WARNING: What I have written here may offend you. If it does, I hope you’ll stop and think through the logic of it, and give pause to consider whether it might be truth. I’ll trust and honor the decision you make once you’ve thought it through.

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This Makes Sense: When you come to the light hanging over the roadway, if it is green, then go on. But if it is red, then stop.

And, this Makes Sense: Thirty years ago when I was a student at the University of Missouri and a fruity little company named Apple had just released their first MacIntosh I had a class where they taught us to write code. I don’t remember much from that class, but I do remember that they taught “If-Then” statements so that as the computer “thought” when it came to a fork in the road “if” a certain thing were true, then the computer did a certain thing, and “if” a certain thing were false then the computer did something else.

These “If-Then” statements about computers and stoplights make perfectly logical sense to us. We abide by them and don’t argue with them. They are socially acceptable. But now, I’m going to introduce you to an “If-But” statement that most people object to.

Similar, but Socially Unacceptable:  In a book written nearly 3000 years ago by a man believed to have been raised in aristocracy and ultimately executed because his socially unacceptable call to higher living offended people, a leader wrote to people saying that they had forgotten God. They were still acting religious but their religious offerings and behaviors were “detestable” because they weren’t offered from pure hearts. Their religion had become a “transactional business relationship” instead of a “love affair of devotion.” (How does that work in your marriage?) And they were far from God.

Isaiah challenged Israel’s behavior and then wrote this interesting, logical “If-But” statement: “If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land (sounds good doesn’t it); but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword (ouch, that’s bad).” (Isaiah 1:19-20)

I’m pretty sure I could gather a random group of people and get them to buy in on the “If-Then” logic of stop lights and computer programming, but when presented with the “If-But” logic of living under God, they’d rebel with much protestation saying things like “How can an educated and sophisticated man like you believe such a fairy tale” or “There is no such thing as absolute truth” or other such goofy, uninformed and intellectually weak arguments. Humans object to being ruled by anyone or anything—even themselves—and the notion of bowing before God the Creator offends their self-righteousness, and their self-grandeur.

The simple truth is you and I can’t be righteous in and of ourselves. Our righteousness can only be bought through the blood of Jesus shed on the cross. And grand? Well, yes we are—grand creations living out the grandeur Heaven values when we are living God’s way, doing God’s work, empowered by God’s Holy Spirit. Alternatively, we’re a heap of dung.

Not a very socially acceptable message, was it? Are you offended yet? Don’t be. Come instead and join me in bowing before a loving creator who wants more for us than we do for ourselves. Luke, one of the men who traveled with Jesus recorded this quote from Jesus “What Father, if his son asks for a fish will give him a snake? Of if he asks for an egg will he give him a scorpion? How much more will your Father in Heaven give……to those who ask Him.” (Luke 11:11-13)

God is good. He has good in mind for you. He’s got simple rules, and most of them are logical. This one certainly is.

All the blessing that Heaven can afford (stop and think about how much Heaven can afford) is waiting for you. If………

Do you ever “sleep nervous,” awakening in the middle of the night with important things you forgot to do, or need to be sure and remember to do the next day? Do you ever come to the end of the week feeling like you’ve worked hard, but haven’t really accomplished much? If you do, here’s a technique I use, that might be helpful to you.

Every Sunday night I sit down with a legal pad and spend a few minutes thinking about what I must accomplish in the next week for it to be successful. Once I’ve identified the week’s achievements, I figure out which one’s are the most important for Monday and write them under the MONDAY heading. Those are the things I do on Monday. The whole process takes less than 30 minutes.

On Tuesday I’ll take the next most important things and put them under the TUESDAY heading.

I think you see where this is headed.

I always work from the same pads. Some items flow from day to day, or week to week. But that’s OK. Something that got bumped last week because of an unavoidable delay, can get picked back up in the week to come. So these lists become a diary of accomplishments—-completed and remaining to be completed. They help to focus my week, and my day. By writing them down on Sunday night I sleep well because my mind can “let them go” knowing the items are “captured” and I’ll deal with them in the daylight.

Recently I’ve taken to emailing my key team members each morning with the day of the week and the word “priorities” in the subject line. On Monday they’ll get “Monday’s Priorities” and a quick note of what I am working on, what I am concerned about, what I need help with, etc. It helps them to stay on task with me, and helps all of us to be “pulling together in the same direction.”

These tools aren’t magic. They are just tools that increase my effectiveness. I used them daily. If they help you, great!

What kinds of tools do you use to be more effective? Would you be willing to share those with me?

I listen to ALOT of speakers and teachers on podcasts and in person, and have spent a significant amount of time on the platform myself which makes me horribly critical of other speakers when they fail to deliver a coherent message. By my estimate, that happens about half the time. Here is a tip I want to share and that I hope you’ll find helpful.

At the outset of your preparation answer this question: What is it I want my audience to do? Do I want them to take an external action? Do I want them to change a belief? Do I want them to volunteer? Donate? Behave? What is it that I want them to do?

The answer to this question helps to focus what you present. Speakers are constantly tempted to tell good stories that have nothing to do with purpose of their presentation. Time is too precious for that. You have limited minutes with your audience. If you are speaking to 100 people and you speak for 45 minutes, you just used 75 hours of time. If that time is worth $20 per hour you just burned through $1500. If you’re speaking to 1000 people worth $50 per hour you just burned $37,500 worth of time. You’d better say something worth $37,000!

If you are going to take someone’s precious time from them, you’d better make it worth their while. The best way I know to do that is to figure out what you are trying to achieve with your presentation, and then pursue that end with maniacal laser focus.

I remember my Mother’s apoplexy when I brought home a great economic treatise during my undergraduate days at the University of Missouri. My major professor was a Department of Agriculture Economist six months BEFORE Franklin Roosevelt assumed the presidency, and was on the President’s Counsel of Economic Advisors for Roosevelt. He was a Democrat’s democrat, and what I’d written pleased him.

In my sophisticated tome—which proved I had learned how to incorporate the heady language used no where else but in academia—-I argued about the need for increased governmental control of the commodities markets to insure a healthy agricultural industry. But my well-articulated piece evidenced my own lack of understanding of the American ideal—or the liberal brainwashing of academia, as my mother put it. I was arguing from the point of view that the Republic’s Holy Grail was well regulated markets. It isn’t. The Holy Grail of America is freedom; to answer to no man save God, and Him only if you choose—at least temporarily.

We live in the worst country of the world; except for all the rest, and that makes America the best. It’s the best because it stands for freedom above all else. Freedom to go where you want, and do what you want. Freedom to produce what you want, or nothing at all. Freedom to benefit from, or suffer the consequences of our actions. Freedom that extends endlessly, up to the point that exercising it interferes with the freedom of another.

There’s something more important than federal price support for commodities and orderly markets—freedom!

My friend and attorney Jillian Sidoti reminds me often of Thomas Jefferson’s words, “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.”

We’d all do well to remember that the foundational principle of our democracy is freedom. Everything else is subservient to that.

I hope………

…..everything gets better.

…..she gets over it.

…..I get a job.

…..I don’t die from a heart attack despite my poor exercise and nutrition.

…..the world changes for the better.

Hope, is not a strategy.

You may or may not know that the years from 1990-1999 were very financially successful in America, and the U.S. stock market performed well. Conversely, the years from 2000-2009 were economically difficult and the U.S. stock market sucked big time. Not long ago I ran into a stock market expert. He is kinda big time. He’s a Certified Financial Planner and has a nationally-syndicated radio program. He manages a very large practice with hundreds of millions of dollars under management. His son has a major league baseball contract. He’s doing well in most areas of his life.

As we did that “talk about the weather and sports thing” that guys do when they run into each other our conversation drifted to our work in the field of finance and he said “Barry, I just hope the next ten years (2011-2020) are like my first ten (1990-1999).” When I asked what he saw on the horizon or in the economy to give him confidence he said “Nothing. I just hope.”

Hope?

Hope??

Is that all you got?

People in Hell HOPE that someone will bring them ice-water.

Hope?????

Many people live their lives in a soap opera version of Fantasyland called Hope. They hope their marriage improves, but they aren’t doing anything to make it better. They hope the economy improves so maybe they’ll get a raise, but they aren’t giving any extra to help their company exceed the competition. They hope their kids turn out all right, but they won’t shut off the TV, talk, listen, and teach. Instead, they sit there and just hope—-as if the world just “does it” to them and they have no control over anything.

Here’s a principle for you: As a man sows, so shall he reap. It doesn’t say “As a man hopes, so shall he reap.” If it did, those folks in Hell would have ice-water.

You are not so weak minded as to believe that hope is an effective strategy for success.

Should you have hope? By all means! And it should rest on a foundation of right thinking, sound decision making, proactive planning, effective habits, and intentional living all bathed in prayer and thoughtfulness. If you’ve got those things happening, then it’s not hope, it’s faith: the evident expectation of a thing not yet seen.