day 1188: One Thing

“You must not have any other god but me."

I watch the smartphone category with much interest and intrigue. What I find most fascinating is that the market remains bifurcated along the lines of work and personal interactions and no one has figured out how to blend those two so that the working person actually isn't caught in between.  RIM (makers of the Blackberry) owned the working market. They had, and have, the support of the security people inside of corporations and government.  The President of the U.S. carries a Blackberry, so it's proven that they have the security advantage.  Unfortunately, they don't have an application economy and marketplace, so that means that a business person can't access those fun apps that others can, and really, just because we are at work doesn't mean that we can't and don't need a little fun at the same time.  They have tried to blend the two together by allowing us to have two firewalls but that still isn't enough to make them unique above all others.  The one thing that Blackberry has going for it, that all other other smartphones have abandoned is, the raised tile qwerty keyboard.  Business is about speed and accuracy.  As we all know who are sitting in front of a keyboard right now, a raised tile keyboard is the only way to ensure both.  Yet, I never see RIM featuring this, what is now their unique feature.  In each of out businesses we have one thing that the other doesn't.  Do we know what it is?  Are we bold and courageous enough to bring it forward and market, sell and stand behind it? That one thing may be the one thing that takes you to number one!

It is clear what our one thing must be and that is our full belief and following of God.  As early as it gets God laid out that commandment to us and told us to not put any other god before Him.  No, of course we don't walk around talking about our other gods that we worship, but as we all know it is easier than we like for other gods to find their way into our lives and move up in our priorities.  We have to be careful and always on the watch that we keep our focus and commitment to God first and all else second.  Work, our jobs, our careers can become our god if we are not careful.  Let's start this week with ensuring that we have our one thing clear and firmly in the forefront of our lives.

Reference: Exodus 20:3 (New Living Translation)

day 1144: Priority Shifts

"Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus."

Sometimes it is better to face it than to deny it; work can become all-consuming. It happens to the best of us. We have priorities and we reset our priorities over and over. God first, family second, work third. And then what happens is that someone who cares for us either gently (or angrily) points out that "we've done it again" and our priorities have turned back into, work first...work second...and work third. I've had it happen to me so many times in my career that I can't count the conversations and the looks in the mirror. I also see it happening around me all the time. Right now I have a very good friend who is all-consumed with work. He loves the job and company so he is happy and his wife and kids are happy that he is happy, but everyone knows that this period of never letting the Blackberry out of his hand or not having anything to talk about other than work, just can't go on forever. But, yet it goes on and on and before long years have passed. Why is it that we let our work take over our lives? The same work that we can't wait to retire from or get a vacation away from, we allow to creep in and infest every waking moment and thought? It's almost self-punishment, but I would venture to say that nearly all of us have had this happen to us, more than once. Last year a young man, who is wise beyond his age, asked me what to do to keep from having work take over his life. My advice was that because work is always additive (more to do, more to take on, etc.) that thinking that one can subtract work and fill the glass with something else will never succeed. Instead, other things need to be poured into the life glass that are important enough to displace work. Like the glass that is already full, drop some pebbles in to get rid of some of the water.

As believers we have the great additive to displace our obsession with work. Our minds that are full and flowing with thoughts about our jobs need to be freed by adding in other thoughts. God calls this prayer. Read along in 1 Thessalonians: "Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus." Note, "never stop praying". If you suffer from the all-consuming obsession of work and you find yourself caught in the priority spiral of work first and all other second, then begin to replace the obsessive thoughts with prayer and watch what happens. Start today with the top of your prayer list being a request to God to have His thoughts and His words replace the thoughts of work and then say that prayer over and over throughout the day. God wants us all-consumed with Him first and from there He will take good care over of us and over our work. There is no better time that today to let God be the one who rearranges our priorities.

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (New Living Translation)

day 1030: Happy Birthday SMS and Merry Christmas

“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”

From TechCrunch:

"On December 3rd, 1992 in the little town of Newbury, Berkshire, a UK programmer sent his best mate a few lines of greeting using a unique new technique called Short Messaging Service. The programmer, Neil Papworth, was a test engineer for the Sema Group, and sent the message via PC to the phone of Richard Jarvis, a Vodafone employee. The message was “Merry Christmas.” Vodafone intended the service as a fun and easy way to communicate internally. That obviously wasn’t the case. It took seven years after that first message for texting to take off, but now nearly 8 trillion messages cross the air every year. Adults 18-25 send 133 messages a week each.  SMS was, at least in Europe, popular for a number of reasons. Before inexpensive service plans, a single ring to a person’s phone from yours was used as a sort of signal that you had arrived or that you wanted to chat. This gave way to texts, which were often cheaper than “phone impulses,” relegating voice calls to the back burner. SMS began with pagers which, in turn, got their start in telegraphy and telex. Messages like 911 and 07734 (read it upside down) were ways to send quick notes to friends. This led to “text pagers” and the first BlackBerry, a two-way pager launched in 1999, with its “druplet” keyboard. Text, in many ways, became the preferred mode of communication in business and between friends."

It struck me that centuries and generations later, a soon to be standard way of communicating world-wide and the way many of us stay close and personal, all started with two very important words:  "Merry Christmas".  And as we know, Immanuel who came, for whom we celebrate Christmas, means that "God is with us". As we start this day and the rest of the month, how uplifting and powerful could it be if we started all of our communications, with "Merry Christmas" as a reminder of why it is that we celebrate this special month and that He is with us, even closer than that next text message.

Reference: Matthew 1:23 (New Living Translation)