day 1348: Closer Than It Seems

"When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied."

Success and failure share a trait; they both, like the images in the right-hand side mirror of our cars, can seem closer than they really are.  Success can feel close, but might still be a ways away so we have to stick with it, don't take our foot off the gas, and don't assume that we can change course before we achieve the success that we are trying to achieve.  Failure, on the other hand, can feel so close that we start to get fearful and paralyzed of what might happen next, when we are still far from failing.  The truth is that success and failure are located just about the same distance away from where we are.  We can't over anticipate either nor overreact to what we encounter along the way.  I have seen too many people who make decisions based on not accurately knowing where they are on the road to either success or failure.

God can seem close and far, but here's what we have to remember: He is always closer to us than He appears.  What that means is that if we just allow Him to be as close to us as He desires, that it just gets better and better.  We can't go wrong in that He wants to inhabit every part of our day, our thoughts, our actions and our attitudes.  As we work through today, and the meetings, phone calls, emails, etc., take a moment between each activity and ask Him to come closer.  He will and the closer we get to Him, the more great and wonderful things can happen.  When Moses got closer to God, Moses could hear God call His name. Now how cool would that be? Why don't we find out?!

Reference: Exodus 3:4 (New Living Translation)

day 1060: Try, Try and Try Again

"Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “Listen,” he said, “and try to understand."

Failing is part of trying. No successful business or businessperson has gotten to where they are without failing at least once, and many have failed multiple times and still found a way to become successful. The key is learning from those failures and then not making the same mistake twice. There are few failures, outside of breaking the law or doing something immoral, that we can't come back from and live another day. Sure, there are many stories of those who bet the farm on a direction or strategy and end up bankrupt, but even they are able to find their way back if they work hard enough at what they are trying to achieve.  We have seen many a company that is on their last few dollars when they found a new way to hang in there and grow.  A few weeks ago we saw one of the largest banks in the world, pay a substantial fine for manipulating the financial markets.  It's a significant black eye, but even this type of failure will likely be overcome and if they don't dwell on the problem but instead work hard to do right, then they are likely to have this pass.  It is always interesting to me to see which companies recover and which ones seem to never bounce back. As best as I can tell it is about being true recovering and doing all that can be done to return to the public and employee's trust.  And of course, failures that are just because of trying something new, then "try, try and try again" is important to follow.

God knows that we will fail and He always gives us ways back to Him.  If we are trying to live for Him and we fail and then ask Him to bring and bounce us back, He will....every time!  All we have to do is listen to Him. When we work for God's glory His definition of success is in the continued quest to be closer and more like Him.  When we work for God's glory there is not any better work.  He cares about every little thing and desires us to strive with all that we have.  So, today as we go to our offices know that we have to try, try and try again!

Reference:  Matthew 15:10 (New Living Translation)