Richard Craig, Author at GraceAndWorks - Page 34 of 60

I always hear comments that, “I gave a 110%.” Really?? How is that even possible? 100% would be the maximum, and if you gave 100%, what would happen? Would you still be alive? I don’t know, but it is something to think about. I really wonder if most times we even give 50% or less. What would you need to give your “All” or most of it. I think three things come to mind–Attitude, Opportunity and Preparation.  Those three words come into play whether we are talking about doing enough at home, work, in our relationships with others, church and with God.

I want to relate a story that happened one day when I was canvassing for sales. It was about 10:00 AM and I had been working for about a half hour when I came upon the house where a new move-in was. I stopped the car and proceeded to go to the door and knocked on it. The guy that opened the door must have been having a bad day because he was mad and told me he wasn’t interested and SLAMMED the door shut. I didn’t even get to say Hi, let alone tell him what I was selling. I was thinking as I walked back to my car, how could he tell me he wasn’t interested when he didn’t even know what I had or how it worked. It’s really hard to be interested in something you know nothing about. By the time I got to the car, I was really “Ticked Off” to say the least. I decided that this guy was not going to ruin my day nor was he going to get by with what he did. He had patio doors on the back of his house so I walked around back and knocked on those doors. Now you can imagine what happened next. He came to the door absolutely mad. However, before he could say a word, I said to him, “That guy that answered the front door was having a bad day and was really mad at me and I just hope you’re not the same way.” He looked at me and started to laugh, it took him by surprise so much that he asked me what I was selling. After we had visited for a couple minutes, he invited me in to show him what I had and how it could help him. The rest of the story is that he became a good customer and gave me several referrals. (I could have just left with a bad attitude and gone to the next house)

Without a positive attitude, opportunity (New home owner) and preparation (I knew my equipment and how to present it), non of the above would have ever happened. Are you doing enough” Are you going the extra steps to be successful? Do you have a good positive attitude? Do you know your job or profession well? Are you taking advantage of or creating opportunities?

In our Christian lives are we doing enough? When someone shows no interest or says no to study, what do you do? Do you just let it be or do go the extra step to find a different approach, change the attitude from negative to positive and set up an opportunity? I think there are too many times we give up too easy and, as the Apostle Paul said, “If they have closed minds and hard hearts, shake the dust off your feet and move on.”

Don’t move on too quick whether it be trying to do enough with family, relationships with friends, job, church or what ever else you may be involved with. Regroup with a POSITIVE ATTITUDE!!

We are all pretty familiar with both of these. I want to take a look at how they relate to life. It might be surprising to you the similarity and yet the major differences.

We’ll look at the Yo-Yo first. I, as I would imagine you also, have sometime in your life played with a Yo-Yo. I’m certainly not an expert with a Yo-Yo, but I have played with one. I see it as this round thing with string wound around the middle. You start it at the top and it falls to the bottom spinning around and around. If you’re lucky, when it hits bottom you can give it a little jerk and it will come back to the top. For me, it would come up half way, or so, and spin out of control. It would go every which way and eventually get out of control and get all tangled up and I would have to start all over. I’ve heard people say, “My life is like a Yo-Yo.” For some, a Yo-Yo can be mastered to the point they can make it do all sorts of things. For some it just becomes a mess–just like life.

A Roller-Coaster has a track that it runs on. It has ups and downs and curves in the middle. However with it being on a track it has stability, unlike the Yo-Yo. Very seldom does it ever jump off track. In this example life would have it’s ups and downs, but still stay on track. It would throw curves at you and still be on track. I’ve heard people say, “My life is like a Roller-Coaster.”  Many people are like a Roller-Coaster. They can handle the ups and downs, and what ever curves that are there, and still reach their destiny. They don’t get hung up in the middle and spin out of control like a life of a Yo-Yo.

In our Christian lives we deal with the same thing. If we treat the Bible as our track, study and do what God says, we may still have ups and downs and curves thrown at us. However, it gives us the stability we need to be able to stay on track and not get off course. Without God’s word, life can be like the Yo-Yo. Somewhere we get caught in the middle, spin out of control, get all tangled up and have to start all over.

Where is your life? Like a Yo-Yo, tangled up and spinning put of control? Or, like the Roller-Coaster, on track, able to handle the ups and downs, and the curves life gives us?