A Colorado highway director went out to see firsthand the aftermath of a sudden blizzard that struck just at the start of a holiday weekend.
Some vehicles had slid off the road into a ditch or snow bank. Without help they were powerless to move.
Other cars were on the shoulder. Their engines were still running for the time being, but they were not moving forward at all.
Some cars were in the slow lane, cautiously moving forward, but at a pace that made timely arrival at their destination virtually impossible.
Still other vehicles were equipped to drive in the fast lane – some going steadily, some quickly, some dangerously fast, but all headed for their destination.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
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Hear now the parable of the Highway Director. [click to continue…]
Something keeps you moving. It gets you out of bed in the mornings. It narrates your hopes and dreams. It defines your values and informs your motives in all you do and say. It’s often invisible or subconscious, and at times can act as a puppet master or a judge.
Call it your Alpha, or your First Life. Some people call it “Lord,” “boss,” or “Prime Mover.”
Regardless of the name, the good part is that you can decide who or what your Alpha is.
Meanwhile, despite what you may be reading in the latest edition of the Not-My-Home News, you have been included in a cosmic Master Plan for all time. God has His own Alpha, and invites you to enter into that experience with Him.
“He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything” (Colossians 1:18).
“He Himself,” of course, refers to Jesus Christ. And because He is the first to rise from the dead and remain alive (to this very day), Paul says He is our First Life… our Alpha. [click to continue…]
(Sort-of-random thoughts after an oddly-shaped holiday season, complete with the Princess and her seven miniature companions… oh, and that reminds me… a trip to Disney, along with other uncertainties of life.)
Nearly every New Year’s night during my growing up years, I would find myself howling at the moon or somebody because of the insanity that was the college football bowl setup. Finally I have seen with my eyes what for years I had only seen in my dreams – a true semblance of a playoff. My team didn’t win. But it had a chance to compete, and that’s all anybody can ask for (unless you’re TCU, but I digress…).
Did you feel the earth rumble from all the photos taken at the Detroit auto show? Have you picked out your favorite auto eye-candy yet? The whole idea of a “concept car” fascinates me… slick looking ideas that get people all excited, only to be told they’ll never actually see that vehicle.
I started to get all huffy and offended, until I realized that the world I move in has its own version – the “concept Christian.” Sleek and slick, shiny and sexy-for-Jesus. But it is only in concept showrooms. How to get it into “real production” remains a mystery. [click to continue…]
It was painful and ugly, Lisa told us. She had left town to attend a school, presumably to train people to be worship leaders. What she discovered instead was an unhealthy, “I’m always right” form of egotistical authority-wielding. If anybody in the so-called “school” suggested an idea that didn’t line up perfectly with the ego-polishing done “on the stage,” there was hell to pay. And the favorite punch(ing) line: “You need to buy into the vision.”
“We’ve been spending some time rethinking our organization’s vision,” John said.
“Why is that?”
“Because we need a better way of communicating to the public and to our people the essence of why we’re here.”
May I offer a polite suggestion? (If not, I’ll be happy to offer a rude one.)
Before you start planning or pontificating on what you, somebody else, or the organization “needs,” don’t you think it would be a good idea to have a clear definition of “need?”
And before you merge onto the leadership freeway, teeming with thousands of commuters headed, they say, in the direction of their “vision,” don’t you think you need to have a grasp on what a vision actually is? [click to continue…]
I need to get my head examined. (All right… Who said “amen!”?) More on that in a minute. First, a few random stories, all converging at the same point.
Last week I was in Dallas and had a strange and expensive experience. [click to continue…]
Ray Stevens, of “Ahab the Arab” fame, once wrote a gospel song called “Have a Little Talk With Myself.”
A little private conversation
A little self examination
A little attitude correction
A little soul-searching inspection
Start heading in the right direction
Take a little walk – have a little talk with myself.
Can you relate? [click to continue…]
