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LEADERSHIP
WORD OF THE WEEK:
PROBLEMS
LEADERSHIP
QUOTES OF THE WEEK:
"Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body."
Seneca
"Problems are only opportunities in work clothes." Henry
J. Kaiser
"You can measure a leader by the problems he tackles. He
always looks for ones his own size." John Maxwell
"Successful people are not people without problems; they're
simply people who've learned to solve their problems."
Robert Seashore
"We are made to persist. That's how we find out who we are."
Tobias Wolff
"Opportunity's favorite disguise is trouble." Frank Tyger
HOLIDAY MOMENT
Ted Benna/401s
It is often in the middle of life's greatest problems that
our greatest emerge. Sometimes in spite of ourselves!
Problems seldom sneak in alone, they usually barge in with a
multitude of their friends- the scripture says "when the
enemy shall come in like a flood" (Isa.
59:19, emphasis mine).
The first Christmas was
announced and celebrated in the night. It was a "personal
night" for both Joseph and Mary.
Mary was an unwed mother
Joseph was faced with the derision of friends and family
Both were thrown into a financial crisis
This night brought a medical emergency to the young couple
And yet the most glorious Angelic singing broke out in the
midst of their darkest night. The pronouncement of the
Christ was greater than the problems of the perplexed.
So too, some of the greatest Christmas Carols were written
under the stress of problems. Consider:
- "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear"
Edmund Hamilton Sears wrote
it as a poem preparing for Christmas Eve service. The Civil
War was brewing and Sears was in a church that denied the
Deity of Christ and the Trinity. He had had a complete
physical breakdown while pastoring his 4th church. At his
lowest point - the song was birthed.
- "Silent Night" Asst. Pastor Joseph Morh learned the organ was
broken and the Christmas Eve service was hours away at the
church in Obendorrf, Austria. He wrote the words and Franz
Gruber wrote the melody for the guitar.
- "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow wrote in 1863 during the dark days of the Civil
War. While sitting at his desk in depression, he heard the
church bells ringing.
SCRIPTURE
Romans 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution,
or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 37 Nay, in all
these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved
us. 38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
"My faith tells me that the Christ of
Christmas will give you and I a song - right in the middle of
our greatest problem also!" JAS
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