Monthly Archives: November 2012

Geese: Lessons in Teamwork

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We all have different strengths and capabilities.

 

We can learn from geese on how these can be harnessed through teamwork, to create strong organizations.

 

 

1. As geese flap their wings, they create an uplift for the bird following. By flying together in a V formation, the flock’s flying range is 71% greater than that of any bird flying alone.

When we share a common direction and sense of community, we can get where we are going more quickly and easily because we are traveling on the energy of another.

2. When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to fly alone, and quickly gets back into form to take advantage of the lifting power of the birds in front.
-When we have as much sense as geese, we will stay in formation with those who are headed where we want to go; we will be willing to accept their help as well as give ours to others.

3. The geese in formation honk to encourage those up front to keep up their speed. When the lead goose gets tired it rotates back into formation and another goose flies out the point position.
When we take turns doing the hard tasks, when we encourage others, we become stronger through shared leadership.

4. When a goose gets sick or wounded, 2 geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. They stay with it until it is able to fly again or dies. They then launch out on their own to find another formation or to catch up with the flock.
When we have learned the value of teamwork, we too will stand by each other in challenging times. Let us fly in formation and remember to drop back to help those who read it.

With teamwork synergy, the total sum is greater than the individual parts.

No one can whistle a symphony.  It takes a whole orchestra to play it.  ~H.E. Luccock 

 

“There is no limit to what can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit”

 

THE HIGH CALLING OF GOD

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THE HIGH CALLING OF GOD

1. If God has called you to be really like Jesus in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility. He will put on you such demands of obedience that He will not allow you to follow other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.

2. Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it. If you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

 

3. Others can brag about themselves, their work, their success, or their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing. If you begin it, He will lead you into such deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

 

 

4. Others will be allowed to succeed in making great sums of money or having a legacy left to them or in having luxuries. But God may supply you daily because He wants you to have something far better than gold and that is a helpless dependence on Him, that He may have the privilege of providing your needs day by day out of the unseen treasury.

5. The Lord may let others be honored and put forward but keep you hidden away in obscurity because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade.

6. God will let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing. Then to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work which you have done, and this will make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.

7. The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch on you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over.

 

8. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do as He pleases with His own. He will not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you. God will take you at your word; and if you absolutely will yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things that you cannot do or say. Settle it forever, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit. Also that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue or chaining your hand or closing your eyes, in ways that others are not dealt with.

 

9. Now when you are so possessed with the loving God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven.

 

10. P.S.The more we love God the more we will obey. The more we obey the more we will be aware of the reality of Christ in our lives. The more we are aware of Christ in our lives, the more victory we will experience. The more victory we experience, the less difficult the choices are and the less conflict we have within ourselves. ~ Norma Becker

 

 

Living According to False Beliefs

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We all live according to false beliefs. Bringing such beliefs to light is an important step in our reconditioning process. A few random false beliefs:

False Belief:Because my father abandoned me when I was a child, I must go through life abandoning the people close to me ” or “Because my mother withheld intimacy from me when I was small, I cannot offer intimacy for the rest of my life.”

Life Wisdom:“I have seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul”. Mahatma Gandhi

Bible“Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself”. Ezekiel 18:19-20

False Belief: If I make a mistake, I will die.”

Life Wisdom:“Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain… To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices – today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it.”  – Kevyn Aucoin

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”. John 3:16“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 2 Peter 3:9

False Belief: “I don’t have time to feel what I am feeling, because I have to figure it all out.”

 Life Wisdom:Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”Martin Luther King Jr.

 

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding”. Proverbs 3:5

 

 

False Belief: “When I start to feel good, I must remember to feel bad, because I didn’t feel good before.”

Life Wisdom:“Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are.” Norman Vincent Peale

Bible: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:The old has gone, the new is here! 2 Corinthians 5:17

False Belief:  “If he(she) leaves me, I’ll die.”

Life Wisdom:The strongest man(or woman) in the world is he (she) who stands most alone. HENRIK IBSEN,

An Enemy of the People.When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us”  Helen Keller

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.”  Anne Frank

Bible “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand”. Isaiah 41:10

False Belief: “I have to get where I go by suffering.

“Must you continue to be your own cross? No matter which way God leads you, you change everything into bitterness by constantly brooding over everything. For the love of God, replace all this self-scrutiny with a pure and simple glance at God’s goodness. –Saint Jeanne Chantal

Bible: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast” Ephesians 2:8-9

False Belief: “I can’t be happy, because if I allow myself to be happy, I might be humiliated.”

Life Wisdom: “My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate.”  ~Thornton Wilder

Bible: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15

 False Belief:  “I must earn and deserve every good thing I get.”

Life Wisdom: Grace, then, is grace,–that is to say, it is sovereign, it is free, it is sure, it is unconditional, and it is everlasting.~ Alexander Whyte

Bible: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows”. James 1:17

 


 

 

God’s Jobs

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An eight year old wrote this for his third-grade Sunday school teacher, who asked her students to explain God:

 

 

One of God’s main jobs is making people.

He makes these to put in the place of the ones who die so there will be enough people to take care of things here on earth. He doesn’t make grownups, he just makes babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way he doesn’t have to take up his valuable time teaching them to walk and talk. He can just leave that up to the mothers and fathers. I think it works out pretty good.

God’s second most important job is listening to prayers.

An awful lot of this goes on, ’cause some people, like preachers and things, pray other times besides bedtimes,  and Grandpa and Grandma pray every time they eat, except for snacks. God doesn’t have time to listen to the radio and watch TV on account of this. ‘Cause God hears everything, there must be a terrible lot of noise in his ears unless he has thought of a way to turn it down.

God sees and hears everything and is everywhere, which keeps him pretty busy. So you shouldn’t go wasting his time asking for things that aren’t important, or go over parents’ heads and ask for something they said you couldn’t have. It doesn’t work anyway.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Imagination is the language of the soul.
Pay attention to your imagination and you will discover all you need to be fulfilled.”
Albert Einstein

The Secrets of Heaven and Hell

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The old monk sat by the side of the road. With his eyes closed, his legs crossed and his hands folded in his lap, he sat. In deep meditation he sat. Suddenly he was interrupted by the harsh and demanding voice of a samurai warrior. “Old man! Teach me about heaven and hell!”

At first, as though he had not heard, there was no perceptible response from the monk. But gradually he began to open his eyes, the faintest hint of a smile playing around the corners of his mouth as the samurai stood there, waiting impatiently, growing more and more agitated with each passing second.

“You wish to know the secrets of heaven and hell?” replied the monk at last. “You who are so unkempt. You whose hands and feet are covered with dirt. You whose hair is uncombed, whose breath is foul, whose sword is all rusty and neglected. You who are ugly and whose mother dresses you funny. You would ask me of heaven and hell?”

The samurai uttered a vile curse. He drew his sword and raised it high over his head. His face turned to crimson, and the veins of his neck stood out in bold relief as he prepared to sever the monk’s head from its shoulders.

“That is hell,” said the old monk gently, just as the sword began its descent. In that fraction of a second, the samurai was overcome with amazement, awe, compassion and love for this gentle being who had dared to risk his very life to give him such a teaching. He stopped his sword in mid-flight and his eyes filled with grateful tears.

“And that,” said the monk, “is heaven.”

How to Pray for Elections

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  • Pray that God will turn people’s hearts toward Himself, and that He will be glorified in the outcome of the elections.

 

  •  Pray that Christians will put their confidence in God, rather than any political candidate. (Ps. 118:8-9)
  •  Pray that God’s people will demonstrate a spirit of repentance and prayer–individually and corporately. (2 Chron. 7:14)
  • Pray that God will raise up righteous leaders who will model integrity and authenticity. (Eph. 4:1-2; Prov. 14:34)
  • Pray that all will see their spiritual poverty; that the citizens will awaken to their great spiritual need. (Joel 3:12)

 

  • Pray that godly men and women will be placed in positions of authority so that God’s people can rejoice. (Prov. 29:2)
  •  Pray that people will be able to see truth (Ps. 86:11), that error will be exposed, and that people with wicked agendas will be made weak. (Prov. 25:5)
  • Pray that citizens will seek wise leaders who listen to biblical counsel. (Prov. 1:3-5)
  • Pray that citizens will vote with wisdom and discretion. (Prov. 3:21b)
  • Pray that Christians will speak the truth, but in love, concerning those running for office. (Eph. 4:15)
  • Pray that Christians will avoid negativity, fault-finding, and contentiousness, but instead, will stand out as God’s loving, pure children. (Phil. 2:14-15)
  • Pray that those who love righteousness and truth will fulfil their responsibility to vote. (Matt. 22:21
  • Pray that Christians will look to God to overcome the enemies of truth and righteousness. (Ps. 60:11-12)
  • Pray that God will work through leaders to keep the doors open for His Gospel to be proclaimed. (Col. 4:3a)

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. CHRONICLES 7:14

OBAMA & MICHELLE – Then and Now (You Never Know Where Life Will take You)

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“One of the most powerful forces in the world is the will of men and women who believe in themselves, who dare to hope and aim high, who go confidently after the things they want from life.”  Richard M. DeVos

 “Our achievements of today are but the sum total of our thoughts of yesterday. You are today where the thoughts of yesterday have brought you and you will be tomorrow where the thoughts of today take you.”  Blaise Pascal

 “Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”  – Frank Outlaw