My sister and I used to make mud tea. We didn’t actually call it that, nor did we actually drink the swill, but when we were small, we’d play around outside with spare dishes. One of our concoctions invariably involved mixing a little dirt ‘n’ water to make a tasty drink. When we stirred and stirred our little elixir, the water would take on that irresistible shade of brown. When we stopped stirring, it stayed muddy. But when we gave it a rest and went off to other pursuits, the water would always be clearer when we returned. The mud would have settled to the bottom.
Your life is like that glass in our backyard. When stirred up, it gets muddy. It’s easy to become confused, distorted, foggy, fuzzy and dull. Under the pressure of circumstances, it’s harder to see issues clearly and make good, clear, meaningful decisions.
So… had any “muddy water days” lately? The phone won’t quit ringing, the baby won’t stop crying, everybody needs your help at the same time, you have major, life-changing decisions to make, you have a week’s worth of money to pay a month’s worth of bills, you spend the entire day running about 30 minutes behind, and then you turn on the radio and some clown is singing, “It’s a Beautiful Morning.”
You aren’t alone, you know. [click to continue…]
I went to the Fred Flintstone School of Golf. Simple philosophy: when in doubt, hit the ball really hard. When not in doubt, hit the ball really hard.
Maybe you’ve heard that old saying about golf – “You drive for show, and putt for dough.” Suffice it to say, I’ve never made any money hitting a ball in a hole with a stick. I have, however, put on a show or two by hitting a ball off a stick.
All of that is fine and fun, so long as you’re dealing with woods and wedges. Life, however, is a different story. A mere proverb in the Gentleman’s Game is brutal reality in the real world:
It’s not how you drive, but how you arrive.
Not how you start, but how you finish. Magilla Gorilla and Fred Flintstone need not apply.
Life is filled with real and proverbial stories of people who started well, but finished poorly. Rather than leaving a heritage, with inspiring and ennobling footsteps to follow, their names and stories are relegated to footnotes and questions that begin with, “Whatever happened to…”?
It’s up to you. Will you be a driver, or an arriver? I must warn you, if you decide to go the distance, the deck is stacked against you. This is a marathon, not a dash, and you’re surrounded by gloriously mediocre runners and a grandstand full of fat critics. But you do have a Coach – the Lord Jesus, Author and Finisher of your faith. Under His direction, you’ll learn to identify these six fool makers and finish breakers: [click to continue…]
by Andy Wood on November 19, 2008
in 100 Words
Here is a place where stress is absent.
Where the phone never rings, and babies never cry.
Here is a place where neatness, order, and predictability reign.
A safe place, where seldom is heard a discouraging word.
Here is a place where the “ground is level.”
Where there is no prejudice or pride.
Here is a place that remains unimpacted by the news or political scene.
Where nobody cares if you’re liberal, conservative, or anarchist.
Here is a place where there is no life.
Anywhere else, it can get pretty messy.
But God – and life – are often in the mess.
We pass a word around our office that my associate once used to describe me, and it stuck: Crispy.
He used it a few years ago when he and our office manager decided they’d seen enough of me in the state I was in and informed me that I was taking my wife on an R & R trip to the mountains. My reservations had been made, and they weren’t taking “no” for an answer.
I hope to God you have somebody who looks out for you like that. I wasn’t aware of how emotionally and physically fried I was. The sad truth about stress, crispiness, and burnout is that often others see their effects on us before we do.
It wasn’t the first time I’ve been crispy, and it probably won’t be the last. But there’s a further step that can be devastating. Burnout, in a clinical sense, means you have completely exhausted every form of energy necessary to continue. More than just losing interest (“I’m sort of burned out on jazz these days”), I’m talking about those times people go to their wells and find them completely dry. Times when people shock those who know them best by walking away from relationships, careers, or wisdom.
“Stress makes people stupid,” a management consultant once told Daniel Goldman. Burnout reveals it to the world.
So how do people get in such a state – past stress, past crispy, all the way to emotionally nuked? Let me suggest three quick and easy recipes for complete emotional, mental, or spiritual exhaustion: [click to continue…]
What do you do when you’ve done what you know to do, and what you know to do isn’t working this time? How do you explain the fact that time-tested methods for producing results, solving problems, and getting ahead just aren’t working this time? How do you plug the leaks in your economic life?
Questions like these are front and center among politicians, economists, investors, and families these days.
The problem isn’t a shortage of solutions. The problem is that that the solutions we know are supposed to work aren’t working.
We’re like a wad of sailors on a stormy sea, who keep running to opposite sides of a ship to steady it in the waves – while all the while, the hull is leaking. I’ve seen it at kitchen tables; I’ve seen it at capital buildings. Everything we do to steady the ship just draws in more water, and sailing has turned to bailing.
I wonder if anybody is asking – really asking – God.
(Aw, what does HE know?)
Plenty, it would appear. This isn’t the first time politicians and businesspeople confronted a leaky economy. [click to continue…]
(A Turning Point Story)
“Boys, if you want a watermelon, all you have to do is come knock on my door and ask. I’ll give you all the watermelons you want. But please, don’t steal my watermelons.”
You know where this is going, right?
I couldn’t help but laugh. A lot. I was on the bus with a group of men from our church coming back from a meeting, and we were discussing one of my favorite subjects: watermelon.
I suppose as long as there have been watermelon farmers, there have been watermelon thieves, and Lloyd was describing how he and his friends had done it in their younger years in Indiana. They smiled and said “yes sir” to the farmer’s request.
Later that night, they went to work.
Lloyd and his friends weren’t content just to sneak into the patch and dash away with a big, fat prize. They added insult to injury! Under the cover of darkness, they would take long, sharp knives and carefully cut a plug out of the end of the melon attached to the vine. Then they would eat the heart – the sweetest part – out of the melon and replace the plug.
The next day they’d return to the scene of the crime, climb a tree near the patch, and watch as the farmer came to check his melons. He would carefully thump the watermelon and listen for just the right sound that told him the fruit was ready. The climax came when the farmer picked up a hollow melon and discovered the plug. He would throw his cap on the ground, shake his fist in the air, and vow to kill whoever did it. Not only had he been robbed, he had been deceived as well.
Oh, we laughed.
The image of sitting in a tree trying to hold in the hilarity while someone below is losing it was very amusing. But what was funny to me one day soon became very sobering. God has a way of doing that.
[click to continue…]
Imagine being the captain of a historic sailing ship – a master of commerce and an expert in trade throughout the Mediterranean. You live to taste the salt in the air, to roam from port to port, from culture to culture, bringing value, goods, and trade to each. You perform a greatly-needed service, and your work is honorable.
And, let’s just assume that you’re greatly blessed and good at what you do. Your business has prospered as you have prospered others.
And, while we’re assuming, let’s just assume that you recognize the source of all your blessings, and seek to live gratefully and humbly before your Creator.
Too bad.
Storm’s coming anyway.
[click to continue…]
Okay, so the guys at SynerJACK are talking about stress this week, and I just vomited out of my journal from a couple of years ago. (It’s ugly… you probably don’t want to read it.)
But I found a real stress reliever video. Supposedly it’s from an old Girl Scout song, but it made its way into a Discovery Channel commercial. If you need a happy reminder that God and life and the world are good, watch this.
If you want to irritate somebody by putting a happy little song in their head that’s hard to get rid of, forward this to somebody else.
And the next time you’re pumping gas, remember… [click to continue…]
“The winter is over. The rain and snow have gone. Come away with me, my love, come away.
“I miss our time together. How long has it been since I heard the sound of your voice in the morning? Come away with me, my love, come away.
“I have seen you struggling, and I’ve heard your cries in the night. I have been with you, even when you felt alone. I have been faithful, even when you were losing faith in Me. I have been patient, even when you were impatient with Me. Now the flowers are budding, and the time of singing has come. Come away with me, my love, come away!
[click to continue…]
(Cool things I’ve heard somebody pray, #1…)
Joyce is an editor for New Hope publishing. I’m working with her on a book project, and last week we got together by phone to talk about it.
Joyce is also a prayer warrior. And before we did anything of a business nature, she wanted to pray. “You go first,” she said. So I committed our time and the project to the Lord, asked for His direction on our conversation, etc. – the kinds of predictable things anyone would ask the Lord’s blessing on.
Then Joyce prayed.
And I went back to school. [click to continue…]
