Success has made failures of many men.

Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.

If at first you don't succeed you're running about average.

Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one, and Helen Keller is the other.

We should not measure our success in ministry by counting, but we are human and we count. What we count determines how we minster!

I think of a pastor in Argentina when revival came. He was feeling a bit proud and said, "Lord, look at all these people coming to the church! There are hundreds standing outside who can't get in." One day when he was passing a graveyard, the Lord said, "That's growing too."

A poet in history is divine, but a poet in the next room is a joke.

To laugh often and much: To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded.

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

He isn't impressed so much with the dimensions of our work as the love with which it is done.

Every society honours its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.

Perhaps I would have been more success as a long-distance runner if I had gone into training, and given up smoking and drinking, and kept regular hours.

Most Christians are affected far more than they know by the standards and methods of the surrounding world. In these days when power and size and speed are almost universally admired, it seems to me particularly important to study afresh the "weakness", the "smallness of entry", and the "slowness" of God as He begins His vast work of reconstructing His disordered world. We are all tempted to take short cuts, to work for quick results, and to evade painful sacrifice. It is therefore essential that we should look again at love incarnate in a human being, to see God Himself at work within the limitations of human personality, and to base our methods on what we see Him do.

Prosperity tries the fortunate: adversity the great.

I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.

Every person who has mastered a profession is a skeptic concerning it.

The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win you're still a rat.

The secret of success is making your vocation your vacation.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.

Put a dollar bill on the underside of a few chairs in the room. At some point in the talk have everyone stand and lift their chairs over their heads. "Sometimes you have to get off your butt to make a buck!"

Men have pursued joy in every avenue imaginable. Some have successfully found it while others have not. Perhaps it would be easier to describe where joy cannot be found: Not in Unbelief -- Voltaire was an infidel of the most pronounced type. He wrote: "I wish I had never been born." Not in Pleasure -- Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure if anyone did. He wrote: "The worm, the canker, and grief are mine alone." Not in Money -- Jay Gould, the American millionaire, had plenty of that. When dying, he said: "I suppose I am the most miserable man on earth." Not in Position and Fame -- Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more than his share of both. He wrote: "Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret." Not in Military Glory -- Alexander the Great conquered the known world in his day. Having done so, he wept in his tent, before he said, "There are no more worlds to conquer." Where then is real joy found? -- the answer is simple, in Christ alone. The Bible Friend, Turning Point, May, 1993

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

Michael Jordan will make over $300 000 a game : $10 000 a minute, assuming he averages about 30 minutes per game. Assuming $40 million in endorsements this year, he’ll be making $178100 a day (working or not)! Assuming he sleeps 7 hours a night, he makes $52 000 every night while visions of sugarplums dance in his head. If he goes to see a movie, it’ll cost him $7 , but he’ll make $18 550 while he’s there. If he decides to have a 5 minute egg, he’ll make $618 while boiling it. He makes $7 415 per hour more than the minimum wage (after the wage hike). He’ll make $3 710 while watching each episode of Friends. If he wanted to save up for a new Acura NSX ($90 000) it would take him a whole 12 hours. If someone were to hand him his salary and endorsement money, they would have to do it at the rate of $2 every second. He’d probably pay around $200 for a nice round of golf, but will be reimbursed $33 390 for that round. Assuming he puts the federal maximum of 15% of his income into his tax deferred account, he will hit the federal cap of $9 500 for such accounts at 8:30 a.m. on January 1st, 1998. If you were given a tenth of a penny for every dollar he made, you’d be living comfortably at $65 000 a year. He’ll make about $19.60 while watching the hundred meter dash in the Olympics. He’ll make about $15600 while the Boston Marathon is being run. While the common person is spending about $20 for a meal in his trendy Chicago restaurant, he’ll pull in about $5600. Next year he’ll make more than twice as much as all of our past presidents for all their terms combined. Amazing, isn’t it? BUT: Jordan will have to save 100% of his income for 270 years to have a net worth equivalent to that of Bill Gates today !

At the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924 the sport of canoe racing was added to the list of international competitions. The favorite team in the four-man canoe race was the United States team. One member of that team was a young man by the name of Bill Havens. As the time for the Olympics neared, it became clear that Bill's wife would give birth to her first child about the time that Bill would be competing in the Paris Games. In 1924 there were no jet airliners from Paris to the United States, only slow-moving ocean-going ships. And so Bill found himself in a dilemma. Should he go to Paris and risk not being at his wife's side when their first child was born? Or should he withdraw from the team and remain behind. Bill's wife insisted that he go to Paris. After all, he had been working towards this for all these years. It was the culmination of a life-long dream. Clearly the decision was not easy for Bill to make. Finally, after much soul searching, Bill decided to withdraw from the competition and remain behind with his wife so that he could be with her when their first child arrived. Bill considered being at her side a higher priority than going to Paris to fulfill a life-long dream. To make a long story short, the United States four-man canoe team won the gold medal at the Paris Olympics. And Bill's wife was late in giving birth to her first child. She was so late that Bill could have competed in the event and returned home in time to be with her when she gave birth. People said, "What a shame." But Bill said he had no regrets. After all, his commitment to his wife was more important then, and it still was now. The story of Bill Havens is a story of how one man paid a high price to fulfill a commitment to someone he loved. _________________ If the above illustration is used offer this sequel near the end of your sermon: There is a sequel to the story of Bill Havens. The child eventually born to Bill and his wife was a boy, whom they named Frank. Twenty-eight years later, in 1952, Bill received a cablegram from Frank. It was sent from Helsinki, Finland, where the 1952 Olympics were being held. The cablegram read, and I quote it exactly: "Dad, I won. I'm bringing home the gold medal you lost while waiting for me to be born." Frank Havens had just won the gold medal for the United States in the canoe-racing event, a medal his father had dreamed of winning but never did. There is a sequel to our acts of commitment as well, our commitments to one another, and our commitment to God. We reap the abundant harvest of righteousness. We reap a harvest of joy and peace that endures forever

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."

"To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions."

"At thirty-seven," wrote one biographer, "Grant had to go back and admit that he was still a failure. The boy who could not bargain for a horse had become a man who could not bring in a crop of potatoes or collect a batch of bills. It was humiliating." Why, with all these failures, was he so successful as a military leader? The answer lies in his character. I was amused when I asked this question of General Schwazkopf, who responded, "I would have failed too selling firewood, farming, clerking in a store, and bill collecting."

Two hundred years ago in America people were scared of wolves. In fact, bounties were paid for killing wolves. Nowadays if you kill a wolf you get a fine! This is a powerful metaphor: if you kill enough wolves pretty soon you need to protect them. (this is not verbatim)

A sports writer was invited for dinner at the residence of golfing legend Arnold Palmer. He arrived a bit early and Mrs. Palmer met him, invited him in, and said her husband would be down in a moment. The writer asked if, while he was waiting, he could see Palmer's trophy room. She replied, "Oh, we don't have such a room." That night, the writer asked the golf pro why he didn't have all his trophies on display--over 90 tour victories, a number of them major tournaments. Palmer looked the columnist right in the eye and replied, "For what? That's yesterday's news!" Then he explained: "I have enjoyed every victory and cherished the memories. I have celebrated those tournaments. But come Monday morning of the next week, I'm no different from the man who missed the cut last week. In fact, he is probably more hungry for a victory than I. So if I am to be competitively ready, I must get my thoughts off yesterday and deal with today. There will be a day when I can take the time to look back. But as long as I want to stay competitive, I must never stop and marvel at what I have accomplished, only look forward to my next challenge at hand."

Nine requisites for contented living: 1. Health enough to make work a pleasure. 2. Wealth enough to support your needs. 3. Strength enough to battle difficulties and overcome them. 4. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. 5. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. 6. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor. 7. Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others. 8. Faith enough to make real the things of God. 9. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.

Are You Afraid Of Success? The conversation about performance in any walk of life often turns to those individuals who struggle in their assignments because something is missing. They lack certain skills. Social graces are wanting. Whatever it is they need to do their work does not come together in a consistent way. Knowing this to be the case some go through life with an ever-present fear of failure. There is another group that gets far less attention but they, too, have a fear. It is a fear of success. This is the type of individual that gets close to achieving something significant or reaching a long sought goal. Then as if on cue, they begin to self-destruct. While this condition was first brought to my attention in my work with executives, there is application here for church leaders as well. Since I am not a psychologist, I will not attempt to work through a detailed explanation of this syndrome. At the end of this article, you will find a list of books on this subject that might be helpful to you, and the individuals with whom you work in your role as a church champion. I propose that you print out this edition of UPDATE and take the test listed below. You may discover something about yourself that would help explain the direction your life has taken. Those in pastoral ministry and denominational leadership are capable of self-destructing, but it need not be so. Maybe you can work on prevention thereby avoiding a situation that might be damaging to you, your family, as well as those you serve. Here's the test: If these statements apply to you, answer yes. Then figure your score as described below... 1. I generally feel guilty about my own happiness if a friend tells me that he/she's depressed. 2. I frequently find myself not telling others about my good luck so they won't have to feel envious. 3. I have trouble saying no to people. 4. Before getting down to work on a project, I suddenly find a whole bunch of other things to take care of first. 5. I tend to believe that people who look out for themselves first are selfish. 6. When someone I know well succeeds at something, I usually feel that I've lost out in comparison. 7. I rarely have trouble concentrating on something for a long period of time. 8. When I have to ask others for their help, I feel that I'm being bothersome. 9. I often compromise in situations to avoid conflict. 10. When I've made a decision, I usually stick with it. 11. I feel self-conscious when someone who "counts" compliments me. 12. When I'm involved in a competitive activity (sports, a game, work), I'm often so concerned with how well I'm doing that I don't enjoy the activity as much as I could. 13. A sure fire way to end up disappointed is to want something too much. 14. Instead of wanting to celebrate, I feel let down after completing an important task or project. 15. Mostly, I feel that I measure up to the standards that I set for myself. 16. When things seem to be going really well for me, I get uneasy that I'll do something to ruin it. SCORING: Give yourself one point for every question you answered yes to, except Nos. 7, 10, and 15. For each of those, subtract one point if you answered yes. Anything under 5 points means you're basically okay. Between 5 and 10 points, you're moderately at risk for self-sabotaging behavior. Between 10 and 16, you have a problem. Get some help. *Source of test: The Success Fearing Personality Some books to read on this subject: Your Own Worst Enemy (Berglas/Baurmeister--Basic Books); Why Smart People Do Dumb Things (Feinberg/Tarrant--Fireside); The Fear of Success (Tec--Signet) The greatest source of help on this fear syndrome may be found in the spiritual disciplines or practices of daily life. The Bible speaks to the issue of fear offering profound insights that are intended to give us encouragement and hope. A verse that helps me is found in 2 Timothy 1:7..."For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self control." Remember, fear is not of the Lord. To send feedback directly to Russ Bredholt, Jr. of Bredholt & Co. emails him at rbredholt@aol.com.

An artist walked into the gallery where his work was being displayed. “Has anyone come in to see my paintings?” he asked the gallery owner. “I have good new and bad news,” said the owner. “The good news is that a gentleman inquired about your work and wondered if your paintings would appreciate in value after your death. I told him they certainly would. He bought all 15 of your paintings." "That's wonderful," the artist exclaimed. "What's the bad news?" "The guy was your doctor."

The old guy fingered his worsted wool vest and said, "Well, son, it was 1932. The depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel. I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents. The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5:00 pm for 20 cents. I continued this system for a month, by the end of which I'd accumulated a fortune of $1.37. Then my wife's father died and left us two million dollars."

An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them The Mexican replied, "Only a little while." The American then asked why he didn't stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs. The American then asked "But what do you do with the rest of your time?" The fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full busy life, senor." The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could by several boats and eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and more to Mexico City, then LA, and eventually NYC where you will run your expansive enterprise." The fisherman asked, "But, senor, how long will this take?" To which the American replied, "15 to 20 years. "But what then, senor?" The American laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO, sell your company stock to the public, and become very rich. You would make millions!!" "Millions, senor? And then what?" "Well, then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

"I'll keep it short and sweet. family. religion. friendship. these are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business. "

In an era of freshmen ineligibility, crowds packed college basketball arenas to watch him play and then left before the varsity team took the floor. He scored 3,667 points in his three years of college eligibility, averaged 44.2 points per game, and led the nation in scoring three years in a row. He scored over 50 points twenty-eight times in his college career. When he left college, he owned nearly twenty scoring records. In his senior year, he was named College Player of the Year. He played in the NBA for ten seasons and was an All-Star for four years. He is among the top fifty players ever to play in the NBA and was the youngest man ever elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. His name was "Pistol" Pete Maravich, and despite his fame, fortune, and success, he was not happy. After his retirement in 1980, Maravich began searching for a reason to live. In his quest for peace and fulfillment, he dabbled in astrology, mysticism, survivalism, and UFOs. He even contemplated suicide once as he raced his Porsche over a bridge at 140 m.p.h. And then he met Jesus Christ. That personal relationship gave Maravich a new outlook on life and a new sense of purpose. Before long, Pete was sharing his testimony with anyone who would listen. He spoke about the emptiness of his former life without Christ, despite the fact that he had just about everything a young man could ever want. James Dobson heard of his conversion, and invited Pete to appear on his Focus on the Family radio program in 1988. After the interview, the two men played a game of pick-up basketball with several others. When the game ended, Dobson turned to Maravich and said, "Pete, you can't give up basketball. This game means too much to you." Pete explained that he had been experiencing pain in his right shoulder for more than a year, but that it had suddenly disappeared. "I feel just great," he said. Those were his last words. Maravich collapsed on the basketball court and, minutes later, died at the age of forty in Dobson's arms on January 5, 1988. Shortly before he died, Maravich sent a Bible to talk show host Larry King. Inside the Bible was this hand-written letter: Dear Larry, I'm so glad to hear that everything went well with your surgery. I want you to know that God was watching over you every minute and even though I know you question that, I also know that one day it will be revealed to you. My prayer is that you remain open and God will touch your life as He has mine. Once I was a disbeliever. When I could not fill my life with basketball, I would simply substitute sex, liquid drugs, or material things to feed my internal shell-like appearance. I was never satisfied. I have finally realized, after 40 years, that Jesus Christ is in me. He will reveal His truth to you, Larry, because He lives. -Pistol Pete

A news reporter once asked Deion Sanders why he chose to become a Christian. Deion responded, "It happened the night we won the Super Bowl. I just finished ordering my Lamborghini and I lay there in bed thinking every goal I had ever attempted had now been reached. Yet I was emptier than ever before. That was the night I got on my knees. Only God is big enough to fill this heart of mine."

A father noticed that his son was spending way too much time playing computer games. In an effort to motivate the boy into focusing more attention on his schoolwork, the father said to his son, "When Abe Lincoln was your age, he was studying books by the light of the fireplace." The son replied, "Well, when Lincoln was your age, he was The President of The United States."

Artificial flowers look good but they're not growing. A lot of ministries are like that.

You heard about the man who asked a mail-order company to send plans for a birdhouse. Instead of sending him the plans for a birdhouse, they sent him plans for a sailboat. He tried to put it together, but it just wouldn't work. He couldn't figure what kind of bird was going to live in this dumb birdhouse. So he wrote a letter and sent the parts back to the people. They wrote a letter of apology and added this post script: "If you think it was difficult for you, you should have seen the man who got your plans trying to sail a birdhouse." What plan are you using to follow Christ? One copied from society?

The Book of Heroic Failures contains a story about the 1978 strike of British firefighters, when the army filled the gap for the missing firemen. One afternoon the replacement firefighters got a call to rescue a cat caught high in a tree. The soldiers rushed to the scene, put up a ladder, brought down the cat, and gave it back to the owner. The woman was grateful and invited them in for tea. After a wonderful time, they said goodbye, got in the truck, and backed away—over the cat. This prompts the question, "Could that rescue mission really be considered a success?" Citation: Adapted from George Sanchez, "How to Succeed God's Way," Discipleship Journal (Sept/Oct 1983); submitted by John Beukema, associate editor of Preaching Today, Western Springs, Illinois

Satan now is wiser than of yore. And tempts by making rich, not by making poor. --

You’ve got to ask! Asking is, in my opinion, the world’s most powerful -- and neglected -- secret to success and happiness.

Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty, or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light or look the world in the face.

No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of goodness is the page of history. – William Hazlitt, 1821

Great men are but life-sized. Most of them, indeed, are rather short. – Sir Max Beerbohm, 1920.

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. -- Abraham Heschel

If you could only love enough, you could be the most powerful person in the world. -- Emmett Fox

The meek will inherit the earth - but not the mineral rights. - J. Paul Getty

There once was a man who said, "I will be original or I will be nothing." He became both. – Peter Wagner

As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information. -- Benjamin Disraeli

Many of you high school seniors are in a panic at this time of year, coping with your college acceptance or rejection letters. Since the admissions process has gone totally insane, it's worth reminding yourself that this is not a particularly important moment in your life. You are being judged according to criteria that you would never use to judge another person and which will never again be applied to you once you leave higher ed. For example, colleges are taking a hard look at your SAT scores. But if at any moment in your later life you so much as mention your SAT scores in conversation, you will be considered a total jerk. If at age 40 you are still proud of your scores, you may want to contemplate a major life makeover. More than anything else, colleges are taking a hard look at your grades. To achieve that marvelous G.P.A., you will have had to demonstrate excellence across a broad range of subjects: math, science, English, languages etc. This will never be necessary again. Once you reach adulthood, the key to success will not be demonstrating teacher-pleasing competence across fields; it will be finding a few things you love, and then committing yourself passionately to them. The traits you used getting good grades might actually hold you back. To get those high marks, while doing all the extracurricular activities colleges are also looking for, you were encouraged to develop a prudential attitude toward learning. You had to calculate which reading was essential and which was not. You could not allow yourself to be obsessed by one subject because if you did, your marks in the other subjects would suffer. You could not take outrageous risks because you might fail. You learned to study subjects that are intrinsically boring to you; slowly, you may have stopped thinking about which subjects are boring and which exciting. You just knew that each class was a hoop you must jump through on your way to a first-class university. You learned to thrive in adult-supervised settings. If you have done all these things and you are still an interesting person, congratulations, because the system has been trying to whittle you down into a bland, complaisant achievement machine. But in adulthood, you'll find that a talent for regurgitating what superiors want to hear will take you only halfway up the ladder, and then you'll stop there. The people who succeed most spectacularly, on the other hand, often had low grades. They are not prudential. They venture out and thrive where there is no supervision, where there are no preset requirements. Those admissions officers may know what office you held in school government, but they can make only the vaguest surmises about what matters, even to your worldly success: your perseverance, imagination and trustworthiness. Odds are you don't even know these things about yourself yet, and you are around you a lot more. Even if the admissions criteria are dubious, isn't it still really important to get into a top school? I wonder. I spend a lot of time meeting with students on college campuses. If you put me in a room with 15 students from any of the top 100 schools in this country and asked me at the end of an hour whether these were Harvard kids or Penn State kids, I would not be able to tell you. There are a lot of smart, lively young people in this country, and you will find them at whatever school you go to. The students at the really elite schools may have more social confidence, but students at less prestigious schools may learn not to let their lives be guided by other people's status rules — a lesson that is worth the tuition all by itself. As for the quality of education, that's a matter of your actually wanting to learn and being fortunate enough to meet a professor who electrifies your interest in a subject. That can happen at any school because good teachers are spread around, too. So remember, the letters you get over the next few weeks don't determine anything. Picking a college is like picking a spouse. You don't pick the "top ranked" one, because that has no meaning. You pick the one with the personality and character that complements your own. You may have been preparing for these letters half your life. All I can say is welcome to adulthood, land of the anticlimaxes.

Some young preacher will study until he has to get thick glasses to take care of his failing eyesight because he has an idea he wants to become a famous preacher. He wants to use Jesus Christ to make him a famous preacher. He's just a huckster buying and selling and getting gain. They will ordain him and he will be known as Reverend and if he writes a book, they will make him a doctor. And he will be known as Doctor; but he's still a huckster buying and selling and getting gain. And when the Lord comes back, He will drive him out of the temple along with the other cattle. We can use the Lord for anything--or try to use Him. But what I'm preaching and what Paul taught and what was brought down through the years and what gave breath to the modern missionary movement that you and I know about and belong to was just the opposite: "O, God, we don't want anything You have, we want You." That's the cry of a soul on its way up.

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

Winners are those people who make a habit of doing the things losers are uncomfortable doing.

The minute some people open their mouths you know they are going to be successful. Consider the young fellow who came to ask a father for permission to marry his daughter. The first words he uttered were, "I know a way, sir, whereby you can save a lot of money."

Most any pastor can help people in times of need. It doesn’t take a skillful pastor to visit someone in the hospital and be comforting. Moments when people are down and desperate are not the greatest tests of our ministry. The greatest tests are those times when people are not down, desperate, or at the end of their rope. It takes a real pastor to go into a family where someone has just been promoted to the presidency of the local bank and say, ‘Mary, I’ve just gotten the news of your promotion. So I rushed over, knowing that this promotion is placing you in an extremely vulnerable position as far as your soul is concerned. I wanted to come stand beside you during this time of potential temptation. Could we pray?’ [editor: It is also a time for celebration, I might add.] By: George Buttrick Source: Salt of The Earth, March/April, 1996

Julia Ward Howe, the social reformer, once asked Senator Charles Sumner to interest himself in the case of a person who needed some help. The Senator answered, `Julia, I’ve become so busy I can no longer concern myself with individuals.’ Julia replied, `Charles, that is quite remarkable. Even God hasn’t reached that stage yet!’

Success is that old ABC -- ability, breaks, and courage. -- C. Luckman

There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: One is pushing down, the other is pulling up. -- Booker T. Washington

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self complacent is erroneous. On the contrary it makes them, for the most part humble, tolerant and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel. -- W. Somerset Maugham

If you want to double your success rate, double your failure rate. -- Thomas Watson, president, IBM

Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance. -- Samuel Johnson

People who are resting on their laurels are wearing them on the wrong end. -- Malcolm Kushner, Philosopher

Professional golfer Paul Azinger was diagnosed with cancer at age 33. He had just won a PGA championship and had ten tournament victories to his credit. He wrote, "A genuine feeling of fear came over me. I could die from cancer. Then another reality hit me even harder. I'm going to die eventually anyway, whether from cancer or something else. It's just a question of when. Everything I had accomplished in golf became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live." Then he remembered something that Larry Moody, who teaches a Bible study on the tour, had said to him. "Zinger, we're not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We're in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living." Golfer Paul Azinger recovered from chemotherapy and returned to the PGA tour. He's done pretty well. But that bout with cancer deepened his perspective. He wrote, "I've made a lot of money since I've been on the tour, and I've won a lot of tournaments, but that happiness is always temporary. The only way you will ever have true contentment is in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I'm not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don't have problems, but I feel like I've found the answer to the six-foot hole." Citation: Robert Russell, "Resurrection Promises," Preaching Today, Tape No. 151.

Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.

I don't care about material things. It never meant Jack to me. … The only thing that I guess I would treasure more than anything else is the health of my kids, then my wife, then me. In that order. Everything else I could take care of easy . . . I'm here. I go to bed at night, you know, with four kids laying on your head. That's a lot cooler existence than being on the cover of a goofy magazine with the latest starlet. It only plays well to selling covers of magazines. It's a pretty lonely existence. I can tell you firsthand.

There are two different types of achievements. Regaining muscle strength after recuperation from a broken leg and making the last payment on a thirty-year mortgage are victories with fixed features that allow pride when attained. But the desire to be rich or to have higher status lacks this quality, for there are always others with more wealth or higher status. Hence, many who seek these goals are never satisfied and experience chronic uncertainty instead of pride.