As you’re considering your influence or evaluating the potential of others, this list will help you identify leadership capacity or, more specifically, where it may be lacking.

• You’re waiting on a bigger staff and more money to accomplish your vision.
• You think you need to be in charge to have influence.
• You’re content.
• You tend to foster division instead of generating helpful dialogue.
• You think you need to say something to be heard.
• You find it easier to blame others for your circumstances than to take responsibility for solutions.
• It’s been some time since you said, “I messed up.”
• You’re driven by the task instead of the relationships and the vision.
• Your dreams are so small, people think they can be achieved.
• No one is following you.

If you have persistently and lovingly tried to give children wisdom and they haven’t taken it, don’t be hard on yourself. If God had trouble raising children, what makes you think it would be a piece of cake for you?

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT!

1. You spend the first two years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next sixteen telling them to sit down and shut up.

2. Grandchildren are God’s reward for not eating your own children.

3. Mothers of teens now know why some animals eat their young.

4. Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said.

5. The main purpose of holding children’s parties is to remind yourself that there are children more awful than your own.

6. We childproofed our homes, but they are still getting in.

ADVICE FOR THE DAY:

Be nice to your kids for one day they will choose your nursing home.

AND FINALLY:

IF YOU HAVE A LOT OF TENSION AND YOU GET A HEADACHE, DO WHAT IT SAYS ON THE ASPIRIN BOTTLE: “TAKE TWO ASPIRIN” AND “KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN”!!!!!

Go where the fish are.

Be with people on their own turf.

Be real, be vulnerable, and be honest.

Be creative.

We don’t have to do things the same old way.

Be spiritual, but not “churchy”.

Be patientBe ready for surprises!

Be willing to step out of your comfort zone.

Be on the lookout for where God is at work.

Be praying.

p.s. The entire gospel is represented in the above acronym. Does anyone know what it is in english? How about Greek? History?

I have always loved that story Stephen Covey relates in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

A battleship, Covey writes, was sailing through the darkness of a foggy night.

Suddenly a lookout on the bridge reported, “Light, bearing on the starboard bow.”

The captain inquired as to whether or not it was steady or moving astern.

“Steady, captain” came back the answer.

The captain growled to the signalman, “Signal that ship: We are on a collision course, advise you change your course 20 degrees.”

A moment later a response came: “Advisable for you to change your course 20 degrees.” The captain, Covey writes, became furious.

He spat out, “Send, ‘Change course 20 degrees. I’m a battleship.’”

Back came the signal, “I’m a lighthouse.”

An honest man was being tailgated by a stressed out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman hit the roof, and the horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, finger printed, photographed and placed in a holding cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door.

She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects. He said, “I’m very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. ” I noticed the ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder, the ‘What Would Jesus Do’ bumper sticker, the ‘Follow Me to Sunday-School’ bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car.”

General Oglethorpe once said to John Wesley, “I never forgive and I never forget.” To which Wesley replied, “Then, Sir, I hope you never sin.”

Maybe the Reverend Wesley based his reply on Matthew 7: 1 & 2 where it says we will be judged by the way we judge.

Or maybe Matthew 18:18 where it says “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”

In other words if we forgive the other person on earth then our Father forgives us in heaven.So there is an incentive for us to forgive.

Forgive and forget. Easier said than done, right? Well, now studies are showing forgiveness is not only good theology, but good medicine as well. According to the latest medical and psychological research, forgiving is good for our souls-and our bodies. People who forgive:

Benefit from better immune functioning and lower blood pressure

Have better mental health than people who do not forgive feel better physically

Have lower amounts of anger and fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression

Maintain more satisfying and long-lasting relationships

“When we allow ourselves to feel like victims or sit around dreaming up how to retaliate against people who have hurt us, these thought patterns take a toll on our minds and bodies,” says Michael McCullough, director of research for the National Institute for Healthcare Research and a co-author of To Forgive is Human: How to Put Your Past in the Past (IVP, 1997).

Forgiveness is to release, to let go, relinquish, get rid of sin—ours and those we’ve been victimized by.

When you forgive a person, this does not mean you are immediately healed.

When you forgive a person, this does not mean you are going to be buddy/buddy.

When we forgive a person, this does not mean we surrender the right to restitution or justice when appropriate.

When we forgive a person, this does not mean that we trust them, yet.

When we forgive a person, we are not avoiding pain, we are opening the door to healing.

When we forgive, we take the journey at the pace we are able to handle…the deeper the hurt, the longer the journey.

There is no greater gift than the gift of God’s grace. It is so vital that we remember where we were….how we were lost and without hope….and where we are now, saved completely, totally and forever because of God’s amazing grace. I never get tired of hearing it over and over again. I can’t do anything to get God to love me any more or any less. His love for His people is perfect, unconditional and forever!

I often think of how Barabbas must have felt as he left his jail cell a free man. I wonder how he felt as he watched the man Jesus, the innocent man Jesus, who suffered and died on that cruel Roman cross in his place. Did it change the life of Barabbas? How could it not? Visualize yourself in Barabbas’ sandals and let the grace of God change your life forever!!

Check out this story:

http://www.mmiblog.com/monday_morning_insight_we/2006/01/transitioning_c.html