Don't Lose Your Sense of Humor

"If you lose your sense of humor on the way to Mars, you're finished."

Robert Zubrin

Living successfully requires a great deal of teamwork. Although we believers should be highly qualified to labor together as a unit, we too oftensuccumb to the natural tendencies of self-reliance.

Isn't it easier just to do things myself? If I trust someone else, they may drop the ball, do it wrong, differently, or possibly better than me. It is also much easier than dealing with conflict. I mean, what if we butt heads or just don't like each other?

Life doesn't work that way (and we know it). We are symbiotic creations. God designed us to be interdependent and social beings and we must learn to not only survive together but succeed together for the good of the kingdom.

Popular Science magazine quoted Robert Zubrin, author and president of "The Mars Society", as saying that extended mission astronauts had to be "tough, cheerful, and team spirited". We too are on an extended mission; and a much more valuable one at that. How much more important is it that we maintain our "sense of humor".

Toughness doesn't mean just enduring criticism and bottling up our emotions but is a willingness to work through difficulties in our relationships by forgiving, mending broken fellowship, and learning from and building on failures. Cheerfully content with what we can't change, not grumbling or sinking into depression but displaying the joy of our salvation. In our current culture "plays well with others" is on too few Christians' report card; how disappointing. May each of us, for the cause of Christ, take the initiative to learn the lessons of humility and unity.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal intrests, but also for the intrests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. Philippians 2:3-5

UPS is thinking outside the box

I recently read a post entitled "'Right' turns only" on Dan Miller's 48daysblog. He is the author of 48 Days To The Work You Love and No More Mondays. In it he explains that UPS expects 90% of the turns their drivers make to be right turns. "By turning right whenever possible they saved over 28 million miles of driving and three million gallons of fuel."

He goes on to ask "What if you could find the “right” turns in your own life, avoiding the ones that wasted time, money and energy?" Is that possible? Is there any chance of me avoiding the left/wrong turns? If only I could be convinced that planning ahead and making decisions with a definite purpose would lead to greater success, spiritually and occupationally.

Colossians 1:9-12
[I do] not cease to pray . . . and to ask that [I] may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that [I] will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified [me] to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.

An inconvenient quote

I was flipping through An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems by Glenn Beck and read this quote.

"When you don't perform, you get nothing. The phrase is 'To the victor go the spoils' not 'spoil those who aren't the victor'."

How descriptive or our culture in this day. We praise the failures while punishing the successful. We take from those who work to give to those who don't. It won't be long before the pendulum swings back and we have to start worrying about the self-esteem of the winners.