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Abundant Living Vol. XVIII, Issue 47

“Sing to the Lord with Thanksgiving . . .” – Psalm 147:7 

“Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us.  We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side.

We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.

We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying, through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.

Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know Christ and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things.  Amen”   (Book of Common Prayer)

Have a happy, safe, and blessed Thanksgiving!


Abundant Living Vol. XVIII, Issue 46

“Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.”  – James 3:5 

Big, I think, is often overrated.  Yet, we live in a culture that seems to promote big, applaud big, and thrive on big.  Big has somehow become the definition of success, the bigger the better as we have come to believe – big business, big cities, big schools, big churches, big banks, and big government.  We look up to, practically worship sometimes, big name people, the rich and famous, super-star entertainers, athletes, and politicians.  Like the majority of those in our culture today, I have spent my adult life living in and around urban areas, working for a huge international investment banking company, where I too became indoctrinated into equating success with size.

My formative years, however, were quite the contrary where I grew up attending small schools in a small rural community whose economy was driven mostly by small farmers and small businesses like the one my own family operated.  Everything was small.  Yet even there we were encouraged by our parents, teachers, and other influencers to pursue bigger things.  That is as it should be, of course, for they simply desired for us a better life, to reach our full potential, just as we desire for our own children today.

Over the years I have come to recognize and appreciate that big is nothing more than an accumulation of  several smalls.  Cities are accumulations of small towns like I grew up in, clusters of people and families who form their own community where they love, care, and protect each other.  Likewise, big corporations are nothing more than an accumulation of small businesses where people collaborate and work together toward a profitable and rewarding outcome.  It was the experience of living in a small town that influenced me to seek out a small town within the big city, and it was our family’s small business that inspired me to develop a successful small business within a giant company.

Big is often overrated, not because it is bad, but because we tend to view it from the top down rather than the bottom up.  It is hard to see living in a culture that tends to promote, applaud, and thrive on big, that big would not exist except for the accumulation of a lot of smalls.  May we never underestimate the power and influence of small groups, small communities, and small businesses, and “. . . what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.”


Abundant Living Vol. XVIII, Issue 45

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him . . .”  – Psalm 37:7 

Most of the major mistakes I have made in my life can be traced back to a common human weakness, impatience and acting too hastily, and taking matters into my own hands.  That goes from speaking out of turn, saying the wrong things, or hurting someone by something I’ve said, to making poor choices, to bad strategic decisions both in life and in business.  Impatience can blind us from our ability to reason clearly and to maintain faith that the right actions and best solutions will occur when the time is right.

The story of Abraham and Sarah is a perfect example.  God, you may recall, had promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations.  Yet he and his wife Sarah, who were advancing in years, remained childless despite God’s promise.  Eventually they became impatient and took matters into their own hands.  Sarah’s handmaid thus became the mother of Abraham’s son, Ishmael.  Except, they had acted hastily, for this was not the son God intended for them.  Finally, when Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 God did give them their son, Isaac, the one who he had promised.  All they had needed to do was “be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.”

Many years ago, even though my career was on the rise, I became impatient that I was not getting promoted fast enough.  Then an offer came I thought would be the answer to my longing for super success.  Instead my impatience had blinded me from thinking clearly, and my faith had faltered in believing that better opportunities might be in store.  The result was that acting hastily I made a bad strategic decision that almost destroyed my career.  But thankfully by God’s grace, as with Abraham and Sarah, that better opportunity did come along in due time, which restored my career back on the right trajectory.  In retrospect, it would have saved me a lot of pain if I had remained patient.

My grandchildren love to bake cookies with their grandmother.  But inevitably around age two they all did the same thing, they grabbed the cookie cutter out of Grantee’s hand then announced predictably, “I do it myself!”  You can imagine the mess that followed – flour, sugar, and cookie dough all over the floor.  But aren’t we all like two-year-olds in a way, impatient, acting hastily, taking matters into our own hands, then making a big mess?  If only we would learn to “be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.”


Abundant Living Vol. XVIII, Issue 44

“Is there anything of which one can say, ‘Look!  This is something new?’”

  • Ecclesiastes 1:10 

For many years during the first half of the twentieth century, approximately 1915-1950, my family, that is my grandfather and later my dad, were engaged in the business of operating ice plants in several small towns.  In those days ice was an essential commodity for keeping food cool in the iceboxes people kept in their homes.  Ice was delivered door-to-door out of the back of a wagon drawn by a team of mules from which the iceman would carry large blocks of ice into people’s homes every few days to replace what had slowly melted away.  By mid-century, however, iceboxes had been replaced by modern refrigerators which rendered the ice delivery business, and the iceman, obsolete.  What else became obsolete?  When did you last see a mule-drawn delivery wagon going down your street?  Can you imagine such a thing in this age of Amazon?

Times change, don’t they?  We all know that, perhaps better than any previous generation; for with the rapid advancement of technology times change in matters of weeks and months rather than years.  Consider for instance the iceman.  While his job did eventually become obsolete, his profession nevertheless had a lifespan of some thirty-five or forty years – or more – if my dates are anywhere near correct.  Nowadays?  According to one source I read recently, the average “shelf life” of a job skill in today’s marketplace is approximately eleven months, after which it becomes obsolete.

Times change, don’t they?  The writer of Ecclesiastes seems to disagree; except, I don’t think he is referring to methodologies or processes or technological advancements, rather of human nature.  Do we not face the same temptations of those who preceded us thousands of years ago – pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth, often referred to as the seven deadly sins?  Yet, don’t we still measure good character by the same virtuous behaviors the Apostle Paul called the “fruits of the spirit” – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?  Sometimes I get so distracted by these rapidly changing times that I lose sight of what – and more importantly Who – is at our very core.  Perhaps you do too.  “Is there anything of which one can say, ‘Look!  This is something new?’”  questions the writer of Ecclesiastes.  “It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.”


Abundant Living Vol. XVIII, Issue 43

“I press on toward the goal to win the prize . . .”  Philippians 3:14 

When I entered my freshman year of high school I had a dream.  That dream was to earn, as a freshman, a varsity letter jacket in a sport, any sport, didn’t matter which one.  For a little shrimp of guy like me with only modest athletic ability it was a tall order, or what Jim Collins refers to in his book Good to Great as a BHAG, a Big Hairy Audacious Goal.  To compound the challenge I didn’t play football, freshmen were relegated to the junior varsity basketball squad, and our school did not have a baseball team at the time, which left only one sport – track, and I wasn’t very fast.  I did have, though, enough endurance to run long distance races, which was my only hope.  But despite my hard work and diligent training I still fell short, never so much as even placing in a single race.  So, by the end of my freshman year my big dream became a bust, and I was heartbroken.

Then one day during summer break the doorbell rang.  I answered the door and there to my surprise stood Coach Higdon, our school’s Athletic Director, holding a package.  “What’s this?” I asked as he presented it to me.  “It’s your letter jacket,” he replied.  “But, but I didn’t . . .” I stammered.  “It’s for golf,” he smiled before I could finish my sentence.  Golf?  I had forgotten all about that, didn’t know anyone paid attention to golf or even considered it a varsity sport.  “You guys won the district championship in golf, remember?  That earned you a letter jacket.”  I was speechless!  But it was true, we were the first golf team our school ever had and by some miraculous stroke of fate, for which my golf teammates deserve most of the credit, we had won the district championship – and my dream, my BHAG, had come true after all.  After the coach left I carried my new letter jacket into my room where, all alone, I buried my face in it and wept.

Dreams and BHAGs are sometimes fulfilled in unexpected ways.  As Julia Cameron explains in her book The Artist’s Way, “We shake the apple tree, but sometimes the universe delivers oranges.”  More plain spoken about the shaking of the apple tree, the Apostle Paul simply says, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize.”  But the prize is sometimes a surprise, a bushel of oranges instead of apples, and often a more meaningful award than we ever dreamed, like my high school letter jacket.  Even more reason to keep pressing on; for God’s BHAG’s are always bigger and more expansive than our own.