Morning Briefings

When we finally allow God to work fully within us, the results may seem like a miracle.

– Kenneth E. Grabner
Focus Your Day

What Donnie and Marie were really saying was, if you noticed, Donnie would be singing about how he’s rock-n-roll and she would be singing about she’s country. But Donnie would never say, ‘hey Marie, you’re lame for being country.’  They’d start out harmonizing together and at the end it would be this country rock sort of thing. In today’s day and age that would be, ‘Forget you, I’m not singing with you.’

– South Park Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone on
I’m a Little Bit Country, their 100th episode

Mine was a Disney World sort of life–inauthentic, narrow, utterly predictable, and largely devoid of any real meaning. The end to this illusion would come to me, as it has for so many, by means of a personal crisis.

– Joseph Jaworski
Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership

‘I do a lot of funerals,’ Joe said. ‘And there’s nothing sadder than a funeral when you have to manufacture something to say about the impact the person had in order to bring any kind of comfort to the family and friends.’

– Jeffrey Marx
Season of Life

Undertake not what you cannot perform, but be careful to keep your promise.

– George Washington

To be silent when they should protest makes cowards of men.

– Abraham Lincoln

If love is a battlefield, then running a business with your valentine means living on the front lines 24/7.  About a third of all family businesses are husband-and-wife teams.

– The Wall Street Journal
Married to the Job (And Each Other): The pleasures and perils of running a business with your spouse

Yet often it is from the failures that wisdom comes. When I reflect back on what has happened. I learn something about myself and about life, something I had not seen before or else had not held onto at the crucial time. I gain more self-understanding, the ability to see the wider picture, and the courage to be patient in difficult circumstances. And the openness of my heart to God’s presence and teaching leads me along the path of wisdom.

– Sacred Space

Wisdom is a great yet elusive gift. It may be that I often see, in retrospect, how I was more foolish than wise. I may have been worked up over something, and thought I was in the right, motivated by high ideals. Yet the end result was an unsettling one, leaving me and others more dispirited than at peace. Yet often it is from the failures that wisdom comes.

– Sacred Space

Among a younger generation of Christians in business, working as financial analysts and engineers is itself Christian service. Their mindset is captured by Dave Evans, co-founder of the videogame giant Electronic Arts. Mr. Evans talks more like a theologian than a former Apple engineer. He points out that Genesis says that humans were created in the image of God, so all of our work—not just church work—is holy. We are called to be co-creators, with God, of a flourishing life on Earth.

– Rob Moll
Doing God’s Work—At the Office, The Wall Street Journal