Category: Choices

12/31/2021 0 Comments

Finding Stasis

Meditation
Daniel 5:26-28--This is the interpretation of the message: MENE means that God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. TEKEL means that you have been weighed in the balance and found deficient.PERES means that your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

10/11/2021 0 Comments

Triangulation

Meditation
Proverbs 26:20--Without wood, fire goes out; without a gossip, conflict dies down

Dr. Henry Cloud shares a concept called triangulation in his book The Power Of The Other. Triangulation sets up what he calls the victim-persecutor-rescuer (VPR) triad. I’m A and you are B and someone else is C. If I’m bothered by something you, B, have done, disagree with you or somehow feel victimized by you, this makes you the persecutor. Rather than go to you and share my concerns I go to C and share making C the rescuer. I want C’s support. This then becomes triangulation and it is always wrong despite the many reasons Christians contrive to justify this behavior.

9/14/2021 0 Comments

Disruptive Innovation

Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, coined the term disruptive innovation.[1] Essentially it describes how a product or service begins at market bottom and then inexorably rises in the market until it at some point, displaces well-established competitors. A small, new company that is weak on resources successfully overcomes proven incumbent businesses by offering what the incumbents overlook in providing their more established clientele. An example of this is Microsoft and Apple moving into the computer industry and turning it upside down by providing affordable desktop and laptop computers.

8/21/2021 0 Comments

Necessitarianism

Necessitarianism is “the doctrine that all events, including acts of the will, are determined by antecedent causes; determinism.”[1] The word first came into usage in 1825.[2] The philosopher Spinoza was the most famous defender of this metaphysical principle (the key groundwork of his Ethics[3]), considered as the strongest form of hard determinism which disputes the libertarian’s concept of free will.[4]

7/29/2021 1 Comment

Nebulous

I have a theory for which I would love to get your feedback. Earth’s inhabitants all spoke the same language when they were created. That ability to easily communicate fed their pride and they decided not to spread over the earth in obedience to God’s command (Genesis 1:28). They preferred to build a prodigious city with a colossal tower where they could make a name for themselves or, in essence, do whatever they felt like doing (Gen. 11:1-4). Because of their pride and idolatrous hearts God came down to their city, called Babylon, and decisively acted.

6/25/2021 0 Comments

I Identify As . . .

While at a golf fundraising event I saw a marine veteran wearing a t-shirt that proclaimed, “I Identify As Vaccinated.” It radiated humor but was actually rather brilliant. It subtly broadcast with absurdity the politically-correct notion that someone can identify as whatever gender they desire. As the federal government moves to require schools to accommodate transgender students not surprisingly there is an immediate push back. College of the Ozarks is suing President Joe Biden because his executive order on “gender identity” violates the school’s religious freedom by compelling it to force their students to share dorms and shower facilities with members of the opposite sex.[1] So let’s take a closer, deeper look at the whole issue of identity.

5/1/2021 0 Comments

No More Work to Do

Occasionally when I’m reading my Bible a statement will just jump off the pages and grab me. It happened this week while I was studying Romans chapters 13-16. Look at the two verses below and see if anything strikes you.

Meditation
Romans 15:23,24—But now I no longer have any work to do in these provinces, and I have strongly desired for many years to come to you whenever I travel to Spain. For I hope to see you when I pass through, and to be assisted by you for my journey there, once I have first enjoyed your company for a while.

4/14/2021 1 Comment

Degraded

When the leaders of the military set as their highest priority rooting out right-wing extremists and ensuring transgender Americans can serve in the force we can be sure that our readiness is woefully compromised. Who feeds the Commander-in-Chief his information? If it is people from the Palm Center the United States is in big trouble. This organization focuses its attention on America’s LBGT population and they say focusing on transgender issues is an urgent priority for military readiness.[1] Supposedly “recruitment, reputation, retention, unit cohesion, morale, medical care, and good order and discipline” are compromised by banning transgender Americans from serving. But they do not back up their statements with evidence outside their small population group. As someone who served in the military for 36 years I can tell you from my experience that their findings are absurd.

10/9/2017 0 Comments

Discretion

The dictionary uses the following definition for the word discretion—“1. the power or right to decide or act according to one's own judgment; freedom of judgment or choice . . . 2. The quality of being discreet, especially with reference to one's own actions or speech; prudence or decorum.”[1] Discretion seems to be an increasingly neglected concept in our society. More and more people freely express their opinion or take action either with little prior thought to the consequences or with the deliberate decision to cause harm. For example, on Columbus Day, a national holiday, police in New York City have to protect statutes erected for Christopher Columbus for fear that people will vandalize or destroy them. Instead of taking into account the pride that Italian Americans have in a famous explorer, protestors feel justified in defacing or tearing down his monuments because of the perceived harm he caused to native Americans.

3/10/2014 0 Comments

In the Plain of Remain

On Tuesday I flew into my headquarters to get ready for a key week. The next day with three of my leaders we would interview four candidates to choose our next deputy commander. My current deputy is superb—not just a great officer, but a man who will be a lifetime friend. Unfortunately, I’ve also had the challenge of working with executives who were inept or toxic. So knowing how vital it is to find the right leader, I did not get much sleep. When I woke up on Wednesday morning I felt led to get down on my knees and pray by my bed for wisdom from God and His divine help in making our selection. Immediately I felt His peace.

10/16/2010 0 Comments

Challenges

Meditation
Luke 14:26, 27, 33—If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, and even his own life—he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. In the same way, therefore, every one of you who does not say good-bye to all his possessions cannot be My disciple.

5/13/1998 0 Comments

Destiny

A tiny seed fell years ago and grew into a pine tree. But alas she rose in a place surrounded by firs and a healthy maple. The earth rotated and the sun shone but other more mature trees absorbed the light the struggling pine craved. Slowly, her lower limbs died. Her meager green needles only accentuated her brown gnarled plight. So with the help of Gary and Jim the sickly pine in the corner of my yard came down.

3/16/1998 0 Comments

Devotion

Meditation
2 Corinthians 6:3-10—We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. (NIV)

7/19/1997 0 Comments

Preparation

Meditation
2 Timothy 2:20,21--Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver bowls, but also those of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. So if anyone purifies himself from anything dishonorable, he will be a special instrument, set apart, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.

2/3/1997 0 Comments

Belief

The Sergeant Major looked over the railing as soldiers from his unit went over the edge. He had over twenty-five years in the Army but he had never rappelled before. As we stood in line, I saw no trace of fear in his eyes. He sought no excuse to leave the tower and climb back down the wooden steps. Instead he placed his trust: in the instructors who taught him how to tie a specially configured rope seat around his waist; the confident rappelmaster who double-wrapped his lines around a small metal D-ring and sent him off the platform top over the wall; the belay man 45 feet below, who was poised to pull his rope taut and break a possible fall; and the all important rope itself which would hold his weight and allow him to descend safely.

Photo used under Creative Commons from Rachel Maxey Miles