From: The World’s Last Night, CS Lewis, pp 89-91

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Life on Other Planets

I…fear the practical, not the theoretical, problems which will arise if ever we meet rational creatures which are not human. Against them we shall, if we can, commit all the crimes we have already committed against creatures certainly human but differing from us in features and pigmentation; and the starry heavens will become an object to which good men can look up only with feelings of intolerable guilt, agonized pity, and burning shame.

Of course, after the first debauch of exploitation we shall make some belated attempt to do better. We shall perhaps send missionaries. But can even missionaries be trusted? "Gun and gospel" have been horribly combined in the past. The missionary’s holy desire to save souls has not always been kept quite distinct from the arrogant desire, the busybody’s itch, to (as he calls it) "civilize" the (as he calls them) "natives." Would all our missionaries recognize a fallen race if they met it? Could they? Would they continue to press upon creatures that did not need to be saved that plan of Salvation which God has appointed for Man? Would they denounce as sins mere differences of behavior which the spiritual and biological history of these strange creatures fully justified and which God Himself had blessed? Would they try to teach those from whom they had better learn? I do not know.

What I do know is that here and now, as our only possible practical preparation for such a meeting, you and I should resolve to stand firm against all exploitation and all theological imperialism. It will not be fun. We shall be called traitors to our own species. We shall be hated of almost all men; even of some religious men. And we must not give back one single inch. We shall probably fail, but let us go down fighting for the right side. Our loyalty is due not to our species but to God. Those who are, or can become, His sons, are our real brothers even if they have shells or tusks. It is spiritual, not biological, kinship that counts.

I hate to use 2 CS Lewis quotes in a row… but I didn’t realize it had been so long since my last quote of the POSK and this is just how it worked out.

I love it… totally love it. It is such a shame that we can’t have anything new from Lewis today.

I, too, have found it difficult to stand firm against all exploitation and all theological imperialism. It most certainly is not fun. Sometimes it seems like failure… and only my hope keeps me from calling it an outright failure… but fighting for justice is most definitely the right side.

Press on my friends. Be His hands… be His feet. It is never in vain.

I think this is the right moment to consider a question which is often asked: If Christianity is true why are not all Christians obviously nicer than all non-Christians? What lies behind that question is partly something very reasonable and partly something that is not reasonable at all. The reasonable part is this. If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man’s outward actions -if he continues to be just as snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before-then I think we must suspect that his “conversion” was largely imaginary; and after one’s original conversion, every time one thinks one has made an advance, that is the test to apply. Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in “religion” mean nothing unless they make our actual behaviour better; just as in an illness “feeling better” is not much good if the thermometer shows that your temperature is still going up. In that sense the outer world is quite right to judge Christianity by its results. Christ told us to judge by results. A tree is known by its fruit; or, as we say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world. The wartime posters told us that Careless Talk costs Lives. It is equally true that Careless Lives cost Talk. Our careless lives set the outer world talking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself.

But there is another way of demanding results in which the outer world may be quite illogical. They may demand not merely that each man’s life should improve if he becomes a Christian: they may also demand before they believe in Christianity that they should see the whole world neatly divided into two camps -Christian and non-Christian-and that all the people in the first camp at any given moment should be obviously nicer than all the people in the second. This is unreasonable on several grounds.

Mere Christianity… A classic text with numerous classic arguments. If you haven’t read it… put it at the top of your list.

If you want to read the book online… I found the text of Mere Christianity posted here.

If you want to just read the next few paragraphs following what I quoted above… just click the following link for the full quote in the extended version of this post.

He meant what He said. Those who put themselves in His hands will become perfect, as He is perfect-perfect in love, wisdom, joy, beauty, and immortality. The change will not be completed in this life, for death is an important part of the treatment. How far the change will have gone before death in any particular Christian is uncertain.

I think this is the right moment to consider a question which is often asked: If Christianity is true why are not all Christians obviously nicer than all non-Christians? What lies behind that question is partly something very reasonable and partly something that is not reasonable at all. The reasonable part is this. If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man’s outward actions -if he continues to be just as snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before-then I think we must suspect that his “conversion” was largely imaginary; and after one’s original conversion, every time one thinks one has made an advance, that is the test to apply. Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in “religion” mean nothing unless they make our actual behaviour better; just as in an illness “feeling better” is not much good if the thermometer shows that your temperature is still going up. In that sense the outer world is quite right to judge Christianity by its results. Christ told us to judge by results. A tree is known by its fruit; or, as we say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world. The wartime posters told us that Careless Talk costs Lives. It is equally true that Careless Lives cost Talk. Our careless lives set the outer world talking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself.

But there is another way of demanding results in which the outer world may be quite illogical. They may demand not merely that each man’s life should improve if he becomes a Christian: they may also demand before they believe in Christianity that they should see the whole world neatly divided into two camps -Christian and non-Christian-and that all the people in the first camp at any given moment should be obviously nicer than all the people in the second. This is unreasonable on several grounds.

1. In the first place the situation in the actual world is much more complicated than that. The world does not consist of 100 per cent Christians and 100 per cent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. Many of the good Pagans long before Christ’s birth may have been in this position. And always, of course, there are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of inconsistent beliefs all jumbled up together. Consequently, it is not much use trying to make judgments about Christians and non-Christians in the mass. It is some use comparing cats and dogs, or even men and women, in the mass, because there one knows definitely which is which. Also, an animal does not turn (either slowly or suddenly) from a dog into a cat. But when we are comparing Christians in general with non-Christians in general, we are usually not thinking about real people whom we know at all, but only about two vague ideas which we have got from novels and newspapers. If you want to compare the bad Christian and the good Atheist, you must think about two real specimens whom you have actually met. Unless we come down to brass tacks in that way, we shall only be wasting time.
2. Suppose we have come down to brass tacks and are now talking not about an imaginary Christian and an imaginary non-Christian, but about two real people in our own neighbourhood. Even then we must be careful to ask the right question. If Christianity is true then it ought to follow (a) That any Christian will be nicer than the same person would be if he were not a Christian. (b) That any man who becomes a Christian will be nicer than he was before. Just in the same way, if the advertisements of White-smile’s toothpaste are true it ought to follow (a) That anyone who uses it will have better teeth than the same person would have if he did not use it. (b) That if anyone begins to use it his teeth will improve. But to point out that I, who use Whitesmile’s (and also have inherited bad teeth from both my parents), have not got as fine a set as some healthy young Negro who never used toothpaste at all, does not, by itself, prove that the advertisements are untrue. Christian Miss Bates may have an unkinder tongue than unbelieving Dick Firkin. That, by itself, does not tell us whether Christianity works. The question is what Miss Bates’s tongue would be like if she were not a Christian and what Dick’s would be like if he became one. Miss Bates and Dick, as a result of natural causes and early upbringing, have certain temperaments: Christianity professes to put both temperaments under new management if they will allow it to do so. What you have a right to ask is whether that management, if allowed to take over, improves the concern. Everyone knows that what is being managed in Dick Firkin’s case is much “nicer” than what is being managed in Miss Bates’s. That is not the point. To judge the management of a factory, you must consider not only the output but the plant. Considering the plant at Factory A it may be a wonder that it turns out anything at all; considering the first-class outfit at Factory B its output, though high, may be a great deal lower than it ought to be. No doubt the good manager at Factory A is going to put in new machinery as soon as he can, but that takes time. In the meantime low output does not prove that he is a failure.
3. And now, let us go a little deeper. The manager is going to put in new machinery: before Christ has finished with Miss Bates, she is going to be very “nice” indeed. But if we left it at that, it would sound as though Christ’s only aim was to pull Miss Bates up to the same level on which Dick had been all along. We have been talking, in fact, as if Dick were all right; as if Christianity was something nasty people needed and nice ones could afford to do without; and as if niceness was all that God demanded. But this would be a fatal mistake. The truth is that in God’s eyes Dick Firkin needs “saving” every bit as much as Miss Bates. In one sense (I will explain what sense in a moment) niceness hardly comes into the question.

You cannot expect God to look at Dick’s placid temper and friendly disposition exactly as we do. They result from natural causes which God Himself creates. Being merely temperamental, they will all disappear if Dick’s digestion alters. The niceness, in fact, is God’s gift to Dick, not Dick’s gift to God. In the same way, God has allowed natural causes, working in a world spoiled by centuries of sin, to produce in Miss Bates the narrow mind and jangled nerves which account for most of her nastiness. He intends, in His own good time, to set that part of her right. But that is not, for God, the critical part of the business. It presents no difficulties. It is not what He is anxious about. What He is watching and waiting and working for is something that is not easy even for God, because, from the nature of the case, even He cannot produce it by a mere act of power. He is waiting and watching for it both in Miss Bates and in Dick Firkin. It is something they can freely give Him or freely refuse to Him. Will they, or will they not, turn to Him and thus fulfil the only purpose for which they were created? Their free will is trembling inside them like the needle of a compass. But this is a needle that can choose. It can point to its true North; but it need not. Will the needle swing round, and settle, and point to God?

He can help it to do so. He cannot force it. He cannot, so to speak, put out His own hand and pull it into the right position, for then it would not be free will any more. Will it point North? That is the question on which all hangs. Will Miss Bates and Dick offer their natures to God? The question whether the natures they offer or withhold are, at that moment, nice or nasty ones, is of secondary importance. God can see to that part of the problem.

Do not misunderstand me. Of course God regards a nasty nature as a bad and deplorable thing. And, of course, He regards a nice nature as a good thing-good like bread, or sunshine, or water. But these are the good things which He gives and we receive. He created Dick’s sound nerves and good digestion, and there is plenty more where they came from. It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost Him crucifixion. And because they are wills they can-in nice people just as much as in nasty ones-refuse His request. And then, because that niceness in Dick was merely part of nature, it will all go to pieces in the end. Nature herself will all pass away. Natural causes come together in Dick to make a pleasant psychological pattern, just as they come together in a sunset to make a pleasant pattern of colours. Presently (for that is how nature works) they will fall apart again and the pattern in both cases will disappear. Dick has had the chance to turn (or rather, to allow God to turn) that momentary pattern into the beauty of an eternal spirit: and he has not taken it.

There is a paradox here. As long as Dick does not turn to God, he thinks his niceness is his own, and just as long as he thinks that, it is not his own. It is when Dick realises that his niceness is not his own but a gift from God, and when he offers it back to God- it is just then that it begins to be really his own. For now Dick is beginning to take a share in his own creation. The only things we can keep are the things we freely give to God. What we try to keep for ourselves is just what we are sure to lose.

We must, therefore, not be surprised if we find among the Christians some people who are still nasty. There is even, when you come to think it over, a reason why nasty people might be expected to turn to Christ in greater numbers than nice ones. That was what people objected to about Christ during His life on earth: He seemed to attract “such awful people.” That is what people still object to, and always will. Do you not see why? Christ said ‘”Blessed are the poor” and “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom,” and no doubt He primarily meant the economically rich and economically poor. But do not His words also apply to another kind of riches and poverty? One of the dangers of having a lot of money is that you may be quite satisfied with the kinds of happiness money can give and so fail to realise your need for God. If everything seems to come simply by signing checks, you may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on God. Now quite plainly, natural gifts carry with them a similar danger. If you have sound nerves and intelligence and health and popularity and a good upbringing, you are likely to be quite satisfied with your character as it is. “Why drag God into it?” you may ask. A certain level of good conduct comes fairly easily to you. You are not one of those wretched creatures who are always being tripped up by sex, or dipsomania, or nervousness, or bad temper. Everyone says you are a nice chap and (between ourselves) you agree with them. You are quite likely to believe dial all this niceness is your own doing: and you may easily not feel the need for any better kind of goodness. Often people who have all these natural kinds of goodness cannot be brought to recognise their need for Christ at all until, one day, the natural goodness lets them down and their self-satisfaction is shattered. In other words, it is hard for those who are “rich” in this sense to enter the Kingdom.

It is very different for the nasty people-the little, low, timid, warped, thin-blooded, lonely people, or the passionate, sensual, unbalanced people. If they make any attempt at goodness at all, they learn, in double quick time, that they need help. It is Christ or nothing for them. It is taking up the cross and following-or else despair. They are the lost sheep; He came specially to find them. They are (in one very real and terrible sense) the “poor”: He blessed diem. They are the “awful set” he goes about with-and of course the Pharisees say still, as they said from the first, “If there were anything in Christianity those people would not be Christians.”

There is either a warning or an encouragement here for every one of us. If you are a nice person-if virtue comes easily to you beware! Much is expected from those to whom much is given. If you mistake for your own merits what are really God’s gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee.

But if you are a poor creature-poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels-saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion-nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends-do not despair. He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) he will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all-not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last.)

“Niceness”-wholesome, integrated personality-is an excellent thing. We must try by every medical, educational, economic, and political means in our power, to produce a world where as many people as possible grow up “nice”; just as we must try to produce a world where all have plenty to eat. But we must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world-and might even be more difficult to save.

For mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better but like turning a horse into a winged creature. Of course, once it has got its wings, it will soar over fences which could never have been jumped and thus beat the natural horse at its own game. But there may be a period, while the wings are just beginning to grow, when it cannot do so: and at that stage the lumps on the shoulders-no one could tell by looking at them that they are going to be wings-may even give it an awkward appearance.

But perhaps we have already spent too long on this question. If what you want is an argument against Christianity (and I well remember how eagerly I looked for such arguments when I began to be afraid it was true) you can easily find some stupid and unsatisfactory Christian and say, “So there’s your boasted new man! Give me the old kind.” But if once you have begun to see that Christianity is on other grounds probable, you will know in your heart that this is only evading the issue. What can you ever really know of other people’s souls-of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him. You cannot put Him off with speculations about your next door neighbours or memories of what you have read in books. What will all that chatter and hearsay count (will you even be able to remember it?) when the anaesthetic fog which we call “nature” or “the real world” fades away and the Presence in which you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable?

One thing I love about Team Expansion is that they allow me to fail. In fact, in some ways, it *could* be said that they encourage me to fail.

WHAT?

Of course, we don’t strive for failure, but I’m glad to know that the home office understands that it might take a few failures to get this church planting thing right.

After all, we are trying to establish an Indigenous Church Planting Movement here in Taiwan… a wonderful place… with wonderful people… but also a place that remains the only place in the world where people of Chinese heritage have not yet experienced a revival.

I don’t think our work here would be accurately described by the word “failure”, but we’ve certainly failed at times. We’ll keep pressing on.

Here are some stories that might help those in need of encouragement in the face of failure. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to plant churches with a new paradigm or start a business or publish a book or finish a degree or WHATEVER. Here’s the most complete list I’ve seen documenting the “failures” of various famous people.

They Did Not Give Up

Charles Darwin gave up a medical career and was told by his father, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat catching.” In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, “I was considered by all my masters and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect.” Clearly, he evolved.

Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He was fired from his first two jobs for being “non-productive.” As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

Rocket scientist Robert Goddard found his ideas bitterly rejected by his scientific peers on the grounds that rocket propulsion would not work in the rarefied atmosphere of outer space.

Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy were each cut from their high school basketball teams. Jordan once observed, “I’ve failed over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed.”

Johnny Unitas’s first pass in the NFL was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Joe Montana’s first pass was also intercepted. And while we’re on quarterbacks, during his first season Troy Aikman threw twice as many interceptions (18) as touchdowns (9) . . . oh, and he didn’t win a single game. You think there’s a lesson here?

In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after one performance. He told Presley, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”

Emily Dickinson had only seven poems published in her lifetime.

Jack London received six hundred rejection slips before he sold his first story.

Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate studies and ranked 15th out of 22 students in chemistry.

hattip: Newmark’s Door

What Christ thinks of the church is a question of great concern to all Christians. What we ourselves think of it from the inside and what others think of it from the outside are also important. But far more significant is the view of Jesus Christ himself, since he is the church’s founder, head, and judge.

From every standpoint the church is an extraordinary phenomenon. From its tiny beginnings in Palestine it has developed over the centuries into a unique multi-racial, multi-national, multi-cultural community. Other religions are rightly called “ethnic”, because they are largely limited to particular peoples; only Christianity can truly be called universal, for Jesus Christ has won adherents from every race, rank, and religion. Moreover, the Christian community continues to grow, in many places rapidly, even if sometimes the growth lacks depth.

John Stott - from What Christ Thinks of the Church

Yeah… It is profound truth stated with such clarity that is part of the reason why if I ever had the chance to meet John R. W. Stott… I’d stumble all over myself and be lucky to stammer out anything coherent like, “You write good”. DOH!

And to think that I used to skip over the preface and introduction of all the books I read… Here’s another book where the introduction paid off in a big way.

This Quote of the POSK comes from the preface of Stott’s “Exposition of Revelation 1-3″. I’m not through it yet… not far in actually… so I can’t really comment on the book. I just wanted to share that quote.

The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. He rests perfectly content to allow God to place His own values. He will be patient to wait for the day when everything will get its own price tag and real worth will come into its own. Then the righteous shall shine forth in the Kingdom of their Father. He is willing to wait for that day.

Sometimes I post a quote and comment… sometimes not…

This time… I do have a little tiny thought…

Why is it that when Hindus and Buddhists talk about denying self it is seen as progressive and desirable… modern and humble…. but when Christians say it… they are “weak” or “weak-minded” or “in need of the crutch of religion”, etc?

My favorite part from the above quote?

“He (the meek man) knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring.”

Once we decide that ONLY what God thinks is what matters… life snaps into focus very quickly.

I don’t have any personal commentary to share along with it (besides mentioning that I take great comfort in verse 11) I just want to put it here for you to read and enjoy and meditate and pray and ponder. r.e.m.p.p.

From the New Living Translation

Psalm 33:1-11

 1 Let the godly sing for joy to the Lord;
      it is fitting for the pure to praise him.
 2 Praise the Lord with melodies on the lyre;
      make music for him on the ten-stringed harp.
 3 Sing a new song of praise to him;
      play skillfully on the harp, and sing with joy.
 4 For the word of the Lord holds true,
      and we can trust everything he does.
 5 He loves whatever is just and good;
      the unfailing love of the Lord fills the earth.

 6 The Lord merely spoke,
      and the heavens were created.
   He breathed the word,
      and all the stars were born.
 7 He assigned the sea its boundaries
      and locked the oceans in vast reservoirs.
 8 Let the whole world fear the Lord,
      and let everyone stand in awe of him.
 9 For when he spoke, the world began!
      It appeared at his command.

 10 The Lord frustrates the plans of the nations
      and thwarts all their schemes.
 11 But the Lord’s plans stand firm forever;
      his intentions can never be shaken.

In the parable of the great dinner, the original people invited did not take their invitation seriously. A similar problem is treated in the parable of the hidden treasure. If we get something for nothing, we tend not to value it too highly. This is the risk that God has taken in inviting us to share the divine life.

In the parable of the great dinner, a symbol of the kingdom of God, we would expect that the householder would get huffy and say, “Since my friends and peers won’t come, to heck with the banquet!” He does in fact get very annoyed at the original invitees who did not value his invitation. But rather than cancel the affair, he tells his servants to go out and bring in the lame, the halt, and the blind. Even then the banquet hall is not filled. As a final effort, he sends his servants out to beat the bushes, so to speak, and bring anyone they can find, the street people and public sinners. These are the people who actually take part in the banquet. The householder shares the meal with them. Evidently God does not stand on honor but prefers to identify with us and enter into our ordinary lives and deaths, including the scandalous elements in our lives that the leaven in the parable of the leaven symbolizes.

In this way God reveals solidarity with us in the ordinary affairs of daily life, as well as in times and places of monumental corruption whether this be a physical disaster, mental illness, or moral degradation. Jesus exemplified the latter by eating and drinking with sinners, which was in his time the sign of belonging to the group with whom one shared table fellowship. The more desperate the need, the more the infinite mercy of God responds by living it with us if we consent.

Christian transmission, then, is not a revelation leading to high states of enlightenment but a participation in the mind of Christ. In this transmission the community–family, local, national, global the entire universe–is all-important. God is interested in the salvation of every human being and wants us, above every other consideration, to get along together in peace and harmony. If we can believe the teaching implied in Jesus’ parables, morality is rooted in this primary concern, and in laws and rules only insofar as they lead to and support the disposition of unconditional love. This understanding is exemplified in the parable of the prodigal son in which both sons treated their father abominably. He forgave them both without putting either of them to any test of repentance. The transmission of divine life is designed to empower us to think, act, and feel as God does, or at least as God would think, act, and feel if God were a human being. As things are, we have to do that for God.

I haven’t done a “Quote of the Period Only Squiggy Knows” for a while and I just read this the other day and thought that it would make a nice point of meditation as we begin the new year. It *has* been good for that purpose and you may wish to use it that way as well. Jesus often speaks of “The Kingdom of God” and as Christians it is important that we grasp what it (The Kingdom of God) really is. I suspect that much of the current hostility towards Christianity is *in part* a result of Christians forgetting what Jesus says that “The Kingdom” is like.

The book this is quoted from, “The Kingdom of God is Like . . .“, is available for purchase HERE, but it is also available at The Kingdom of God is Like . . . for free if you want to read it on the web.

… let me suggest that you follow what I call the 80 percent rule. When someone else, or even a team of “someone elses,” can do the job 80 percent as well as you can do it, let it go, unless it’s your “main thing.” You’ll get most of the gain you need, and over time, they will get better and better. Eventually, they will probably do the job better than you could do! Why? Because it will become their “main thing.” And it’s best for you as a leader to let go and stay focused on your “main thing”–your area of unique giftedness. Letting go is good for everyone. Less is more.

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Less is More: Leadership by H. Dale Burke

I’ve never heard of the 80 percent rule, but I know that it works. I also know that it is not easy. What is easy is to say, “I’ll just do it myself because I can do it faster and better anyway.” That is not leading people… it is more like babysitting them. As leaders, we need to remember that our job is to lead people in a passionate pursuit of a vision… empowering and trusting others is critical.

Myth: Car Payments are a way of life; you’ll always have one.

Truth: Staying away from car payments by driving reliable used cars is what the average millionaire does; that is how he or she became a millionaire.

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USA Today notes that the average car payment is $378 over 55 months…

If you put $378 per month in a cookie jar for just 10 months, you have almost $4,000 for a cash car. I am not suggesting you drive your $4,000 car you whole life, but that is how you start without debt. Then you can save the same amount again and trade up to an $8,000 car 10 months later and up to a $12,000 car 10 months after that. In just 30 months, of 2 1/2 years, you can drive a paid for $12,000 car, never having made a payment, and never have to make payments again.

Good advice… this is a great book. It is filled with great examples like the one above which will help people make better financial decisions.

Proverbs 22:7 (NIV) – The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

1
I have a Savior, He’s pleading in glory,
A dear, loving Savior, though earth friends be few;
And now He is watching in tenderness o’er me,
But oh that my Savior were your Savior, too.

Refrain
For you I am praying, For you I am praying,
For you am I praying, I’m praying for you.

2
I have a Father; to me He has given
A hope for eternity, blessed and true;
And soon He will call to meet Him in heaven,
But oh that He’d let me bring you with me, too!

3
I have a robe; ’tis resplendent in whiteness,
Awaiting in glory my wondering view;
Oh, when I receive it, all shining in brightness,
Dear friend, could I see you receiving one, too!

4
When Jesus has found you, tell others the story,
That my loving Savior is your Savior, too;
Then pray that your Savior will bring them to glory,
And prayer will be answered-’twas answered for you!

When I was in Jamaica in the summer of 1990 with Todd Owen , we stayed in the home of one of the local church members… I’m sure she had a first name, but I don’t remember calling her anything but “Sister Palmer”.

Sister Palmer was a Christian… but her husband was not. I’m apparently an idiot as I can’t remember his name either… but I’m sure I didn’t call him “Brother Palmer”. I didn’t even talk with him very much at all because we were rarely home at the same times. We did learn about the great game of cricket from him though.

Anyway… I remember one night when Todd & I came home we heard Sister Palmer singing. This was not uncommon because she sang around the house all the time… but when we came in the house we discovered that she was sitting by her husband’s chair with her hymnal open… singing the words above through tears. I’m sure that I never heard that song before that day and I’m pretty certain that I haven’t heard it sung since.

You might want to read the words again now that you have that picture in your mind.