“Don’t merely wait for better days, you must make them," said Pastor Chuck Swindoll. Easier said than done. Can I ask you a personal question? Are you tired of plodding through life? We won’t initiate change until we are “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Sometimes life seems so regular. Our next steps appear somewhat obvious. We may be bored or feel worn out as we run our routine into the ground.
The “good Samaritan” parable
The phrase “Good Samaritan” refers to one of the most popular parables of Jesus Christ in the Bible. This parable describes a stranger helping another stranger in critical need of help. When Jesus was asked, “Who is my neighbor,” Jesus coined the “Good Samaritan” parable as His reply to this question.
“And here fresh from her performance in Dark of the Moon is our own Christine, type cast as the “Dark Witch!”
A burst of laughter erupted from the high school students I knew so well. The thought I would be considered a true “Dark Witch” was beyond them. They had known me for years and would never believe I could change so drastically after just a few months away at college. This joke, coming from my beloved drama teacher, produced my expected response of mock indignation.
Good leaders help team members solve their own problems with their own insight. Average leaders tend to solve their team members’ problems, thus truncating their opportunity to grow themselves. So, how do we help our team members learn to problem solve on their own? In this post I begin with a story and then suggest ways to problem solve in a balanced way.
To give grace or not to give grace? That is the question. I am not talking about whether you should pray at a restaurant in public. I am referring to Jesus' example to serve others through sacrificing ourselves. "But Sheryl," you might say, "we don't have a choice about offering grace to others or not, the Bible says we have to give grace."
You may be wondering what in the world we have to celebrate during 2020! With COVID, economic uncertainty and more, it can seem that there is little to celebrate. I would like to suggest that celebrating even the small things can change our minds, our hearts and our countenance.
As children, we may remember looking forward to our birthdays, Christmas and other family celebrations throughout each year. As adults, we may have participated in planning, executing and cleaning up celebrations with family, friends, colleagues or others.
Do you ever wonder how many blessings a day you miss because you make a decision without checking with God first? How many boxes are going to be stacked in Heaven’s warehouse marked, “Kim’s missed blessings?” I recall when I was in 4th grade, our teacher was making a bulletin board and put the following question on it: What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up? I did not have to think twice. I had always wanted to be a teacher. But, as she went around the room, all the girls were saying they wanted to be teachers.
Have you ever entered a room and failed to see someone? Driven a route and not noticed the billboards? Failed to hear a spouse, child, or friend speaking to you? Maybe you were waiting on the traffic light to turn green, only to realize that you missed it. I think most of us can relate to experiences like these. Sometimes, we get so caught up in our lives, or in the moment that we miss what is going on around us. It isn’t that we don’t care; it’s just that we weren’t paying attention.
“So you take one of these trays of metal plates and tip them into the feeding channel. Start the machine and you’re ready to go!”
I was learning the ins and outs of my new position as secretary to the company president. One of my random duties was to print the addresses on the customer bills and send them to the accounting department. The woman I was replacing had just started this monthly task, and the huge Addressograph machine was chugging and clanging along.
THUNK!
“What was that?”
“I wish I could stand on a busy street corner and beg people to give me all their wasted hours.” Wouldn’t it be great if we could stock up the hours others have wasted or don’t want? Did you know that most people waste at least two hours every single day? Unfortunately, no one can loan us any of their spare time. Most of have an inkling that we actually do have time for the things we’ve complained there was no time for. We have a hunch that if we could manage ourselves better, we might be more productive with the use of our time and finish our projects in a timely fashion.
