Monday, February 24, 2014

Striving After the Wind

Tim Challies offers an insightful post on why we sometimes feel like frauds. Here’s a sample.
We are dissatisfied because we must be dissatisfied. God has put eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11) but we locked ourselves in a temporal world. God created us to find our highest joy and delight in him, but we chose to seek delight in the things he made. We worship the creation rather than the Creator. Even those of us who have been drawn back to the Creator still turn to this side and that, to this idol and that.
We can cry out that we were made for more, that we were meant for more, from now until eternity. We will cry out from now until eternity. We will simply be expressing what Solomon told us so much more pointedly so many years ago. “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” This world cannot deliver all we want from it. This life cannot deliver all the satisfaction we long for.
Chaillies doesn’t stop there of course, ending with…
But those who die in Christ have the great promise that we will awake to all the pleasures, all the satisfaction we have ever longed for, and so much more besides.
I encourage you to read the entire post.

NOTE: The assumption that The Preacher of Ecclesiastes is in fact Solomon is a popular belief held by many respectable people. I happen to hold that while The Preacher likely is Solomon, there is some room for doubt.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Work That Makes a Difference

Here’s an excerpt from an encouraging post from Tim Challies. I encourage you to read the entire post.

Work is not significant only when it utilizes my full capacity or full capabilities. Work is not significant only when it offers unusual challenge or special opportunity. Work is not significant only when it is measurable in dollars and cents or praise and compliments. Work has intrinsic significance because it gives me the opportunity to do something with joy—with joy in the Lord. I can do my work in such a way that it glorifies God, or I can do it in such a way that it dishonors him. Anything I can do to God’s glory has significance. It has great significance!

Definitely something about which I need to be reminded more often than I’d like to admit.

Monday, January 13, 2014

The Penalty of Leadership

This work has been often misattributed, but it comes from a Cadillac print advertisement on page 47 of the January 2, 1915 Saturday Evening Post. Excellent work here by legendary ad man and philanthropist Theodore F. MacManus. A partial quote is below.

The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy — but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as human passions — envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains — the leader.

You can see the actual ad with the full quote here.