Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 12 – No. 0910 February 27, 2010
Thought for the week: "I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess." – Martin Luther (1483-1546)
"With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu, swine flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"
As the old saying goes, many a true word spoken in jest.
"I am responsible. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have—life itself."
Every now and then something happens that demonstrates the validity of old familiar sayings—some of which almost merit being called adages, like what the father of Russian communism, Vladimir Lenin, said: "A lie told often enough becomes truth." He probably borrowed that a few years earlier from William James, the father of modern psychology, who said, "There's nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it."
Consider a few excerpts from Tom Heymann's book, In An Average Lifetime. Mr. Heymann has analyzed several aspects of life, and has calculated what an individual does in a typical lifetime. The average American individual:
spends three years in business meetings
spends 13 years watching television
spends $89,281 on food
consumes 109,354 pounds of food
makes 1811 trips to McDonalds
spends $6,881 in vending machines
eats 35,138 cookies and 1,483 pounds of candy
catches 304 colds
is involved in six motor vehicle accidents
is hospitalized eight times (men) or twelve times (women)
spends 24 years sleeping
With all of this activity, or lack thereof, it is important to remember that life is brief at best. Are we doing the really important things with the time we have been given?
"Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away" (James 4:14).
Sam, a supervisor, was dumbfounded as he watched Bill diligently dig holes while Chuck, after waiting a short interval, filled them. When he demanded an explanation, Bill said, "We've been doing this job for 10 years. What's your problem?"
"Are you telling me that for 10 years you've been digging and filling empty holes?" Sam replied.
"Well, not exactly," Bill said. "Until a few months ago, another fellow put a bush in the hole before Chuck filled it. But he retired and was never replaced."
"Why didn't you tell somebody?" Sam sputtered.
"You're management," Bill answered. "We figured you knew."
While management is ultimately to blame when employees systematically waste time and money in thoughtless unproductive activity, we can't let Bill and Chuck off the hook. Sure, it's easy to hide behind the assumption that management stupidity has no bounds, but responsibility is a personal burden everyone carries.
Too many organizations are weighed down by practices equivalent to digging and filling holes because too many workers and managers engage in, or ignore inefficient and ineffective activities.
Whether unaccountability is fed by laziness, ignorance, or fear, employees who surrender to the negative momentum of the workplace not only demean the value of their work, but increase the likelihood that they'll someday be out of work.
We can avoid our responsibilities, but we can't avoid the consequences of avoiding our responsibilities. All of us are accountable for what we allow as well as what we do. If we want to make our lives more meaningful, we should be sure our work is meaningful.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"'So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.' His master replied, .'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.'"1
"Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher, tells about the Roman aqueduct at Segovia, in his native Spain. It was built in AD109. For eighteen hundred years, it carried cool water from the mountains to the hot and thirsty city. Nearly sixty generations of men drank from its flow.
"Then came another generation, a recent one, who said, 'This aqueduct is so great a marvel that it ought to be preserved for our children, as a museum piece. We shall relieve it of its centuries-long labor.' They did; they laid modern iron pipes. They gave the ancient bricks and mortar a reverent rest. And the aqueduct began to fall apart. The sun beating on the dry mortar caused it to crumble. The bricks and stone sagged and threatened to fall. What ages of service could not destroy idleness disintegrated."2
God has given everyone at least one talent. While some people may have ten talents and others only one, we are all responsible for what we do with what we have been given. The important thing is to develop whatever talent/s we have and to use them wisely, and to invest them in things of eternal value, for we will reap what we sow.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you for the talent/s you have given to me. Please help me to know what my best talent/s is/are, to get the training I need to develop it/them, and find a place where I can use it/them to the best of my ability in the work of your Kingdom here on earth. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."
1. Matthew 25:25-26, 28-29 (NIV).
2. Resource, Sept. Oct., 1992, p. 4.
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