Because you can’t spend 5 days waiting for 2…
Is most of your week spent hanging out for the weekend, insufferably long hours in the office slowly ticking away while you wait for the magical 5pm Friday moment when you are free to go and enjoy life?For many people work is a drudge, a necessary evil that provides the money to keep food on the table. It’s the story of the man asked why he was digging a hole: “I’m digging the hole, to earn the money, to buy the food, to give me the strength, to dig the hole.” It’s a sad way to live a life – how awful to wish away 5 out of 7 days each week. There are those...
Read MoreMaking Success a Pattern, not a Moment: 8 Qualities to Cultivate
You’ve probably had those moments when you breath a sigh of both relief and satisfaction. It’s come off. Something you wanted has worked out, and you are really pleased. Perhaps your response is, “Well, that was lucky. Hope it happens again.” Now once in a while success is like winning the lottery, and things come through against all the odds, but it’s dangerous to build our lives on that model. For the majority of successful people, achievement is a pattern, not a moment. What do I mean by that? Simply that there are reliable predictors of long term success,...
Read MoreBecause every yes is also a no…
Some throw away lines stick. I was listening to an interview with Richard Foster of Celebration of Discipline fame and when asked why he declined most speaking invitations he said,”Because every yes is also a no,” and then elaborated that each engagement he said yes to was a no to his wife and family, a no to time alone with God, and a no to the contemplative, reflective person others wanted him to be. Every yes is also a no. My yes to comfort food is a no to my healthy body; my watching one more TV episode is a no to waking early enough for prayer; my yes to a spurious invite is...
Read MoreThe Voice
You have probably heard that on 14 October Australian voters will take part in the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum to approve an alteration to the Australian Constitution to create a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice that “may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government … on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”. While I am conscious that half the readers of this blog are not from Australia, the question of justice for First Nations Peoples impacts us all, and requires...
Read MoreBeyond distance and difference
In his profoundly insightful book Not in God’s Name, Jonathan Sacks asks how it was that Joseph’s brothers planned to kill him. Fratricide is a pretty extreme response, desperately over the top even if Joseph was a tad irritating, so how had it got so badly out of hand? Reflecting on Genesis 37:18-20 Sacks notes that the brothers’ murderous conversation starts when they see Joseph at a distance, and their talk soon dismisses him as an arrogant dreamer, someone very different to them. Goodness, his colourful coat emphasised that. What a pretentious prat, wearing that cloak...
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