1 Corinthians 9:26 A Sense of Direction A woman driving through Oregon over the Cascade Range ran into a snowstorm and became very frightened. Then she peered ahead and saw a snowplow. What luck! She kept as close to the machine as she could while it removed snow from the road. At times the heavy snowfall almost cut off her view, but her faithful guide kept on leading the way. After some time, the plow stopped, and its driver got out and walked over to her car. "Lady, where are you going?" he asked. "I'm on my way to Central Oregon," she replied. "Well, you'll never get there following me! I'm plowing this parking lot!" Do you ever feel like you're moving in circles, running around aimlessly? Who are you following?

An executive hirer, a "head-hunter" who goes out and hires corporation executives for other firms, once told me, "When I get an executive that I'm trying to hire for someone else, I like to disarm him. I offer him a drink, take my coat off, then my vest, undo my tie, throw up my feet and talk about baseball, football, family, whatever, until he's all relaxed. Then, when I think I've got him relaxed, I lean over, look him square in the eye and say, "What's your purpose in life?" It's amazing how top executives fall apart at that question. "Well, I was interviewing this fellow the other day, had him all disarmed, with my feet up on his desk, talking about football. Then I leaned up and said, 'What's your purpose in life, Bob?' And he said, without blinking an eye, 'To go to heaven and take as many people with me as I can.' For the first time in my career I was speechless."

A man died and went to heaven. When he met St. Peter at the pearly gates, he had a question. "Pete, I've been a student of military history my entire life, and one question has vexed me. Who was the greatest general of all? Was it Alexander the Great, Napolean, or some other?" Without pausing, Peter said, "That's easy--it was that man right there." And he pointed. The dead guy was stunned, "But Peter, I knew that man on earth. He wasn't a general--he was a janitor!" "Yes, but he would have been the greatest general who ever lived, if he had only been a general." How often we fail to live up to our potential.

Death twitches my ear. “Live,” he says, “I am coming.”

A whale is as unique as a cactus. But don’t ask a whale to survive Death Valley. We all have special gifts. Where we use them and how determines whether we actually complete something. -- Max DePree (Leadership is an Art, p. 145)

First and foremost, find out what it is you’re about, and be that. Be what you are and don’t lost it... It’s very hard to be who we are, because it doesn’t seem to be what anyone wants. -- Norman Lear

Better to die for something than from something -- Ghost (“Matrix”)

We realize that what we are accomplishing is a drop in the ocean. But if this drop were not in the ocean, it would be missed. -- Mother Teresa

The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going.

This happens in the midst of affluent societies and in the midst of welfare states! For too long we have been dreaming a dream from which we are now waking up; the dream that if we just improve the socioeconomic situation of people, everything will be okay, people will become happy. The truth is that as the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged: Survival for what? Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for. --

You see this keyboard up here? They didn't just make this keyboard and then say, "What are we going to do with it?" They had a purpose for it first. Then they made a plan. Then they built it and wrote a manual to help it fulfill its purpose according to its plan. And then they put their name on it. It bears their name. And when it's broke you don't call a bricklayer. You call the manufacturer. And that's how God made you - for a purpose, according to plan, and he gave you a manual. And you now bear his name. {paraphrased}