Ecclesiastes 12:10

   The Houston Airport had a problem.  Over and over, a major complaint from its customers was that they had to wait too long for their bags after the flight.  So the executives worked to address the issue.  They added new staff, streamlined the process and were able cut wait time from as long as 30 minutes in some cases to an average of only 8 minutes.  Still complaint kept pouring in.  They did everything they could to shrink the time, but 8 minutes was about as fast as they were going to get.  Yet irate customers still bemoaned the delay.    It was odd because the 8 minutes was the well within the standard for most airports but other locations didn’t face the onslaught of complaints.  That's when the administrators realized the real problem.  The walk from the disembarking gate to baggage claim at Houston was a short 1 minute walk.  Most other airport the journey was 5 to 10 minutes.  It wasn’t the 8 minute d...

    An Ohio judge recently angered state and national defense lawyers after he had a public defender arrested for being unprepared for trial. The Portage County Judge had assistant public defender Brian Jones arrested for contempt of court after Jones refused to begin a misdemeanor assault trial because he said he was unprepared. Jones had only been assigned to the case one day earlier, but the judge still thought it was the defenders job was to be prepared.  I don't know enough about the courtroom to know if he was right, but it made me think about the case that I am supposed to be ready to defend.    In 1 st Peter 3:15, we read, “ but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;”. I may not be a defense attorney but that doesn't mean I don't need to be ready to make a defen...

  There is a quote I ran across a couple of years ago that still sticks in my brain. "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all" At times in my life there has never been a truer statement.  Works I immersed myself into that were not worthwhile.  Projects I broke my neck to do that had no real payoff.  Tasks I was assigned and dedicated to that were pointless. The jobs that are nothing more than the “busy work” of life.  I look back at the time and energy and effort I put into them and wonder what was I thinking.   But that is the point, I wasn’t. When you get busy on the task, your mind has a way of drowning out the why question for the buzz of activity. You think only about how you are going to do it, and the what comes next, rather than if it needs to be done in the first place.   It is similar to the effect known as Inattentional blindness.  Inattentional blindness is the failure ...

    I was recently reading a sermon of Steve Minor’s where he talked about how it seems today we seem to regard busyness a sign of social status. The more things we have to do, more activities and sports we have our children in, the more groups and good works we are in, somehow make us some sort of “all-star family”. Being busy has become a status symbol - almost as if a hectic life is equivalent to worldly success.  He quoted an article by Barbara Stanny where she described the phenomena as ATBS – Addicted To Busyness Syndrome.  The comparison was made that busyness is a drug for some. That over scheduling give us a sense of purpose and meaning; we are busy so it must be important.  We don’t have to focus on problems because we are too busy to think about that. The rush to get all done becomes addictive. To some their world and self-image would shatter it they were not trying to do it all .   This kind of lifestyle has been around for...