day 1366: Giving Back

"And I am praying that you will put into action the generosity that comes from your faith as you understand and experience all the good things we have in Christ."

Whenever a person, or a group of people, do well, others question if they are being generous enough in giving back.  We are seeing it clearly in the Tech industry as a group and I know many individuals who feel very much under attack only because they are doing well.  I have had that same attack from others and all that one can do is do what is right within themselves and then not listen too much to others.  That doesn't mean that we can ignore that we should be generous.  Blogger, Seth Godin, says this about the benefit of being successful and generous:



Here's conventional wisdom:
Success makes you happy. Happiness permits you to be generous.
In fact, it actually works like this:
Generosity makes you happy. Happy people are more likely to be successful.
A good lesson for us all.

Generosity is not all about financial giving. Generosity of spirit is just as important.  That generosity leads to good works, willingness to give time, energy and encouragement.  When others watch what we do, generosity of who we are can be a clear example of our faith.

Reference: Philemon 1:6 (New Living Translation)  

day 1317: Being Wrong Will Always Be Right

"Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life."

One of my favorite business bloggers, Seth Godin, writes: "Assume your plans are wrong".  He is referring to our inability to predict the future when we look more than a couple of generations out.  In his predicting of wrong, he is so right.  Whenever we become beholden to plans that are more than a decade out, we are probably going to end up disappointed because of the change that occurs around us that disrupt those plans.  And then add on generations of changes of leadership and personnel and who knows what will happen.  Ask Bill Gates about this as he readies to return to a more active role at Microsoft.  The company that he sees today is a far cry from the company that he founded and while he may know a few familiar faces from the old days, the executive suite is now filled with people that he wasn't together with in that first foxhole. We should plan strategically.  It's important we do so, and we need to try and look as far ahead as we can.  But, the attitude that goes with that far-reaching strategy needs to be open-minded enough that if things begin to change tomorrow, then we are willing to toss that plan out the window and redirect without remorse or frustration.

There is only one course for the future that we can be sure and that is God's course for us. In that we will never be wrong and we can always be assured of being right. We can never go wrong in keeping close and in God's will. We may wonder, "Does God really care about our careers, or our jobs, or even the spreadsheet that we have been slaving over for the last week?"  In actuality, He cares a lot, because He cares about us and what we do, how we do it, and how we do it with others, was all created by Him.  I believe He rejoices when we live and work to our full potential and like a parent, he hurts for us when we hurt.  But, He cares most fully in that in all that we do we put our trust and life in His hands for Him.  God doesn't clock out on us when we go to work, He stays right with us waiting on us to call upon Him.  God has a course for us and if we marry our heart with His, then that course will always be right.



Proverbs 4:23 (New Living Translation)

day 1305: Hopscotch

"I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry."

One of my favorite bloggers, Seth Godin, had this to say recently about the pace of how we we now work:

"We skip reading the whole thing, because it's easier to jump to what we assume the writer meant.
We skip engaging with customers and stakeholders because it's quicker to assert we know what they want.
We skip doing the math, examining the footnotes, recreating the experiment, because it might not turn out the way we need it to.
We better hurry, because the firstest, loudest, angriest opinion might sway the crowd."

Guilty as charged?  Sure, we all are, and we need to know the same about our consumers, customers and employees.  Internally, we spend time and energy on things that demand deep-thinking and reading the fine print for success to happen and then we are frustrated when our people say, "I didn't know".  This is not going to get better. With a 140 character, Snapchat, Instagram world, we are only experiencing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to attention-span deficit and hopscotching through work and life.  What to do?  We must adapt without losing the ability to place emphasis where attention must be held.  It can be done and those who master this will win the day.  Consider the power of visuals, sounds and stories that make one think and ask follow up questions.  If you have read this far...the answer lies somewhere there.

Our God is not a hopscotch God, thankfully.  He doesn't cut a corner or abbreviate His love and patience for us, but He also in return doesn't let us off the hook with how we go about developing a real and vibrant relationship with Him. There isn't a 140 character way to deepen a relationship.  Just like when we need to get real we put down the texts and we look up and into a face of someone who matters, the same can be said about our relationship with Christ. We need to get real for Him to be real.  God's Word, prayer, fellowship with other believers and time in church are the touchstones that we can't skip over.  If you are feeling like a few "things" have been skipped and hopped over that have left you unsettled at work or home, consider that it might be that you are skipping over the critical and most important and it is time to go back to the basics that will always provide comfort, peace and direction.

Reference: Psalm 40:1 (New Living Translation)

day 1249: Lose The Cynicism

"Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them."

I've written much about the ease of cynicism today.  As we shorten our messages and posts it seems our optimism and hope decreases with every lessened word.  Yesterday, one of my favorite bloggers, Seth Godin, wrote this about cynicism:

"Cynics are hard to disappoint. Because they imagine the worst in people and situations, reality rarely lets them down. Cynicism is a way to rehearse the let-downs the world has in store--before they arrive. And the cynic chooses this attitude at the expense of the group. Because he can't bear to be disappointed, he shares his rehearsed disappointment with the rest of us, slowing down projects, betting on lousy outcomes and dampening enthusiasm. Someone betting on the worst outcomes is going to be correct now and then, but that doesn't mean we need to have him on our team. I'd rather work with people brave enough to embrace possible futures at the expense of being disappointed now and then. Don't expect kudos or respect for being a cynic. It's selfish."

My Father said to me as I was growing up, "If you don't have something good to say, then don't say anything at all."  He was right. Paul gave us the same advice in Ephesians. Today, let's drop our cynicism and let's be the positive example of God's Words.

Reference: Ephesians 6:29 (New Living Translation)

day 1125: Skeumorphs

"Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees!"

Recently, author and blogger Seth Godin, wrote of his disdain of skeumorphs.  If you don’t know what a skeumorph is, it is when we take user interface from the analogue world and then transfer them over to the digital age, whether they really make sense or not. Examples of this are how Amazon and other digital reader manufacturers and software developers just copied how a paper book looked and is read in the digital age. Godin says, “This consistency of structure is the single biggest reason that motivated market leaders (in any industry) fail to transition to new paradigms--they insist on skeumorphic business models, bringing along the stuff that got them this far, even when it's unnecessary”.  I guess I see what he means but sometimes familiarity carries us forward naturally.  There really isn’t any reason that we don’t drive our cars by game controllers, but even the hardest core gamer might feel more comfortable in driving the all-electric-digital car using both hands and feet to keep total body awareness.  It takes courage (and funding) to break from the past, but sometimes it is the only way to become distinctive in the market place.  There are many skeumorphs that we can come up with, that someone, somewhere decided to carry the history to define the future.  This is a bridge we will cross in our businesses so we should be thinking deliberately about where being skeumorphic is a positive and where it is also signaling to everyone around us that our thinking is stuck in the past. 

When it comes to how we worship God, being skeumorphic is a great thing. Gathering together to praise, worship, listen, learn and pray carries throughout the generations.  I’d say that today, with our ability to gather as two or more on a Google Hangout for example makes the idea of church a positive skeumorph.  The same can be said of how we read and inquire of God’s Word. New does not need to replace the tested true.  I’d also say that God wants each of us to be a skeumorph of His example and testimony into the digital age.  The consistency of how we act, speak, use our treasures, and treat other people is what in our older age will become the lessons of life for others.  So, let’s indeed be contemporary and relevant, but do not fret or fight that how we live our lives as examples for His glory should remain constant.

Reference: Psalm 119:5 (New Living Translation)