd and the voice of a stranger."2
Another description of this type of person is control freak. Sometimes, after a reasonable number of rebukes, the most loving thing we can do is to ask them to leave. As long as we keep giving in to them, we become a part of their sickness (terrible insecurity). It's interesting to note that when they threw Jonah overboard, there was a great calm!
Suggested prayer, "Dear God, please grant that I will never be a control freak and thereby play the role of God in other peoples' lives. If I ever am, please open my eyes to what I am doing and help me to change my ways. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name, amen."
1. John 10:27, 5 (NKJV).
2. "(Good) Help Wanted," by Rev. Verne Arens
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Books:
Books by Dick Innes, Editor of Weekend Encounter You Can't Fly With a Broken Wing How to Mend a Broken Heart I Hate Witnessing—A Handbook for Effective Christian
Communications
Books by Bestseller and Popular Authors: The Miracle of Kindness His Needs, Her Needs by Willard F. Harley, Jr.
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Loving & Understanding People by Dick Innes
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