Remember when you wanted that whatever-it-was from Santa Claus? Or your employer? Or your spouse or parents or educators or whoever… only to get it and be disappointed?
Remember when you thought, “If I could just make this amount of money, I would be content?” And you did… and you weren’t?
Remember the time you dreamed and dreamed and dreamed some more about a meaningful goal and were disappointed? But it didn’t keep you from dreaming some more?
Remember when you didn’t have your health or didn’t have any money or didn’t have anybody and it was all you could think about? Then when health or wealth or somebody showed up, it only served to point out something else you don’t have – and now all you think about is that?
All these and more are examples of something that stirs us, motivates us, alarms us or moves us in a certain direction, but never quite allows us to rest once we get where we think we’re going.
I’m talking about your Driving Force, and yes, you have one. Maybe more than one. [click to continue…]
Have a dream? A vision of what could be, if only…? Do you have a vision of something greater to come, which you passionately long for? This past Saturday night, on what was as much a holiday weekend in Thailand as it was in the U.S., a visionary, passionate Christian leader taught me a priceless lesson about how God brings vision to reality. Here’s how I described it, straight out of my journal.
Saturday night Dui and his wife Gift invited us to join them for what he called a home Bible study. Pastor Preecha and Nit joined us as well. When the van came to pick us up, it was already loaded with an army of others – Dui’s father and stepmother, brother and sister-in-law, and a couple of kids. As we made our way, we stopped at a roadside chicken roaster’s stand, where a woman had five cooked chickens on a rotissarie. Gift picked the best looking one, the middle one, and the lady whacked it off and gave it to her. That, Dui said, was going to be our dinner. [click to continue…]
by Andy Wood on June 19, 2009
in Allocating Your Resources, Consumers, Enlarging Your Capacity, Five LV Laws, Insight, Life Currency, Love, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, LV Stories, Money, Principle of Increase, Principle of Legacy
Things got a little weird that day at the Taco Bell in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. A customer tried to pass two 1928 five-dollar bills as cash to pay for his meal. The clerks had never seen such old money before, presumed it to be counterfeit, and called the police. Here’s the sad part – as currency, the cash was legit. As collectors’ items, they had to be worth way more than a bean burrito combo or a chalupa.
What a waste, right? Right up there with Esau, selling his birthright for a bowl of peas. Or the prodigal son, wasting his inheritance on a never-ending party.
But another part of my brain wants to defend our fast food shopper. After all, maybe he was hungry, and that was the only cash he had. Maybe he had no idea what he had! I’ve learned that if you don’t know the value of what you possess, it really doesn’t matter to you what you waste it on. Esau and the prodigal learned that, too – the hard way.
Anyway, what’s so different about the taco king? [click to continue…]
by Andy Wood on April 17, 2009
in Allocating Your Resources, Consumers, Enlarging Your Capacity, Executing Your Plan, Exploring the Possibilities, Five LV Laws, Following Your Passion, Gamblers, Hoarders, Life Currency, Love, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Money, Pleasers, Principle of Abundance, Protecting Your Investment, Waiting
This week a friend sent me a poignant and compelling image that describes what it’s like to live in a climate or with a spirit of fear. But the image is so strong, I think it describes anybody who feels as though they are in a no-win situation.
I feel like a grasshopper on the ocean hanging onto a leaf. I cling to the leaf to keep from drowning. If I eat the leaf to keep from starving, I lose my life preserver, and drown.
I’ll tell you later what he learned in the process. But can you relate? [click to continue…]
In the previous post I talked about the principle of planting abundantly. Today I want to tell you about somebody who did it.
I married an MK. That’s “missionary’s kid,” in case you’re uninitiated. It was enough of a culture shock to marry a Texan, but to say “I do” to somebody who could have repeated her vows in Thai if she wanted was really special. For 26 years I have heard the stories, met most of the major players, and lived vicariously through the memories, the loves, and the laughter of a family whose lives are invested to this day in Jesus’ mandate to take the gospel to the world.
All of that came calling the day after Christmas 2004. To this day Robin refers to the event as if it were a proper name – an evil killer who has somehow become an unwanted part of the family.
His name: Tsunami. [click to continue…]
by Andy Wood on December 10, 2008
in Ability, Enlarging Your Capacity, Five LV Laws, Hoarders, Insight, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Money, Principle of Abundance
Why do you have the resources, abilities, relationships and intelligence that you do? Why do you lack the brain, the pain, the financial gain that others have?
It all comes back to the Trust.
What you “have” isn’t yours any more than what somebody else “has” is theirs. It all – even your life – belongs to God. He purchased it completely with the death and resurrection of His Son. But He has entrusted the management decisions to you. Incidentally, the primary management decision you must make is what you will do with the death and resurrection of His Son!
Jesus’ story of the talents illustrates the point. (You can read my paraphrase/summary here.) Each of the servants received part of the master’s possessions to manage for him while he was away. That represents your life and all it entails. [click to continue…]
(A Turning Point Story)
Glavine
It was something out of a Looney Toons episode. The kind of thing you’ve heard about happening, never assumed would happen to you.
It happened to me.
I had gone away on a far journey and entrusted all my worldly goods to my wife and three kids, telling them we’d settle accounts when I got home.
Well, not exactly.
September 13, 2001 – Do the calendar math. It was a surreal and vulnerable time. I was actually out of town on a consulting trip, when I got a call fairly early in the morning. My twin daughters were calling, breathless with excitement. Somebody had gotten the bright idea to leave a cardboard box in front of our house with two kittens inside.
“Daddy, can we keep ‘em, pleeze? We’ll take care of them, and feed them, and clean up after them. We promise.”
I wanted to kill them. [click to continue…]
Okay, all you fans of the amazing possibilities of humans left to their own ideas, it’s time for another edition of Hanukkah Hams! In case you missed previous episodes, a Hanukkah Ham was named after this, uh, “creative” marketing idea last year.
With all the gloom, doom, and sleepless nights about the economy, I thought maybe we could use a little financial inspiration.
Couldn’t find any, so this is what you get instead…
One of the fundamental truths of the New Testament is that money is “coined personality.” That is, people can see the “real you” in the ways you respond to and handle money. If you’re generous with your finances, you’ll be generous with other parts of your life as well. Same is true if you’re careless, stingy, unorganized, etc. This raises some interesting questions about some or organizations. If money is coined personality, we may have a few problems!
A couple of years ago, I walked into a local bank, started writing a check, and told the teller in my best deadpan voice that I needed $30 worth of Federal Reserve notes. He actually asked another teller, “Do we have Federal Reserve notes here?” “Ya mean, money?” she asked.
Last month a man in Warren, Michigan figured the best way to get a little extra cash for the holidays was to strong arm somebody and steal theirs. [click to continue…]
Isn’t it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the clowns.
Isn’t it bliss?
Don’t you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can’t move.
Where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns.
-from “Send in the Clowns”
No, that’s not the theme song to the next installment of the U.S. Congress. Then again…
Yesterday I introduced you to a group of Christ followers who were living in a world of mirrors. The good people of Laodicea were living with the bling, but God had a different estimate of their true wealth. And in His correction, He revealed some things about a completely different economy that is in operation all around us. For review, here are the principles we looked at yesterday:
Principle #1: The root nature of sin is a declaration of independence from God.
Principle #2: God has a system of economy unlike the world’s system.
Principle #3: “Economy” is the exchange of all the commodities of life.
Principle #4: Money has a unique place in the commodities of life.
Principle #5: It is possible to be rich in the world’s economy and bankrupt in God’s.
So here the scenery changes, and God has some encouraging things to say to His loveable losers: [click to continue…]
It was the Beverly Hills of ancient Asia. A center of wealth and high-end commerce. A medical haven, where people came from miles around for treatment of various ailments. If you wrote your mama and told her your job was transferring you there, she’d have something to brag about the next day. This was some place. And there was a church in town.
How would you like to get a personal letter from Jesus Christ, where the first thing he said was, “I know what you’ve been doing”? That can be a little unnerving! But that’s exactly what Jesus said to the First Church of Coolville, alias Laodicea. He had a few other things to say as well. Let’s peek at their mail:
I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see (Revelation 3:15-18).
Looks like the guys and dolls in Lala Land had a few things to learn about wealth.
So do we.
They thought they were loaded; Jesus said otherwise. Remember, though, that in spite of its scathing message, this was a love letter. And in his love, Jesus gave them, and LifeVestors everywhere, a few pointers on His economy. [click to continue…]
Remember when you wanted that whatever-it-was from Santa Claus? Or your employer? Or your spouse or parents or educators or whoever… only to get it and be disappointed?