Monday Memo

by Steve May

Here’s a joke for you: A man applies for a job. His prospective employer asks about his previous work. The man says, “I was a dog catcher in a small Texas town, but they had to let me go when the position was eliminated.”

The employer asks, “Was it eliminated because of funding cuts?”

The man says, “No. It was eliminated because I caught the dog.”

Have you ever felt like that dog catcher — that you have outlasted your usefulness and are no longer necessary? It’s been known to happen. One way we sometimes deal with it is simply to let the dog back out on the street and chase it some more. We may not accomplish much in the long run, but at least we keep busy. There is, however, a better way.

Robert Schuller says that one of the most difficult times in his life was after he had, at a relatively young age, reached all of his goals.

He began to wonder if there any new mountains to climb — any new dogs to catch, so to speak. The result was that Schuller began to dream bigger dreams, moving his ministry beyond the borders of his southern California community, to reaching people through books and TV.

In the Old Testament there’s a story of a Babylonian slave named Nehemiah. Nehemiah had a big dream: he wanted to rebuild the walls of the city of Jerusalem. Against all odds, he accomplished his goal. What next? Tear down the walls and build them again? Instead, Nehemiah moved to a new level. He developed a new dream, bigger and more ambitious than the first: reuniting the people of Israel.

This is what he wrote: At that time the city was large and spacious, but the population was small. And only a few houses were scattered throughout the city. So my God gave me the idea to call together all the leaders of the city, along with the ordinary citizens, for registration. (Nehemiah 7:4-5)

Instead of questioning his own usefulness, Nehemiah upgraded his goals in life; he made the transition from building walls to building people.

If your life has become a circle of letting the dog out so you can catch it again…of tearing down walls so you can rebuild them…it may be time to upgrade your goals. God gave Nehemiah an idea of what to do next. 

He has an idea for you, too.

When Jack Canfield was trying to get Chicken Soup for the Soul off the ground, he asked a number of best-selling authors and publishing experts how he should go about it. He received more advice than he could possibly act on — he was overwhelmed with possibilities and he had no idea where to start.

Then a man named Ron Scolastico told him, “If you would go to a very large tree and take five swings at it with a very sharp ax, eventually, no matter how large the tree, it would have to come down.”

Out of this advice Canfield developed what he called The Rule of Five: every day he did five specific things that moved him toward the goal of getting Chicken Soup on the best seller list. He might do five radio interviews or send out five review copies or call five bookstores, and on and on.

Eventually the ax felled the tree; two years after the book came out, it made the New York Times best seller list, where it stayed for many months.

Where can you apply the rule of five in your life? Can you make a five-minute phone call of encouragement to one of your leaders every day? Or send five ‘thank-you’ emails each morning? Or read five pages of a book each day? Or review five memory verses?

As you survey the areas of your life and ministry that present the greatest opportunities for growth, think about how you can apply Canfield’s Rule of Five. How can you take five strong swings at the tree day after day?

Solomon said, “He who works his land will have abundant food.” (Proverbs 12:11) The rule of five is a great way to start working your land.

As a ship approached the coast of New England, a heavy fog set in. The ship’s radar detected what appeared to be another vessel in its path, so the captain sent the following message: “Change your course 10 degrees port.”

Shortly they received a reply: “Change YOUR course 10 degree starboard.”

The captain became annoyed and said: “I am a Lt. Commander of the U.S. Navy. Change your course.”

This was the response: “I am a seaman 3rd class. Change your course.”

By now the captain was furious. His message read: “This is a battleship! Change your course.”

Moments later a message came across the wire that said: “This is a Lighthouse! Change Your Course!”

……………………………………

There are certain laws at work in the universe, and no amount of power, or money, or influence can change them.

These laws are God’s laws. He designed them to work for us, not against us. In order for this to happen, we sometimes have to change our course. His laws don’t change; we must change.

When we try to find happiness, fulfillment, and meaning in life through any method other than a personal relationship with God, we are setting ourselves up for failure.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can change our course at anytime. We can choose life over death; we can choose spiritual blessings over self-destruction.

God doesn’t change his course to accommodate us, but if we are willing to change our course, to chart the path of lives in his direction, he will to open his arms wide to receive us, and will shower us with blessings from heaven. These are his words…

“I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live, and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life…” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

Every success-oriented seminar I’ve attended has challenged me to set BIG GOALS in all areas of life: family, finances, health, career, etc. It’s not bad avice; we all need to push ourselves to improve in every possible way.

But this year I’m encouraging you to place one goal ahead of all the others. I’m encouraging you to zero in on one specific thing — maybe your weight or your marriage or your income — and decide now that you will give this one item top priority in 2009. Decide now that in the next 12 months, even if you fail at everything else, you will see progress in this one area. 

If you’re like me, your list of needed improvements is long. All of them are important or they wouldn’t have made the list. But one of them is a little more special to you, or a little more urgent. Circle it. Think about it. Pray about it. Read about it. And decide today that this is the one you will conquer in 2009.

George Burns said, “I honestly think it’s better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.”

This year you can focus your time and attention on the mundane: making money, paying bills, getting ahead — or you can focus on your passion: doing those things that don’t seem like work, but it feels so good getting them done. Such as writing songs, or working on a novel, or fixing someone’s car, or fixing their computer, or fixing their lunch.

Yeah, the bills have to be paid and you’ve got to earn a living. But don’t forget to do each day something you love. It may never bring you big success — not in the sense that it will pay for a home by the beach — but it will bring you more satisfaction than you can measure.

For the last few years I have made it a point to read these words from C.S. Lewis on Janaury 1. (This the first reading in a volume of his writings called The Business of Heaven.)  In Mere Christianity, he wrote…

“The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.

We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us.”

So let’s make it our first job each day — throughout the entire year — to listen to the quieter voice, and letting Christ lead us into his presence, 24 hours at a time.