by Andy Wood on June 17, 2013
in Ability, Consumers, Conversations, Exploring the Possibilities, Five LV Laws, Insight, Life Currency, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, Principle of Increase
(A Conversation)
Don’t confuse your business with your delivery system.
What do you mean?
Your “business” is the value you bring to people. Your delivery system is the way you deliver it.
Okay… I’m still not sure I get what you’re saying.
Okay, let illustrate it. Let’s pretend it’s the year 1900, and you own one of the dominant businesses of the day – a railroad company. What’s your business?
Railroads?
AAAANNNNK! You lose. Twenty years from now you’ll be out of business and replaced with trucks. Anyway, who gets up in the morning wishing somebody would give them a bunch of steel and cross timbers? Let’s try it again. What business are you in?
Uh, transportation?
Good. You may survive this after all.
Okay that makes sense, I suppose. But I’m not a business owner.
Of course you are. [click to continue…]
A good friend and I were talking the other day and he told me about an experience he had in Hong Kong. First I’ll tell you what he saw. Then I’ll tell you a story based on that. Then I’ll apply it in one of many, many ways you can apply the story.
What My Friend Saw
As he and his group were traveling through the market in Hong Kong, he noticed someone selling rabbits. (Note: I’m pretty sure they weren’t being sold as pets.)
There was a cage full of rabbits. Then on top of the cage there was a single rabbit, just sitting there, motionless.
My friend asked, “Why doesn’t that rabbit run away?”
The answer: Because he’s been in the cage so long he’s forgotten what life outside the cage is like. He assumes there is nowhere else to go.
My Little Rabbit Fable
Once there were two rabbits. Both were raised in captivity. Both had only known a life within the confines of a cage or pen. But that wasn’t all bad. [click to continue…]
Okay, let’s stretch a little and use some imagination. Suppose you received that message on your smart phone or email. Looking beyond the earthly trappings – a church house, your bedroom or office or favorite nature connection – what does the “usual time” and “usual place” for a meeting with God look like?
I daresay for most of us, me included, we become Saints in the Presence of a Busy God. We pray, we worship, and we listen to a God who’s gettin’ it done. And on our best days, we come in faith that He will actually use us to help execute His plan and that He will get some things done for us.
Anything wrong with that? Absolutely not. After all, our God has unlimited power, knowledge and presence. And He invites us to trust Him to use it and to join Him in effecting His plan – His work. See if you can relate to some of these “meeting places” with God. [click to continue…]
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” – Yogi Berra
Had any punked-out plans lately? Any disappointments or unforeseen disasters? Have you lost someone dear to you or had your dreams shoved back into your face?
Have you noticed how the news seems to report more on what may happen than what just happened? Here’s a headline from Wednesday: With Dow Industrials at Record Highs, When Will Gravity Take Hold? Sheesh! Even the good news begs for more bad news.
Or try this one: Have you ever had something surprise you with such joy, so much delirium that you had no clue what to do next?
It was Benjamin Franklin who first said that in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. And yet we try, because nobody likes uncertainty. So what do you do when you’re standing face-to-face with a completely unpredictable future? You can offer money to people who promise to reduce your uncertainty – policemen, politicians, preachers, and “prophets.” You can bury your head in the sand and hope tomorrow never comes. Or you can find a way to confront your uncertainties with God’s power and courage.
Lessons from Paul’s Travel Plans
Now just to be clear, I’m not just referring to bracing for imminent disaster or catastrophic losses. I mean even those every-day surprises and disappointments. One source that has always been an example to me is the Apostle Paul. At the end of his first letter to the Corinthians, he runs through a list of travel plans. Travel plans! In the Bible! What’s his travel agenda doing in God’s holy book? Check this out: [click to continue…]
Someone once complemented a woman known for her big faith in God. Her reply: “I don’t have a big faith. I have a little faith in a big God.”
How do you describe it, slice-and-dice it, when somebody’s faith “makes the news?” The Thessalonians in the Bible were such a bunch. Look how Paul describes them:
“Wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God” (1 Thessalonians 1:8).
That gets my attention.
In the lives of these believers, as well as in the lives of people who turned Jesus’ head in the gospels, there seems to be a difference between simple faith and mountain-moving, remarkable faith.
One thing is sure. Nobody demonstrated remarkable faith by seeking to be remarkable. [click to continue…]
You’re already thinking about somebody, aren’t you? As soon as you saw this title, his or her weaselly little mug appeared on your mental screen.
Maybe it’s that man in business who always seems to end up on the upside of a deal, regardless of who loses or what the consequences are.
Maybe it’s the committee of “concerned leaders” who just ambushed the latest pastor, much like they did the previous two or three, and sent him packing.
Maybe it’s the golden throat, pretty boy preacher who’s heaven to listen to, but hell to work for or deal with.
Maybe it’s the malicious gossip, who can destroy somebody’s life before sundown and never miss a night’s sleep.
Maybe it’s the boss who never has a good word to say about your performance, but takes the credit for all your hard work.
Maybe it’s the politician, who turned “public service” into private self-service.
Maybe it’s a lawyer.
(Sorry. Couldn’t resist. Please don’t sue me.)
Regardless of who you’re thinking of, we’ve all known them. They’re mean, self-centered, manipulative bullies. They’re conmen who, if they can’t take your money, can take your health by driving you batty or to the point of exhaustion. They’re never wrong – at least in their own eyes – and would crawl across England on broken glass to win an argument. And let’s be honest – in all likelihood, they’re probably more powerful than you, more popular than you, and more outwardly successful than you.
Grrrr! The scoundrels!
Hazarding Another Guess
Let me press my luck and hazard another guess. [click to continue…]
We’ve seen and heard it described in myriad ways. Some are actually in the Bible. It’s a place where the streets are paved with precious metal. A place of purity and timelessness. A place of extraordinary worship and togetherness. A place where nobody worries about the safety of their children and nobody nervously waits for lab results.
Yes, I’m talking about heaven. And like the uber-hit song says, I can only imagine what it will be like. But like you, I have imagined quite a bit… some in earnest, some in fun fantasy before the Lord.
But there was one thing about heaven I had overlooked until a couple of days ago. I had read and actually preached from this verse many times and passed right over it. I’ve read this verse at gravesides and church houses countless times and never quite got it. But I think it’s an important thing to get… [click to continue…]
Turns out there was something almost as satisfying Monday night as watching Eddie Lacy, A. J. McCarron and company put looks of futility and bewilderment on yet another BCS opponent – a game, by the way, I have waited since 1966 to witness.
It was a commercial. For Dr. Pepper, of all things. Now as long as I’ve known anything about Dr. Pepper and commercials, they have always had some kind of big song and dance production. And this commercial was no exception.
What was exceptional was the song in the commercial. It sort of stopped me in my tracks. I actually hit rewind to see the thing again. (If you know anything about me and commercials, you will know this rarely happens.) If you’d like to see the commercial, it’s already on YouTube, and you can watch it here.
I didn’t run out and buy Dr. Pepper. But I did hurry to iTunes and found the song. I just discovered it was released on iTunes on January 7, the day the commercial ran.
The song is by the Nashville group Vinyl Hearts, and it’s called, “I Am.” You can hear it in its entirety by clicking below. Please, hear the song in its entirety. [click to continue…]
In his book, Living Above the Level of Mediocrity, Chuck Swindoll tells of two young women from Southern California who spent the day doing some last-minute Christmas shopping in Tijuana. After a successful day of bargain hunting, they returned to their car. One of the ladies glanced down in the gutter and noticed something squirming, as if in pain. On closer examination, they saw what appeared to be a dog – a tiny Chihuahua – struggling for its life. It was breathing heavily, shivering, and barely able to move. Their hearts went out to the pathetic little animal. Their compassion wouldn’t let them drive off and leave it there to die.
The friends decided to take it home with them and do their best to nurse it back to health. Afraid of being stopped and having the little creature detected by border patrol officers, they carefully placed it on some papers among their packages in the trunk of their car. Within minutes they were back in California and only a couple of hours from home. One of the women held the sick little Chihuahua the rest of the way. [click to continue…]
Somebody in Florida was pretty up-tight. Back in the day The Florida Baptist Witness ran an article about a book titled, Making Peace With Your Past: Help for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families. The book was written by a pastor, Tim Sledge, who grew up in a dysfunctional family. This pastor realized that events in his childhood still produced a great deal of trauma and difficulty in his present life. The book tells what he learned in his journey toward wholeness and offers a biblical approach for others who deal with the same sort of thing.
One week later, enter one angry letter-writer. How could the Witness even think of highlighting a book that relies on psychology rather than on the Word of God? How could the writer not see that psychology and Christianity are based on two totally different suppositions? The Biblical answer to our past is just to forget it, like God does.
Alrighty then. How’s that working out for you?
Think about it. Is it unscriptural for hurting people to try to get a grip on their past? Is there any such thing as Christian (def. – “under the lordship of Jesus Christ) psychology (def. – “the study of human behavior”)? Is there something spiritually wrong with me, or with you, if we can’t “just forget it, like God does?”
Maybe my Florida friend should take a lesson from the hurricanes that routinely blow through that state. In a matter of hours, those deadly storms can destroy lives, property, and a lot of dreams. No one there escapes the fury.
But then an interesting thing happens. [click to continue…]
Don’t confuse your business with your delivery system.
