The Way We Work
This is a modified version of a Dutch Baby recipe I found on New York Times.
Ingredients:
Directions:
"We limit God's glory to our victories." (paraphrase)
"Your five-minute story isn't how you've overcome, but how you've been forgiven."
"Shame is good when it belongs to you and brings you back to God."
"Stress produces adrenaline which produces cortisol which turns off your good thinking brain."
"Great sex helps manage stress and keeps a marriage strong."
"Fight for your marriage every morning like you're in a war."
"Create a culture of communication in your family."
"Prime your communication. Gauge the environment and mood. Watch how and when you say it. Repeat it." (paraphrase)
"The four horsemen of communication: (1) Criticism. 'You always' puts them on defense. Validate how they feel first, then talk about the content. (2) Contempt. Gratefulness pulls you out of pride. Have appreciation, not moral superiority. (3) Defensiveness. Taking responsibility will quickly diffuse a heated situation. Don't play victim. Don't be indignant. (4) Stonewalling. If you are going to shut down, ask to take a break."
"We are different so we communicate differently; different backgrounds create communication barriers."
"Four types of communication: (1) Passive. No communication. (2) Aggressive. Communicates everything at an expense. (3) Passive Aggressive. Guilt trips. Hidden attacks. (4) Assertive. Communicates with the truth and nothing added."
"What is the one truth you want to communicate in one sentence with no added fluff? Repeat it."
"Four types of parenting: (1) Authoritarian. All rules. No relationship. (2) Passive. All relationship. No rules. (3) Neglectful. No relationship. No rules. The worst kind of parenting. (4) Authoritative. Rules and relationship. The best kind of parenting."
"Boundaries show love. No boundaries show you don't care."
"Parenting tips: (1) Meet needs appropriately and quickly. Technology can stiffle normal brain development. (2) Build a culture of communication. Play with your kids. Physical play develops brain IQ. Your kids mirror you. (3) Protect. Know what's going on. Be involved more when they're younger and give them space when they're older. Balance protection with independence. (5) Avoid shaming. Create rules instead of responding with disgust. (6) Make deposits to their love bank. Find where they receive pride and accomplishment. (7) Be consistent so they can be brave. (8) Think about how your kids feel in your presence. (9) Foster creativity and curiosity. (10) Impose and model your values. Read Bible stories. Talk out loud about your faith process. Be who you want your kids to be."
"Do not try and bend the spoon--that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth... there is no spoon. Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."
"As fish are free within the confines of the water, so too us within the confines of God's law." (paraphase)
"Sunday is our weekly Independence Day from sin and Satan."
"It doesn't matter what college your children get into; what matters is what kind of people they are when they get there."
"By resting on Sundays, you have faith that God will provide."
"The technology didn't last, but the relationships did."
"If you know your identity, you know what you need to do."
"You don't work to earn a living; God provides."
"There is no relationship between how hard I work and what I get; God decides."
"Work is not a curse, but it is cursed."
"When we work, we do what God called us to do."
"We're not called to live by comparison."
"Holy Spirit-filled workers are the hardest workers."
"We don't work for our salvation; we work for our Savior." (paraphrase)
Direct, and be more direct.
"We must walk in line with the Gospel, not because we are trying to be Christian, but because are Christian."
"ReduxJS in 30 seconds: Redux is a JavaScript library that aims to simplify how we manage stateful data. Redux keeps all of our data in a single JS object called the Store. A single function, the reducer, is responsible for making modifications to the Store. We trigger the reducer by 'dispatching' an action - a JS object that describes how our data should change. The reducer function receives the action as an argument and makes changes accordingly. Other parts of the code (usually React Components) can subscribe to data in the Store. When data changes, Redux notifies subscribers of the change."
"9 things I wish someone had told me:
"We want to love each other bug we need to love one another."
"We are a grouip of believers not behaviors."
"Our home is our mission."
"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."
"The blessing of spiritual dryness is that it turns you back to God."
"The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away."
"Boredom shows up quietly and appears to pose no immediate threat. This makes it both easy to address and easy to ignore."
"A great workplace is stunning colleagues. It is not espresso, lush benefits, sushi lunches, grand parties, or nice offices." "The best managers figure out how to get great outcomes by setting the appropriate context, rather than by trying to control their people."
"Long hours don't necessarily mean success. ... Working hard is not the same thing as working smart."
"To decentralize decision-making, we assign missions to empower team members. This creates more leverage by allowing us to send highly capable individuals on missions defined by an outcome, instead of dictating tactics. Smart people will be motivated by the open-endedness. We only hire people whose judgement we can trust to the extend that we can set them loose on a project and know they'll execute. ... This also leads to ownership."
"Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size or fixed expense."
"When you're hiring, seek out people who are managers of one. What's that mean? A manager of one is someone who comes up with their own goals and executes them. They don't need heavy direction. They don't need daily check-ins. They do what a manager would do — set the tone, assign items, determine what needs to get done, etc. — but they do it by themselves and for themselves."
"Among employees who fail to meet expectations during their first 18 months on the job, 23% fail due to low emotional intelligence. That's the second most prevalent reason new hires fail, following only a general lack of coachability."
"Here are some key attributes of great managers:
"For the people who are in superstar mode--those who are going to drive growth on your team--what you want to offer them is new challenges. You want to keep them learning. The last thing you want to do is squash them. People in rock star mode want a pasture, not a runway... What they need is freedom to do their superb work, not a path to promotion, which may distract them."
"You'll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make. You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can't be going through the day distracted by trivia."
"Every decision you make uses up your mental energy. Just the simple act of thinking about whether you should choose A or B will tire you out and reduce your brainpower. This means that the more decisions you have to make throughout the day, the weaker your decision making process will become."
"The all-accepting 'you do you' culture is separating us further." (paraphrased)
"Marriage saves you from yourself."
"On your very best day at work, the day you come home and think you have the best job in the world, what did you do that day?"
"If you're a software developer, you have most likely worked with people who are not in the same office as you are. And you've probably not liked it. To improve communications with your distributed team make it fun and make it work. You have to go beyond simply being 'a Skype profile image.' Here's the secret: meet your teammates in person. That's it. Chatting often is good. Video is better. But there's no replacing that face-to-face connection."
"Don't just attend the church. Be the church."
"[Senior developers] should know when they should ask for help, but be able to function without it if necessary."
"Once you tie quantifiable metrics to raises and promotions, you remove the incentive for a developer to maximize value for the business. You replace it with the incentive to meet your metrics. I have not met or heard of anyone who has actually had success creating metrics that correlate to maximizing business value."
Watch How to Lead an Intentional Life on YouTube.
"For every item you've crossed off your list, you've become less and less distracted."
"To me, what makes a senior developer is when you can trust them to get things done without you."
"In the long run, we derive job satisfaction from non-monetary sources, which include positive peer relationships, the ability to work on meaningful projects and even leadership opportunities."
"About 98% of her patients continue working in some way after they are financially secure, she adds. For some, it's about a sense of purpose; for others it's a way to keep a much-needed routine."
"For example, ask the question, "How's it going?" and nine times out of ten your employee is going to say, "Things are fine" or some other vague, over-generalized response. You're never going to hear the real stuff. Versus, if you were to ask: "When have you felt frustrated in the past year?" you're asking an employee about a specific moment, situation, and emotion. You're forcing them to think in more literal, concrete terms, and giving them permission to talk about how they feel about working at your company (something that doesn't always happen all too often in the workplace)."
"While I believe there are circumstances that require all three styles of management, I personally prefer managing to favor my employees. What this means is that I make a conscious effort to make decisions and conditions that include benefit for my employees first. I firmly believe that this approach produces a bottom-up result where all members of the chain of responsibility enjoy credit. Whereas, managing up, or to yourself only produces value for one's self, and limits the scope of those who were involved. Of course, when things are not going well, limiting scope to yourself and taking the responsibility for the actions of your team goes a long way to establishing respect, commitment, and a resolve from your team not to put you in that situation again."
"There's a difference between knowing honey is sweet and tasting the sweetness of honey." (paraphrased) "Help people belong before they believe or behave."
"Money brings misery to those who live for it." "Make money to give money." "Manage money with a mission." "Tithing is not the ceiling; it's the beginning."
"It's hard to keep books upright without bookends. You must understand someone's past and future to know how to order the present."
"A manager's job is to guide a team to deliver results, and she's able to do that well in a sustained way--not because she exhibits power, control, or authority, but because she nurtures and enhances a set of human relationships around her. What's more, she's developed those relationships by crafting a long-term vision."
"I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand."
Management in ten tweets:
"Managers exist for a reason, and it's to make everyone's job easier, not harder! Our managers (who we call advocates) work with their teams to set priorities every week, month, and quarter. …there's a dedicated person in place whose job is to keep the wheels turning smoothly."
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."
"But if a direct conversation yields little change and, a month later we're in the same spot, it's time. Remember, a PIP is not a firing. A PIP is a tool to either bring performance into line with the expectations, or confirm that this employee isn't going to meet those expectations. There can be a hundred reasons for that but none of them are helped by maintaining the status quo. ... It's selfish to drag that out because of your own discomfort."
"We are not grown up enough to have the Internet. We need to turn it off."
"A layoff shouldn't be a surprise to leaders, nor to its people. It's not something that happens to a company. It's an act by its leadership when no other routes can be pursued. In other words, when a layoff is your way forward, you should implicitly be telling people that you've exhausted every other route."
"Layoffs are hard, even for a serial founder. If you don't feel awful after one, you shouldn't be leading a company."
"People watch. How you treat those who are let go after a layoff gives a big cue to those who aren't."
"But a core value of good management is that your investment in your employees pays off as they grow in scope and impact. Well managed employees make your company better. They mentor new people, take on new skills, and take personal ownership in the quality of their team's work. ... I don't need you to be the best in the world at management. But if you're not planning to be, if you're not going to be really studious and dedicated to it, then for god's sake stop messing with it. I promise you can't build a better management system in your spare time."
"The case against ballooning hours is familiar to most and doesn't need to be rehearsed. Humans aren't machines; productivity declines the longer you spend with your nose to the grind. On the flip side, it's been found that happier workers are more productive. Having time to pursue your passions, nurture your relationships, and stay active gives you more emotional and physical energy overall–including to do your job well."
"11 habits of ridiculously likeable people:
Are you falling, floating, or flying?
"What you should expect from your leaders:
Watch Spotify Engineering Culture, Part 1 on Vimeo.
Watch Spotify Engineering Culture, Part 2 on Vimeo.
"Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."
"The Gospel frees us from the slavery of prosperity and restores us from our poverty."
"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."
What cheese is best for a Korean man? Manchegoya!
"On a practical note, our sinful nature always desires more. When you get away with something in secret, the deceitful nature of sin will convince you that it's a reason to keep going. Eventually, you find yourself somewhere you don't want to be, and there are only painful ways out. I do not know the original source of this quote, but it certainly is true: Sin takes you further than you want to go, keeps you longer than you want to stay, and costs you more than you want to pay."
"Whatever your sin is, wherever you struggle, humble yourself in that area and access God's grace to overcome it. You can't do it on your own, and the consequences of keeping it secret aren't worth it. The freedom of God's grace is far better."
Morning bun > Man bun
If Tuesday was a lose-day, make Wednesday, a WINS-day!
Status Quo... is not Basile Kuo... lol.
If you let people do what they love to do for the company, wouldn't it be a win-win-win? They'll love their work. You'll love their work. And the company will benefit.
Iterate. Iterate. Iterate.
"The (Sabbath) Sunday is the anti-performance day."
"It's very likely that someone on your team will think of a better solution, but as soon as you say what you think, everyone gets a whole lot less creative. ... Use the time you might have spent generating your own ideas for how to solve problems--or generally stressing your team out with micromanagement--to devise non-judgmental, thought-provoking questions. By not offering my own idea, I enabled the creation of a better one. By not suggesting a destination, we all ended up somewhere extraordinary--a place I didn't even know we were going."
The three P's of Engineering Management are People, Process, and Programming. People are the most important.
Adios,
Muchachos!
Like huevos rancheros
in the Galapagos,
yo soy guapo.
Now I'm a Spanish rapper,
but Chinese and dapper,
like a tortilla filled with Kung Pao.
Mic drop; me out now!
"The chemistry you feel with other people is the most underrated factor in whether you should take a job. Today, I'm convinced that the primary reason to take a role is to work with a great manager and a great team. Together, they determine nearly all of your happiness on the job. This means letting go of your assumptions about title and money. Making this tradeoff will pay off in surprising ways."
"Not to want to pray, then, is the sin behind sin."
"We pray because we believe in God's sovereignty. We struggle to pray because we believe we are in control."
"View your personal brand as a trademark; an asset that you must protect while continuously molding and shaping it. Your personal brand is an asset that must be managed with the intention of helping others benefit from having a relationship with you and / or by being associated with your work and the industry you serve."
"If you don't pray, you are no longer submitting to God's authority."
"The purpose of a fruit tree isn't to produce fruit, but to reproduce fruit trees."
"Would knowing that your inheritance comes from God, the Father, make you stingy or generous?"
"You either follow Jesus because you want God to serve you or you follow Jesus because you want to serve God."
"If Jesus is not the pursuit of your life, your life will continually be a pursuit of emptiness."
"Who is on a team matters less than how the team members interact, structure their work, and view their contributions."
"The safer team members feel with one another, the more likely they are to admit mistakes, to partner, and to take on new roles. [They] are less likely to leave [a company], they're more likely to harness the power of diverse ideas from their teammates, they bring in more revenue, and they're rated as effective twice as often by executives."
It's not perfect, but it's progress.
"An unforgiving heart is an unforgiven heart."
Cookie cream, ice cream
Out of sight, nice thing
Black & white, double team
Fatty bite, pop a couple seams
Muffin top, poppin' out my jeans
Muffin hot, top it with vanilla bean
Party in my mouth; that's the scene
Get in my belly; that's the goal
Let it melt but keep it cold
Orange cream
Praline
Ben & Jerry, American Dream
"Are you a consistent worker or a convenience worker? Are you a laborer or a loiterer?"
We have the power to make the most of our moments. We just need to own it.
When it comes to making kimchi stew, always use the leftover juices.
Live to love so that you love to live.
Learn, then teach. Take input; make output.
"Read 500 pages like this every day. That's how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it."
Effect change. Don't be affected by change.
"Be a thermostat. Not a thermometer."
"Sprint planning? Gone. Project Management? Minimal. Estimation poker? None. Scrum Master? Nope. We still have stand-ups, but those don't take up a lot of time. Engineering spends most of their time building product. Product owners decide what goes in 'To Do' next, and engineering takes it from there."
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
"Know your history. Who you are determines how you live."
"I would argue that we are saved by works. By Christ's works."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
"Sin is not so terrible because of what you do, but because of who you do it too."
"You're apathetic because you're not serious about your sinful situation."
"It's never only about you and God. It's about you, God, and others."
"You cannot in isolation obey God's commandment to love one another."
"We are in the world, but not of the world."
Do less in order to do more.
"We turn to everything but God for hope. We turn even the good things God gives us, like family and career into idols and make them our source of value and self."
"The pain that we feel for death we must feel for the pain that leads to our sin which leads to death."
"Being an image of God is not enough for us; we want to be God."
"Your life is defined by how your time is spent and what resources you give or take."
"Humility is not about thinking more or less of yourself, but rather thinking about yourself less."
"If you want to be sanctified, get married."
"You see your spouse every day. You can only lie to them for so many years."
"Our 'must have' list will allow us to find a trophy spouse, but it won't allow us to find the right helper."
"God knows about your relationship needs more than you do. Adam didn't put in a request for Eve; God made what He knew."
"The gifts given to you are to also be given to the body. Don't rob the body. Exhaust your gifts for the sake of the body."
"Out of love, God withholds from you your plans."
"Religion separates us from Jesus."
"They don't have a chance to be offended by the Gospel because they're offended by us."
"We are more and more the person we are than the person we want to be."
"Glimpses of the future can be found in our worship, service, and thanksgiving."
"God's love isn't unconditional; it's contraconditional. God loves you despite who you are."
"There is nothing more that we can do to make God love us more, but at the same time, there is nothing more that we can do to make God detest us more."
"It's not about showing how much we love God, but showing how much God loves us."
"Your relationship with God defines your behavior. If it's true, it'll change who you are."
"You either worship God or something else. You never worship nothing."
"God's sense of humor is such that we always think we're on the verge of maturity."
"The shepherd breaks the sheep's leg to bring it home."
"We say, 'I'm willing to gamble eternity for now.'"
"God gives us time to struggle to give us time to pray."
"We share our prayer requests because we know the power of it."
"Our thankfulness should stem from knowing the Gospel--a debt that we could never repay has been paid."
"We are held hostage by our habits."
"We don't think we need help; we think everyone else does."
"Just because you quote it, doesn't mean you interpret it properly. Satan quoted Scripture and misused it. Interpret the Bible in context and community."
"In profession, God is our God; in function, we are our own god."
"With so many people asking for so many things, a 'Yes' for one might be a 'No' for another, so God must be supremely wise."
"You're an addict because ultimate pleasure is just out of reach."
"We either downplay his divinity or downplay his humanity."
"The promise of every addiction is 'just one more'."
"Make worship your priority. Rest up in preparation for worship."
"Worship is for God, not for us."
"If you're being attacked by the devil, you must be doing something right."
"Don't waste your struggles."
"Our presence this morning is the evidence of the work of the Spirit in imperfect people."
"The worship of God is the heart of missions. The end goal is the increased worship of God."
"Eternal life is more important than the extension of life."
"Your calling is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet"
"'I choose to love you.' is not flattering, but it's assuring. There is nothing you can do to change His love."
"Pray like it's all up to God, but work like it's all up to you."
"The Church is not a group of individuals."
"Prayer is a last resort for us. We even ask others to pray for us first."
"God puts us in these situations so that the only thing we are left to do is pray."
"Some of the most important moments of your life were out of your control."
"Prayer is an affirmation of trust in God's sovereignty."
"Tithing isn't about the money or even the need. It's about God. If there's a need, God will meet it. Your offering is a response to God's grace."
"You might not have to give up, but you might have to give it up to Him."
"Jesus' love isn't permissive; it's possessive."
"The key to building community isn't focusing on community; it's focusing on God."
"The closer you get to God, the closer you get to each other."
"Are you a Christian who happens to be (Korean) or are you a (Korean) who happens to be Christian?"
"The two biggest hindrances in a relationship are pride and shame."
"We love ourselves, but we don't like ourselves."
"We like to see how close we can get to the line when we should be running and seeing how far we can get from it."
"Sin starts with small steps: thoughts become actions, actions become habits, habits become character, and character becomes destiny."
"Sin begets sin."
"The very thing we want to make us happy, won't."
"I wish someone told me, 'When you get to the top, there's nothing there.'"
"We are servant-leaders. We need to lead our congregation members to be servants too."
"Sin reverberates in your life indefinitely."
"You may think you're done with your past, but your past is not done with you."
"We don't receive God's unconditional love unconditionally."
"We can give much because we've been given much; we can love much because we've been loved much."
"I always thought it'd be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody."
"Does God make your list of confidants?"
"Present your requests to God and you may or may not have an answer, but you will have the peace of God."
"God is not a genie in a bottle."
"Faith in the past is faith in the future."
"If you ever find a perfect church, leave it! You're just going to mess it up because you're not perfect."
"The pursuit of status never satisfies."
"If He gave me Jesus, how can He not provide what I truly need."
"There is nothing you can do to earn salvation."
"We serve God to make Him our debtor."
"The only Person in this world whose opinion matters thinks the world of you."
"God isn't a means to an end. He's the end."
"A family like a church and a church like a family."
"Sin, when full-grown, gives birth to death."
"The greatest trick the devil ever played was showing the world he didn't exist."
"The two greatest mistakes you can make are (1) neglecting the devil's reality and (2) being obsessed with it."
"Repentance allows you to move on."
"You're too busy talking that you're not listening."
"We should never be satisfied with where we are."
"If a pastor says anything totally original, it's new and it's heresy."
"You have already passed from death over to life. God would not judge you twice for something He has already forgiven."
"Your difficulty is God's opportunity."
"Do you want Jesus or what Jesus can give you?"
"If you were the only Christian left in the world, would you still be a Christian?"
"We have a consumer mind set. We try to find ways to get the most by giving the least."
"The more you give, the more you receive."
"The best way for God to make us forget Him is to bless us."
"Beautiful things are merely slight reflections of a beautiful God."
"We complain about what we want when we should give thanks for what we have."
"The essence of Christian life is repentance."
"First, Jesus made wine. Second, he made lots of it. Third, he made lots of good wine."
"Just because your drug is more socially acceptable doesn't mean it's better."
"Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?"
"Our mentality is that if we don't obey, God will punish us at worst and not bless us at best."
"We all want intimacy, but we all hide."
"You don't have to change so God can love you; God loves you so you can change."
"He loves you the way you are, but He loves you too much to leave you the way you are."
"We have an insatiable desire for beauty."
"Time is the worst thing you could waste. You can't have it back."
"Beware of looking for a sign. You'll see what you want to see."
"The greatest skeptics become the greatest believers."
"Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone isn't giving them words of wisdom; it's weeping with them."
"Everything we do is either for God or not."
"We serve to be liked."
"You can only give what you have received."
"Give freely because you have been given freely."
"It's easier to serve without a title."
"Who knows you better? You or God?"
"If we focus only on the aspects we like about Jesus, we end up with a Jesus that looks a lot like us."
"We recognize trees by the fruit they bear."
"We tend to be passionate - about ourselves."
"Never underestimate the ability to deceive yourself."
"We like to meet Jesus at church and leave him there."
"What we do in life echoes in eternity."
"The Gospel makes you humble without despair and confident without arrogance."
Always ready for change.
"The most miserable person is a Christian not living as a Christian. Sin bothers you."
"The gospel according to the model minority says if you work hard, do what you're supposed to do, and go to church, you'll get everything you want."
"Pray not for clarity, but pray for trust!"
"God doesn't call the equipped; He equips the called."
"There is no greater sense of unity than sex."
"Everyone is normal until you get to know them."
"You have to put yourself in a position where God can reveal Himself to you."
"I would take 'No' for an answer, if I could even hear you speak."
"'When you're listening, are you listening or waiting to speak? 'I'm waiting to talk, but I'm trying to listen.'"
"80% of life is showing up."
"The paradox of Christian maturity is dependence"
"You might be the only Bible people read."
"All men die, but not all real men live."
"The man who will not act until he knows all will never act at all."
"You will become tomorrow the person you are becoming today."
"Do you really want a god that you can fully comprehend? Small enough to fit in your brain? It's ironic that we want celebrities to be larger than life and God to be manageable."
"Idolatry is looking for our ultimate security, significance, and satisfaction in anything but God."
"Anything outside of Christ is fleeting joy."
"God gives us what we need, not what we want."
"Wisdom is knowing when to use knowledge."
"It's hard living God's way when the world's way seems to work."
"The power of prayer changes your perspective into God's."
"I can't remember a trial or a pain that God has not recycled for gain."
"What a beautiful thing it is when you're so in love that you forget how obnoxious love looks to everyone else. How lucky you are if you lose yourself."
"I once asked God how much He loves me and He said, 'This much,' as He stretched out His arms and died on the cross for me."
"Jesus felt alone." (Matthew 26:36-46)
"If Jesus needed to pray, how much more do we?"
"You're only as spiritually strong as your weakest fruit."
"There's no such thing as a 'super Christian'."
"Money spending shows priorities in life."
"The more stuff you buy, the more stuff you have to buy for the stuff you just bought."
"As with any relationship, honesty is required to grow."
"Chaos Theory: Small changes can lead to a big change."
"It's not that the suffering will end, but that He takes away the sting."
"Suffering exposes what's really in your heart."
"Do you love the gift more than the Giver?"
"For God to tell us the reason for the trial would defeat the purpose of the trial."
"Nothing happens apart from what He lets happen; it's troubling to think that God can let evil happen; it's comforting to know that no matter what's going on in the world, God is still on the throne."
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all."
"Everyone tends to focus inward, so we each have one person focused on us. But imagine if we all focused outward. Everyone would have n number of people focused on them."
"Individualism is a modernized form of selfishness."
"The church does not revolve around me. I have to be happy with it. It's not so loving because it's filled with sinners like you and me."
"Ultimately, we don't really believe we need help."
"I can't do this without you. You have a choice: You either heal as a team or die as an individual."
"Yes, what a pity it is that so many are not blind, but cannot see."
"Being a leader isn't about being more powerful, but more humble."
"Patience is equivalent to long-suffering."
"There's nothing wrong in realizing that you'll be dead a lot longer than you will be alive; there's nothing wrong with having a plan after you die."
"It's not that God isn't speaking to us; we're just not listening."
"Jesus is the sunrise after a long dark night."
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when people are afraid of the light."
"The more I walk; the more I see; the more I know; the more I despair; the more I depend."
"The quickest way to fall into sin is to think you have it all under control."
"We often pray last."
"We often ask others to pray for ourselves without even praying for ourselves."
"Control is an illusion."
"We try to get God to conform to our ways."
"Maybe God is trying to change us, not our situation."
"Do you really believe that life without Jesus is hell?"
"Choice is an idol in America."
"God will not judge you on how much you give but how much you have left."
"If you realized God's constant presence then it wouldn't be about pleasing people in private or in public, but being before God."
"There are 6 billion people in the world. What makes YOU so special?"
"What makes us think we know how to take better care of ourselves than God?"
"Guess it comes down to a choice: Get busy living, or get busy dying."
"You need community as much as community needs you."
"We tend to think, 'How can I get the most by giving the least?'"
"We were created with the need for community, e.g. it was not good for Adam to be alone."
"The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is a testimony of God's compassion for His people; it's essentially a love letter."
"As bad as you think you are--you're worse than that."
"As two people grow closer to God, they grow closer to each other."
"The key to a better Christian community isn't focusing on how to fix it, but focusing on God."
"Authentic Christian fellowship is a byproduct of our intimacy with God."
"If God created the world, it makes sense to ask God how this world really works just like when you can't work your VCR, you read the company's instructions."
"We should view God as our priority in all of our other priorities."
"The things you own end up owning you."
"Think Globally, Act Locally"
"The Gospel doesn't obliterate cultures; it redeems them."
"We're obeying God when we manage and spend our time well."
"We were given the gift of time to do what He assigned for us, not to waste it; God gave me 24 hours today to fulfill all He needs me to fulfill."
"Would you still think that Jesus is so good if you had everything taken away from you?"
"It is not that we keep His commandments first, and that then He loves us, but that He loves us, and then we keep His commandments. This is that grace, which is revealed to the humble, but hidden from the proud."
"Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering."
"Your relationship with your parents will affect your relationships of authority in other areas of your life."
"Why rise up to the level of mediocrity?"
"If you can't obey your parents, who are right there in front of you, how can you obey a god, who you can't see?"
"Honor is the attitude to which obedience is the action that follows."
"The thought of us being home and making it there is the thought that carries us there."
"Your job is to be faithful with what God's given you."
"We lose things to bring ourselves back to God and rely on Him."
"It's sort of a wonderful thought: When we sin, we make the Holy Spirit grieve."
"Moses took on God's purpose and God took care of all his needs."
"'Amateur' has its Latin roots in 'amor,' someone who does something for the love of it."
"When you don't please those you love, you aren't pleased."
"We don't experience more because we don't expect more; we do less because we expect less."
"You can respond to a trial in two ways: like a potato that goes in hard and comes out soft or like an egg that goes in soft and comes out hard."
"There's no limit to what a man can do as long as he doesn't care who gets the credit."
"Don't just fall in love. Choose to love."
"The only expectations you should have are the ones you determine by talking about it."
"Don't strive to look for your ideal; strive to be the ideal."
"The greatest Christian is not the one who achieves the most, but the one who receives the most."
"How can a Christian offer a message of urgency when they live a life of complacency?"
"You are the result and beneficiary of everyone around you."
"Do you have so much pride that you think you can start your day off without prayer?"
"Why settle for junk food when you can have a feast?"
"Sometimes we're so busy we don't leave room for faith."
"The new things you learn aren't meant to be kept inside."
"The more we understand ourselves, the more we understand the depth of God's love and forgiveness."
"Failure is the worst you can do—that's a good thing if you think about it."
"True humility is realizing your greatness is nothing."
"It's arrogant not to share the Gospel."
"It's easy for God to answer prayer, but what He wants is your heart."
"You can't serve God if you're serving yourself."
"It's not about being Christian at church, but being Christian at home."
"Is Christ's death worth what you're living for?"