Results

ByHal Hammons

Do you watch those “Fix Your Failing Business” sort of shows?  Restaurants, hotels, whatever — they’re all the same.  People with failing businesses invite in an expert, listen to their informed and professional opinions, and then launch into a litany of reasons why things are just fine as is and why the expert is an idiot.

What did you want?  “Yours is the most brilliant business model and execution I have ever seen!  I’m quite sure things will turn around for you next week without you having to change anything at all!”  Come on. 

No one wants to improve.  They only want better results.  The problem is, you get the results you earn.  If we all got the results we requested, every restaurant would nothing but rave reviews.  Every hotel would be five stars.  Every preacher would have a lifetime contract.

Do you want to be a better Christian?  Then go create your own results!  Study more.  Study better.  Pray more.  Pray better.  Worship more.  Worship better.  Do not be satisfied with progress; strive for even more (Philippians 3:13-14).  I guarantee, you will get better results from trying to improve than by hoping to improve.

And remember, Paul wrote in Philippians 2:12, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling..”  If he had meant “loaf” instead of “work,” I’m sure he would have said so.

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Specializing

ByHal Hammons

The decal on the side of the truck read, “Specializing in all types of exterior siding.”  I scrambled for a pen so I could jot it down before the light changed.  Inspiration strikes at odd times, and we must be ready.

Pick a lane, says I to the small business owner.  Either is fine.  Be a specialist.  Be a generalist.  But don’t tell people you are both. 

Carob: The food of repentance

ByHal Hammons

Isaiah 1:20 provides a warning in the context of the more familiar phrase in verse 18 — “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow.”  If the nation would refuse to repent, God says, “you will be devoured by the sword.”  But one passage in the Midrash, a collection of rabbinic writings, translates it quite differently — “if you refuse and resist, carob pods you shall eat.”  James Moffatt apparently was quite impressed with this view of the text and rendered the verse accordingly in his translation, although every other Bible translation I could find reads essentially as the New American Standard Bible does.

Delete

ByHal Hammons

December has five Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays this year.  That’s unusual, as you might expect.  Pointless and uninteresting, sure, but unusual.  In fact, it was suggested on Facebook (yes, I’m railing on Facebook again today) that it only occurs once every 823 years.  OK, that might push it past the border into Interestingland.

Except it’s not true.  And when you think about it, it can’t be true. 

Excuses

ByHal Hammons

Why do women cheat on their husbands?  Several of them “confessed” in one of those slideshow testimonial things I keep saying I’m not going to click on.  Just say no to Facebook, Hal.

Anyway, the responses varied.  I was in a bad marriage.  He cheated first.  I was lonely.  I was confused.  I was unappreciated.  I was drunk.  I was sick.

Here are some things I did not see.  

Complicated

ByHal Hammons

When a friend’s Facebook profile has “It’s complicated” in the “relationships” space, that’s bad news.  Granted, being single can be complicated.  So can being married.  But in this context, “complicated” means something that the friend in question is hesitant to try to qualify with a simple word.

The myth of mandrakes

ByHal Hammons

A mandrake is a flowering plant native to Bible lands.  It bears fruit somewhat like a plum, extremely fragrant.  The root of the female version (and yes, plants often are male and female) forks to resemble the lower half of the human body. Mandrakes have been associated with fertility for centuries.  There is absolutely no…