The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year in all genres. Each week, I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, Jim Whiddon

 

171. DATING “Who can I date?” question has two parts: (1) You can date anyone it would be okay to marry; and (2) You can’t date anyone it wouldn’t be okay to marry. Why these rules? Because dating is about marriage. It’s not a search for fun or a search for sex. It’s a search for a suitable marriage partner. Marriage is the state men and women were designed for, not dating. If you merely want to socialize without excluding members of the other sex and without the intention of marriage, okay, but you’re better off doing that in groups.”

Excerpt From: Budziszewski, J. “How to Stay Christian in College.”

172. COURAGE “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

— ANAIS NIN

173. COURAGE “Winston Churchill is often quoted as saying, “There comes into the life of every man a task for which he and he alone is uniquely suited. What a shame if that moment finds him either unwilling or unprepared for that which would become his finest hour.”

Excerpt From: Rainey, Dennis. “Stepping Up.”

174. F.E.A.R = False Expectations Appearing Real –Don Truex

175. CHRISTIAN FRIENDSHIP “Men are notoriously bad at friendships. Wait, that’s too generous. Actually, we’re pathetic at being a friend. Either we surround ourselves with a group of “men” or “guys” who help keep the bar safely within reach (this way we can feel good about ourselves), or we isolate ourselves (this way we don’t have to deal with it). In the first instance, we’re never challenged as we dwell safely in mediocrity. In the second instance, no one ever gets in to see the truth. If someone did get in, the exposure would be too embarrassing. In either case, it’s a recipe for immaturity and stagnation.” It’s wrong to operate with friends on surface levels. It’s disingenuous and dishonest to pass the time in friendships serving up platitudes and niceties”

Excerpt From: Byron Forrest Yawn. “What Every Man Wishes His Father Had Told Him.”

176. JEWISH BUSINESS LAWS “The constitution of Judaism, known in its totality as the Torah, a comprehensive blueprint of reality whose foundation is the Bible, contains over ten times as many laws dealing with honesty in business as it has laws concerning the kosher dietary rules. Furthermore, to accept the theory that Jews prosper primarily by cheating, we would have to accept that cheating, or being obnoxious, confers an advantage in business. But dishonesty and loathsome behavior only pay off in the very short term. Reputation is key.”

Excerpt From: Rabbi Daniel Lapin. “Thou Shall Prosper.”

177. FATHERS “God gives us a unique opportunity as fathers to join him in what has to be one of the most noble, transcendent assignments we’ll ever have as men: He gives us the privilege of joining with Him in shaping the next generation of men.”

Excerpt From: Rainey, Dennis. “Stepping Up.”

178. DEMOCRACY “One story Plato used to teach about the limitations of democracy was about a ship in the middle of the ocean. On this ship was a gruff, burly captain who was rather shortsighted and slightly deaf. He and his crew followed the principles of majority rule on decisions about navigational direction. They had a very skilled navigator who knew how to read the stars on voyages, but the navigator was not very popular and was rather introverted. In the panic of being lost, the captain and crew made a decision to follow the most charismatic, eloquent, and persuasive of the crew members. They ignored and ridiculed the navigator’s suggestions, remained lost, and ultimately starved to death at sea.”

Excerpt From: Simmons, Annette. “The Story Factor.”

179. CHRIST “God knew that the law as laid out in the Old Testament was confusing and hard to remember; so he sent his Son to earth as a person in whom we could see the perfection of the law. By making the Word flesh, God made Jesus a model for holiness. He communicated the perfection of the law through the person of Jesus Christ.”

Excerpt From: Joe Carter & John Coleman. “How to Argue like Jesus.”

180. CULTURAL CHALLENGES “Christ-followers contend with two opposing temptations. The first is cultural withdrawal. When we remove ourselves completely from the surrounding culture, we neglect Jesus’s calling to be “the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14). We have a duty, a healthy Christian obligation, to bless the world around us. The prophet Jeremiah gave this challenge to God’s people exiled in Babylon: “Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare” (Jer. 29:5–7 NLT). Read that last line again. The second temptation is cultural accommodation. A healthy desire to influence culture can turn too easily into an unhealthy preoccupation with acceptance by mainstream culture. When this happens, we consume what the world has to offer and end up with lives no different from anyone else’s.”

Excerpt From: Kinnaman, David. “You Lost Me.”

 

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year in all genres. Each week, I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, Jim Whiddon

161. CHILDREN “When Jesus said you have to enter the kingdom like a child, He meant you have to enter with a child’s trust, not with a child’s understanding.”
— Unknown
162. HEART, SOUL AND MIND “That expression “heart, soul, and mind” that we’re so familiar with is an idiom. It’s a way of saying love God with everything you have. Heart our affections. Soul our will. Mind our intentions. That is a wholehearted love for God.”
Excerpt From: Byron Forrest Yawn. “What Every Man Wishes His Father Had Told Him.”
163. OPTIMISM “Optimistic people see blessings amid burdens. They realize the sun always breaks through sooner or later. It refuses to be defined by the presence of dark clouds. After all, the dark clouds are nothing but mist; the sun is built to last.”
Excerpt From: Jeremiah, David. “Searching for Heaven on Earth.”
164. DISCIPLINED INVESTING “There’s an old saying: don’t just do something, stand there. When dealing with investments there is often this feeling that we should be doing something. A lack of action implies we’re missing an opportunity or making a mistake. Cultivating a garden takes lots of hard work, but at some point you have to let the plants grow. If you have a plan, let it work.”
Excerpt From: Richards, Carl. “The Behavior Gap.”
165. ACTION “From thinking proceeds speaking, thence to acting is often but a single step” –G Washington.
166. LAWS AND MORALS “The Twenty-first Amendment repealed Prohibition in 1933, and alcohol sale and consumption went back to being local and state concerns. The debacle led millions of Evangelicals to drop out of politics for decades afterward. Prohibition reminds us of the dangers of using the federal government to enforce private morality. Still, our laws will always reflect, to some degree, our moral beliefs, our religious and cultural ideas.
At the same time, laws shape our morality. Scholars refer to this as the teaching function of law.”
Excerpt From: James Robison & Jay W. Richards. “Indivisible.”
167. WHY AMERICA GREAT “I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors … in her fertile fields and boundless forests, in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” — De Tocqueville
168. EDUCATION “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance. “For enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm,” James Madison noted
in The Federalist Papers. He also pointed out in a speech to the Virginia ratifying convention on June 16, 1788, that “there are more instances of the
abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

Excerpt From: Ben Carson, M.D. “America the Beautiful.”
169. ENEMIES “One of the great arts of living is that you hear truth in the mouth of your enemies, that you let your critics be the unpaid guardians of your soul…..search for the diamonds of truth in the dunghill of men’s opinions.”
Excerpt From: Mansfield, Stephen. “Mansfield’s Book of Manly Men.”
170. SIX LIFE PUZZLERS
• Why is it easier to criticize than to compliment?
• Why is it easier to give others blame than to give them credit?
• Why is it that so many who are quick to make suggestions find it so difficult
to make decisions?
• Why can’t we realize that it only weakens those we want to help when we do
things for them that they should do for themselves?
• Why is it so much easier to allow emotions rather than reason to control our
decisions?
• Why does the person with the least to say usually take the longest to say it?”
Excerpt From: Wooden, John. “Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections
On and Off the Court.”

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The Wisdom Chronicle

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151. YOU RETIRING? “Don’t put a period where God is putting a comma. Let Him punctuate your life story as He sees fit.” — Unknown

152. TAKE ACTION “Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.” –Thomas Carlyle

153. WHAT MAKES A MANLY MAN “A willingness to subordinate his own desires and aspirations to greater causes: his God, his nation, and his family. He put the welfare and security of others before his own. He knows he is blessed by a sovereign and loving God to be an American, and he believes his family is a gift from God for which he is responsible. Physical strength is never what makes a man manly. Rather, it is moral strength that identifies the true man.”
Excerpt From: Mansfield, Stephen. “Mansfield’s Book of Manly Men.

154. SELF-MADE MEN? “If you know history, you know that there is no such thing as a self-made man or self-made woman. We are shaped by people we have never met.” —David McCullough

155. EMPATHY “How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.”—GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

156. ATTITUDE “I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-today basis is my choice of attitude. It is more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my successes or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me or say about me, my circumstances, or my position. Attitude . . . keeps me going or cripples my progress. It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitudes are right, there’s no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me.
Yet, we must admit that we spend more of our time concentrating and fretting over the things that can’t be changed in life than we do giving attention to the one thing that can, our choice of attitude.”
Excerpt From: Charles R. Swindoll. “Wisdom for the Way.”

157. G.K CHESTERTON CLASSICS:
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
“Do not free the camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.”
“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”
“I’ve searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees.”
“Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.”
“No man knows he is young while he is young.”
“One of the great disadvantages of hurry is that it takes such a long time.”
“People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.”
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”
“There is no man really clever who has not found that he is stupid.”
“The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right.”
“To be clever enough to get all the money, one must be stupid enough to want it.”
158. GOLF “If you think golf is relaxing, you must not be playing it right.” — Bob Hope
159. GRAVEYARD The story goes that a fellow was walking past a cemetery when he noticed a tombstone with the following inscription:
“As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, you are sure to be.
So may I say, as now I lie,
Prepare yourself, to follow me.”
The gentleman took out a piece of chalk and wrote underneath the inscription:
“To follow you I’m not content,
Until I know which way you went.”
Excerpt From: Wooden, John. “Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court.”
160. THE UNIVERSE “When Francis Bacon spoke of the mysteries of science, he made it sound as if God had set up an Easter egg hunt to entertain a pack of toddlers. God “took delight to hide his works, to the end to have them found out.”
Why would God operate in such a roundabout way? If his intent was to proclaim His majesty, why not arrange the stars to spell out BEHOLD in blazing letters? To seventeenth-century thinkers, this was no mystery. God could have put on a display of cosmic fireworks, but that would have been to win us over by shock and fear. When it came to intellectual questions, coercion was the wrong tool. Having created human beings and endowed us with the power of reason, God surely meant for us to exercise our gifts. The mission of science was to honor God, and the best way to pay Him homage was to discover and proclaim the perfection of His plans.”
Excerpt From: Dolnick, Edward. “The Clockwork Universe.”

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year in all genres. Each week, I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, Jim Whiddon

121. E.G.O. = Edging God Out — Don Truex

122. DILIGENCE “We have all of eternity to celebrate our victories but one short hour in which to win them.” –Theodore Williams

123. ARROGANCE “The apostle Peter says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander” (1 Peter 3:15-16). Arrogance doesn’t come from having convictions about the truth; it comes from having the wrong convictions about how to treat people who don’t share it with you. Humility doesn’t come from not having any convictions; it comes from having the right convictions about the importance of gentleness and respect.”

Excerpt From: Budziszewski, J. “How to Stay Christian in College.”

124. CAPITALISM “It’s like giving someone access to a vault full of money with two different scenarios. In the first instance, they are told that they can have the vast majority of the money that they are able to carry out over the next ten hours. In the second instance, they are told to work on behalf of the overseer who will make sure that they are treated fairly. Which scenario do you think will generate the greatest intensity of work? That’s a no-brainer, of course. You should resist any attempts to establish the government as your overseer rather than your facilitator. It was no accident that this philosophy accelerated the rise of America. If we abandon it — even by accident because we are sleeping — our fall will be just as rapid as was our rise.”

Excerpt From: Ben Carson, M.D. “America the Beautiful.”

125. COURAGE “Cowardice asks the question, Is it safe? Expediency asks the question, Is it politic? Vanity asks the question, Is it popular? But conscience asks the question, Is it right?  —MARTIN LUTHER KING J R.”

126. GENEROSITY “In the Holy Land, someone explained the difference between the Dead Sea and the very much alive Sea of Galilee. The Dead Sea has no outlet. Both are fed by the same source but the Dead Sea can only receive an inward flow. The Dead Sea is prevented from flowing outward and the accumulation of salt has killed it. The Sea of Galilee is alive only because what flows in can also flow out. The metaphor of the Sea of Galilee demonstrates that giving is a necessary function of thriving and feeling alive. This message not only explains “why I am here” , but it begins to give a glimpse of a “vision” of how alive we feel when we give to others and let our wealth flow both in and out.”

Excerpt From: Simmons, Annette. “The Story Factor.”

127. CHOICES “You and I have two roads staring us in the face every morning when we get out of bed and take that first sip of coffee.”

Excerpt From: Farrar, Steve. “Real Valor.”

128. COLLEGE “A growing trend among Christian camps, churches, and parachurch ministries is to provide a gap year experience for students that forces them out of the routine of “schooling” and into a deeper relationship with God. These residential programs typically last nine months; focus on worldview, identity, and service; and include a cross-cultural experience. While not for everyone, many students who participate in gap year programs are far more prepared for the transition to college and adulthood.”

Excerpt From: Kinnaman, David. “You Lost Me.”

129. DISCIPLINING KIDS  “A little heartbreak now is better than a big heartbreak later.” — Tara Seidman

130. DISCIPLING “God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines.” — Dr. Carl Wenger

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year in all genres. Each week, I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, Jim Whiddon

111. BE ASSERTIVE “A successful young businessman loved to buy exotic gifts for his mother on Mother’s Day, but he was running out of ideas one year when he encountered some amazing birds with the ability to dance, sing, and talk. He was so happy that he purchased two of them and couldn’t wait to ship them off to his mother. On Mother’s Day, he called her excitedly and asked, “Mother, what did you think of those birds?”

“Mmm,” she answered, “they were good.”

“Mother, you didn’t eat those birds!” he said, unable to contain his shock.

“Those birds cost five thousand dollars apiece. They could dance, they could sing, and they could talk!”

“Well,” she calmly replied, “then they should’ve said something.”

“This funny story points out how important it is for us to speak up when confronted with danger. If we see our freedoms eroding around us and are afraid to stand up for what we value, we too will ultimately end up in the stew like those birds. Most Germans did not agree with Hitler’s insane agenda, but their collective silence permitted an unimaginable human tragedy that stained world history known as the Holocaust. How might their nation’s history and our world’s history have played out differently if those who saw what was happening had taken a stand for what they believed? When rights and freedoms are not exercised, they become meaningless.”

Excerpt From: Ben Carson, M.D. “America the Beautiful.”

112. BOYS “For a number of years, I saved a single-frame cartoon drawing that showed a freckle-faced, scruffy, blond-haired boy (maybe five years old), who was barefoot, shirtless, and in cut-off jeans, walking down a dusty trail on a hot summer afternoon. That image alone captured for me what my boyhood was like. Innocent, for the most part. Easy going. A little guy kicking around in the backwoods of the Ozarks, never too far from home or from a fishing hole. But what still brings a smile to my face is that the boy in the cartoon was carrying a pair of skinny old cats, whose tails he had tied together in a crude knot. The caption at the bottom of the cartoon read “And he was bound to acquire experience rapidly.” Boyhood is meant to be like that. A discovery around every corner, abundant adventure, and rapid growth—embedded life lessons disguised as sharp-clawed cats! All men start there. Some men never leave.”

Excerpt From: Rainey, Dennis. “Stepping Up.”

113. DIFFERENCES “If two people believe the same thing about everything, one of them isn’t necessary.”

Excerpt From: Ben Carson, M.D. “America the Beautiful.”

114. CHOICES “Ron Wayne tries to get by each month by stretching his Social Security check and playing video poker at a casino in Nevada. He’s seventy-six years old, and like a lot of people these days, he’s feeling the pinch financially. It’s somewhat ironic, however, that he of all people would feel anything approaching a pinch. After all, he is one of the founders of Apple.

When Apple was formed on April 1, 1976, Wayne signed the legal papers along with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Jobs and Wozniak each held 45 percent of the stock, and Ron Wayne had the other ten. Eleven days later he sold his shares for $800. On an impulse, he decided to get out of the infant corporation. Personal computers? Well, they probably wouldn’t catch on, anyway. So Roy Wayne took the $800 sure money and got out. But if he had held on … his stock today would be worth $22 billion.”

Excerpt From: Farrar, Steve. “Real Valor.”

115. CHRISTIAN FRIENDS “Someone once wrote that our best friends are those who make us most afraid to sin. The standard of their life and conduct make us want to elevate ours. In this way, our best friends are the severest enemies of our complacency.”

Excerpt From: Byron Forrest Yawn. “What Every Man Wishes His Father Had Told Him.”

116. CHRISTIANS IN POLITICS? It takes only three points to explain:

Point one: Politics deals with basic issues of right and wrong.

Point two: As even a glance at the Bible will show, God has plenty to say about right and wrong.

Point three: When people don’t like what God says about right and wrong (or what they think He says about right and wrong), they tend to make a god of their own ideas. Their ideologies become substitute religions. Then they’ve got a problem because God will have no other gods before Him.”

Excerpt From: Budziszewski, J. “How to Stay Christian in College.”

117. COMMITMENT In the days of naval warfare, when there was no backing out of an eminent battle, captains would charge the crew to “nail the colors to the mast” as opposed to simply hoisting the flag. The actual nailing of their banner to the mast indicated  a do or die mentality. This is the same dedication we must have with our marriages.”

–Michael Stanley

118. COURAGE  is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.”

— G. K. CHESTERTON

119. DECEIT “A man may have the tongue of an angel, and the heart of a devil.”

—John Flavel

120. DEFINING MOMENTS “Some men sailed with the wind until that decisive moment in history when events propelled them into the center of the storm.”

— From: Kennedy, John F. “Profiles in Courage”

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year in all genres. Each week, I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, Jim Whiddon

101. AMERICA’S DESTINY “America has already outlived the typical two-hundred-year destiny. Nations with a godly worldview begin with a period of great prosperity as they follow God’s principles. This is followed by a period of apathy. In their apathy, they turn away from God, resulting in God’s judgment. The book of Judges illustrates this cycle. We see in Judges a description of three hundred fifty years of Israel’s going through the cycle again and again. The cycle reoccurs over seven times. Each time, after the people turned from God, He reveals what a merciful and gracious God He is. He takes them back. He heals their land. God walks with them on the road to recovery.”

Excerpt From: Hovind, Chad. “Godonomics.”

102. AMAZING DATA USAGE “Asthmapolis has attached a sensor to an asthma inhaler that tracks location via GPS; aggregating the information lets the company discern environmental triggers for asthma attacks, such as proximity to certain crops. The firms Fitbit and Jawbone let people measure their physical activity and sleep. Another company, Basis, lets wearers of its wristband monitor their vital signs, including heart rate and skin conductance, which are measures of stress. Getting the data is becoming easier and less intrusive than ever. In 2009 Apple was granted a patent for collecting data on blood oxygenation, heart rate, and body temperature through its audio earbuds. Derawi Biometrics have developed an app for smartphones that analyzes an individual’s gait while walking and uses the information as a security system to unlock the phone. Meanwhile two professors at Georgia Tech Research Institute, Robert Delano and Brian Parise, are developing a smartphone application called iTrem that uses the phone’s built-in accelerometer to monitor a person’s body tremors for Parkinson’s and other neurological disorders. The app is a boon for both doctors and patients. It allows patients to bypass costly tests done at a physician’s office; it also lets medical professionals remotely monitor people’s disability and their responses to treatments.”

Excerpt From: Viktor Mayer-Schönberger & Kenneth Cukier. “Big Data.”

103. THE STANDARD “Jesus, the God/man who died for us, could take no pleasure in making life difficult or unachievable for us. Clearly he was setting a standard to make a point—that if someone was somehow able to keep from lying, murdering, even coveting for an entire lifetime, there was no way to ever dream of following this new standard. If hatred and anger equal murder, and lust is adultery, we’re all guilty. Only Jesus could meet that standard; so we are forced to rely upon Him for our standing before God. He takes the penalty for our sin; He becomes our advocate before a holy God.”

Excerpt From: Jerry B. Jenkins. “Hedges.”

104. HANDWRITING “researchers have found that the persuasiveness of a handwritten message is influenced by the quality of the handwriting: The worse the handwriting, the less persuasive the message will be. Readers mistakenly interpret the sense of difficulty they feel when they read a message with bad handwriting as a sense of difficulty believing the content of the message.”

Excerpt From: Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin & Robert B. Cialdini. “Yes!.”

105. THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST German Workers’ Party, led by Adolf Hitler, rose to power during a time of economic uncertainty in a nation of people longing for better times. Germany was a modern, industrialized nation whose well-informed citizens enjoyed ready access to information by way of print and radio broadcast media. Hitler was a man of the common people—not long before, he had been an army lieutenant—and his speeches were exciting and passionate. He promised more and better and new and different. He vowed rapid change and swift action. According to record, what Hitler actually said in his speeches depended very much upon the audience. In agricultural areas, he pledged tax cuts for farmers and new laws to protect food prices. In working-class neighborhoods, he talked about redistribution of wealth and attacked the high profits generated by business owners. When he appeared before financiers or captains of industry, Hitler focused on his plans to destroy communism and reduce the power of the trade unions.”

Excerpt From: Andrews, Andy. “How Do You Kill 11 Million People?.”

106. IDENTITY NOT IN OUR WORK “Corporate profits and influence, stewarded wisely, are a healthy means to a good end: They are vital to creating new products to serve customers, giving an adequate return to investors for the use of their money, and paying employees well for their work. Similarly, individual compensation is an appropriate reward for one’s contributions and is necessary to provide for oneself and one’s family. But it is not our identity, our salvation, or even our source of security and comfort. The Christian worker or business leader who has experienced God’s grace—­who knows “You are not your own; you were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)—­is free to honor God, love neighbors, and serve the common good through work.”

Excerpt From: Keller, Timothy. “Every Good Endeavor.”

107. PURPOSE “To put away aimlessness and weakness, and to begin to think with purpose, is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment; who make all conditions serve them, and who think strongly, attempt fearlessly, and accomplish masterfully.”

Excerpt From: Allen, James. “As a Man Thinketh.”

108. HONESTY “Honesty is a gift we can give to others. It is also a source of power and an engine of simplicity. Knowing that we will attempt to tell the truth, whatever the circumstances, leaves us with little to prepare for. Knowing that we told the truth in the past leaves us with nothing to keep track of. We can simply be ourselves in every moment.”

Excerpt From: Harris, Sam. “Lying.”

109. BAD DECISIONS  “Overconfidence is fed by the illusory certainty of hindsight.”

Excerpt From: Kahneman, Daniel. “Thinking, Fast and Slow.”

110. WHY SEVEN DAYS? “If He did not need to follow an order for physical reasons, why did He do it? He did it to illustrate how salvation advances and progresses. For example, Moses was using the creation account to explain to Israel, the first readers of this book, how God redeemed them from Egypt and took them to the border of the promised land. He took them from virtual nonexistence in Egypt and gave them life. He took them from darkness to light. He found them formless and empty and shaped them and filled them as a nation. Genesis 1–2 gave Israel more insight into the kind of Redeemer that God was and what their redemption from Egypt was like. There is much more here, however, than instruction for redeemed Israel. Jesus and his apostles used the creation theme to explain how God redeems our souls. Paul said that if any man is in Jesus, “he is a new creation.” Paul was saying, “If you want to find out what your salvation is like, go back to the creation account.”

Excerpt From: Murray, David. “Jesus on Every Page.”

 

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year in all genres. Each week, I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, Jim Whiddon

91. TRUTH “We are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.”

—Thomas Jefferson”

92. NUMBERS “It takes only about eleven and a half days for a million seconds to tick away, whereas almost thirty-two years are required for a billion seconds to pass. Rock music has been around for only about two billion seconds.”

Excerpt From: John Allen Paulos. “Innumeracy.”

93. MUST WIN “The only must win was World War Two.”

— Buffalo Bills coach Marv Levy

94. BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW  “Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live forever, and this must be either true or false.… If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilization, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of the state or civilization, compared with his, is only a moment.”

— C. S. Lewis

95. INTELLECTUALS  “Both in antiquity and today, people who reject the knowledge of God think of themselves as “enlightened” (Heb. 10:32). Their ignorance here is not lack of general education; some are brilliant in their own way, but such brilliance is all wasted and futile in the end when combined with hardness of heart toward the truth of the gospel in Christ.”

Excerpt From: Crossway. “ESV Study Bible.”

96. GET THE FACTS  There are four people on a train en route from Paris to Barcelona—a beautiful young girl traveling with her elderly grandmother, and a stately general traveling with his aide, a young, handsome second lieutenant. The foursome is sitting in silence as the train enters a tunnel in the Pyrenees, the mountain range on the border between France and Spain.

It is pitch-dark in the tunnel. Suddenly there’s the sound of a loud kiss, followed by a second sound, that of a loud, hard smack. Upon exiting the tunnel, the four people remain silent, with no one acknowledging the incident.

The young girl thinks to herself, “Boy, that was a swell kiss that good-looking lieutenant gave me, and I really enjoyed it.What a shame my grandmother slapped him, because he must have thought it was I who slapped him. That’s too bad, because when we get to the next tunnel, he won’t kiss me again.”

The grandmother thinks, “That fresh young man kissed my granddaughter. But fortunately I brought her up to be a lady, so she slapped him real good. I’m glad because now he’ll stay away from her when we get to the next tunnel.”

The general thinks to himself, “I can’t believe what just happened. I personally handpicked him to be my aide, and I thought he was a real gentleman. But in the dark, he took advantage of that young girl and kissed her. But she must have thought it was I who kissed her, since I was the one she slapped.”

Meanwhile, I young lieutenant is thinking, “Boy, that was wonderful. How often do you get to kiss a beautiful girl and slug your boss at the same time?”

The story shows that while four people can have the same set of facts, they can arrive at four different conclusions.

Excerpt From: Elko, Kevin. “The Pep Talk.”

97. RAISING CHILDREN “Children are messengers to a time we will never see. As parents, our job is to make them INDEPENDENTLY DEPENDENT on Christ.”

— Dennis Rainey

98. FAMILY “Without strong families, we won’t have freedom and limited government for long. By recognizing the perennial nature of the family in its laws, the government limits its jurisdiction over individuals and the family. If the government can’t manage to acknowledge something as basic as the family, it won’t acknowledge individual rights for long. The destruction of families leads to a larger, more intrusive nanny state. The family is a huge check on government power. As Mike Huckabee has said, “The most important form of government is the family.” The better a family functions, the less you need from local, state, and federal governments.”

Excerpt From: James Robison & Jay W. Richards. “Indivisible.”

99. U.S.A. PROPHECY? “Henry and most of the Revolutionary generation believed that a republic needed religion to preserve virtue, honesty, and independence lest it trespass into amoral individualism and a degenerate complacency. An ethically directionless people would eventually succumb to the enticements of a tyrant, Henry feared.”

Excerpt From: Thomas S. Kidd. “Patrick Henry.”

100. LIFE’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS “If this life is all there is, then everything will eventually burn up in the death of the sun and no one will even be around to remember anything that has ever happened. Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavors, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever. That is what the Christian faith promises. “In the Lord, your labor is not in vain,” writes Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians, Ch. 15.”

Excerpt From: Keller, Timothy. “Every Good Endeavor.”

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year in all genres. Each week, I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, Jim Whiddon

81. OUR NATION “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

82. COMPETITION “Being the one who makes your product, process, or service obsolete is the only way to prevent your competitor from doing so.”

Excerpt From: Peter F. Drucker. “The Daily Drucker.”

83. TEAM “Being on the Team vs. Being a Teammate:

Being on the team benefits your personal goals and ambitions. Being a teammate benefits the goals and ambitions of your team and your teammates.

Being on the team can make you a bystander. Teammates intervene in the lives and actions of their teammates.

Being on the team involves personal effort. Being a teammate involves the efforts of every player.

Being on the team means doing what is asked of you. Being a teammate is doing whatever is needed for the team to succeed.

Being on the team can involve blaming others and making excuses. Being a teammate involves accepting responsibility, accountability, and ownership of the team’s problems.

Being on the team makes you “me-optic,” asking what’s in it for me? Being a teammate makes you “we-optic,” asking what’s in it for us?

Sometimes players on the team are drawn together by common interests; teammates are drawn together by a common mission.

Sometimes players on a team like one another; teammates respect one another.

Sometimes players on a team bond together because of a shared background or compatible personalities; teammates bond together because they recognize every player is needed to accomplish the goal of the team.

Sometimes players on a team are energized by emotions; teammates energize one another out of commitment.”

Excerpt From: Joe Ehrmann, Paula Ehrmann & Gregory Jordan. “InSideOut Coaching.”

84. IDEAS “An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.” — Don Marquis

85. OLD JOKE “An old married couple in their nineties contact a divorce lawyer, who pleads with them to stay together. “Why get divorced now after seventy years of marriage? Why not last it out? Why now?” The little old lady finally pipes up in a creaky voice: “We wanted to wait until the children were dead.”

Excerpt From: John Allen Paulos. “Innumeracy.”

86. SINNERS “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”

— Chris Seidman

87. POLITICIANS “Political solutions can never put us on a sound economic footing. Politics is not interested primarily in the good of the nation. Instead, politics has to do with gaining and exercising power over your opponents, rewarding your biggest donors, and benefitting the priority constituencies of your party. If, in doing these things, you also accomplish something that is good for the country at large, that’s great. But such an outcome is more an afterthought in the political process than it is a primary focus.”

Excerpt From: Hovind, Chad. “Godonomics.”

88. PILGRIM CAPITALISM “Bradford decided to search the Scriptures and seek insight from God. He found three principles that saved the [pilgrim] village and possibly even the great nation that would follow. The foundational principles were property rights, incentive, and freedom. In the Bible, he discovered a blueprint for a new economic system. If socialism didn’t work in this best-case scenario with devout Christians, why would we think a less-than-ideal paradigm would work? In other words, if a mostly devout Christian community in the past couldn’t make it work, is there any hope Washington, DC will get it right today? God’s economic principles of property rights, incentive, and personal freedom are central to what I refer to as Godonomics.”

Excerpt From: Hovind, Chad. “Godonomics.”

89. WINSTON CHURCHILL CLASSICS

Concerning PM and Socialist Leader Clement Atley: “He is a modest man with much to be modest about. He is a sheep in sheep’s clothing.”

Concerning PM Stanley Baldwin: “Occasionally he stumbles over the truth, but hastily picks himself up as though nothing had happened. ”

Concerning PM Lord Balfour: “If you wanted nothing done, he is the best man for the task. There is absolutely no equal to him.”

Concerning PM N. Chamberlin: “You had a choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.  He has a lust for peace.”

Concerning T.E Lawrence (of Arabia): “He was not in complete harmony with the normal.”

90. CIVIL WAR “Lincoln had to have the grace to fight the bloodiest war in our history without “demonizing” the enemy with propaganda. If he had done that, he might have been able to galvanize the resolve of the North much faster, facilitating a quicker military victory. However, it would have made the reunion after the war much more difficult. Because he was truly fighting to preserve the Union, Lincoln never made the men and women of the South the enemy, but rather the evil that held them in bondage.”

Excerpt From: Joyner, Rick. “The Final Quest.”

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year in all genres. Each week, I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, Jim Whiddon

71. TRADING UP “The cool thing about taking Jesus up on His offer is that whatever controls you doesn’t anymore. People who used to be obsessed about becoming famous no longer care whether anybody knows their name. People who used to want power are willing to serve. People who used to chase money freely give it away. People who used to beg others for acceptance are now strong enough to give love. When we get our security from Christ, we no longer have to look for it in the world, and that’s a pretty good trade.”

Excerpt From: Goff, Bob. “Love Does.”

72. POWER CORRUPTS “Because power corrupts, humanity’s need for those in power to be of high character increases as the importance of the position of leadership increases. We are discussing character, correct? Not intelligence. Some of the most intelligent leaders in history have brought disaster to their nations because intelligence is powerless to modify character. Great leadership is a product of great character. And this is why character matters.”

Excerpt From: Andrews, Andy. “How Do You Kill 11 Million People?.”

73. BE A LENDER “Jews always viewed putting one’s capital at risk to enable someone else to make a profit as an honorable way to earn a living and to help others. The Jewish hierarchy of charity regards lending someone money to go into business as more noble than simply giving him the money. The latter condemns the recipient to be a beggar without enough self respect to launch his or her own enterprise. However, lending money to a needy man elevates him into an independent businessman. This way his dignity is preserved, and he retains the psychological self image so necessary to conducting business successfully.”

Excerpt From: Rabbi Daniel Lapin. “Thou Shall Prosper.”

74. BIBLE Another thing that’s so good it’s scary is His Word. Take a look at what Hebrews 4:12 says about it: “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Can you say that about any other book?”

Excerpt From: Budziszewski, J. “How to Stay Christian in College.”

75. BOOKS “All great books point out the emerging truth in a way that allows us to stop overlooking it.”

Excerpt From: Simmons, Annette. “The Story Factor.”

76. BOYS “The growing achievement gap between boys and girls today. “By almost every benchmark, boys across the nation and in every demographic group are falling behind,” wrote Peg Tyre. “In elementary school, boys are two times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with learning disabilities and twice as likely to be placed in special-education classes. High-school boys are losing ground to girls on standardized writing tests.” According to the American Council on Education, young men now represent only 43 percent of college undergraduates, with women comprising nearly 60 percent. Making the problem even larger is the number of boys growing up with fathers who are physically present but emotionally distant and uninvolved.”

Excerpt From: Rainey, Dennis. “Stepping Up.”

77. BUSINESS BAD GUYS ? “In his book Hollywood vs. America, Michael Medved wrote that prior to 1965, television shows portrayed businessmen as good guys twice as often as bad guys. This ratio was reversed in the 1970s, when audiences were treated to two business villains for every good guy. “As a group, corporate types commit more murders on TV than any other occupational category—even career criminals.”

Excerpt From: Rabbi Daniel Lapin. “Thou Shall Prosper.”

78. INVESTING PER THE BIBLE: “Solomon was one of the richest men in history, and his legendary wisdom encompassed money management. To this day, some of the best financial advice ever written is contained in the book of Proverbs. And here, in this passage in Ecclesiastes, we see the invention and advancement of the widely lauded strategy of financial diversification.

Notice verse 1: “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.” This is one of the most quoted verses in Ecclesiastes, but what does it mean?

As it happens, Solomon had quite a fleet of ships. “King Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Ezion Geber, which is near Elath on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom” (1 Kings 9:26).

The next chapter talks about ships transporting gold, precious stones, and expensive woods (1 Kings 10:11). We read of his traveling merchants, his income from international trade, and of yet more ships bringing in the wealth of the world, including “gold, silver, ivory, apes, and monkeys” (verses 15, 22).

Then as now, one of the main trade commodities was grain. The merchants of Solomon’s day would load their grain ships and send them off. The Israelites were “casting” [their] bread upon the water.” But notice that with Solomon, the word is plural: “cast your bread on the waters.” In other words, don’t put all your grain in one ship. Put your wheat in several ships, and send it out in a diversified way so that if one of the ships should sink, you’ll not be ruined.

Grandma called this not putting all your eggs in one basket; we call it diversifying our portfolio. Solomon is telling us that since life is so uncertain, we should spread out our investments. In fact, he goes so far as to recommend that we diversify using seven or eight different places. Look at Ecclesiastes 11:2: “Give a serving to seven, and also to eight, for you do not know what evil will be on the earth.”

That is God’s counsel regarding our financial investments. Spread them out because life is uncertain.”

Excerpt From: Jeremiah, David. “Searching for Heaven on Earth.”

79. CAREER The most frequent conundrum upper middle-class couples find themselves in: They went and got their priorities caught in success. “What is work anyway? It’s not who I am. I may be a salesman, doctor, or teacher, but that is just a means to an end. It’s what I do. Who I am is a husband and dad saved by grace. One simply provides the opportunity to do the other. When we confuse the means and the end we inevitably fall off one of these two edges—a want of meaning or a misplaced identity. If my greater desire is to be successful rather than faithful, I’m in trouble. It’s the greater reality that keeps the other in proper perspective.”

Excerpt From: Byron Forrest Yawn. “What Every Man Wishes His Father Had Told Him.”

80. CHILDREN “Philosopher James K. A. Smith encourages parents with this poignant observation: “[Your children are] going to break your heart. Somehow. Somewhere. Maybe more than once. To become a parent is to promise you’ll love prodigals.”

Excerpt From: Kinnaman, David. “You Lost Me.”

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The Wisdom Chronicle

The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year in all genres.  Each week, I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned.  the determination of relevance lies with you.  Blessings, Jim Whiddon

61. TRY THIS AFTER YOU’RE PUT ON HOLD

This works with most bureaucrats. Pretend you have all the time in the world, and present your choice as the lesser of two evils. They either cut you a break or waste more time with you. Functionaries, like water, follow the path of least resistance.”

Excerpt From: Heinrichs, Jay. “Thank You For Arguing, Revised and Updated Edition.”

62. FAILED GLORY “In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”

—Wilfred A. Peterson

63. COMMERCE HISTORY “When a merchant in Venice gave a sum of money to a local Jewish banker, the merchant could rest assured that his supplier in Amsterdam would receive the equivalent funds from another Jewish banker in Holland. What was so vital was that the two Jewish bankers trusted one another. It was this intangible system of trust that made commerce and wealth creation possible, but there was another reason, too. Both Christians and Moslems accepted a rather literal interpretation of the Bible’s prohibition against charging interest to borrowers. This absolutist view effectively eliminated banking as a profession for the faithful of those religions. A Jewish understanding of the Bible on the other hand, depends on what Jews refer to as the “Oral Torah,” whose ecclesiastical authority fully matches that of its written counterpart. It is from the oral Torah that Jews were able to learn under exactly which circumstances God permitted interest to be levied against a loan and precisely how that loan contract needed to be drawn.

Excerpt From: Rabbi Daniel Lapin. “Thou Shall Prosper.”

64. DADS “I’m afraid for them [sons]. This world is brutal, especially for men. It’s a grinder. So I try not to waste a moment. I give them every ounce of wisdom I have to give about everything I can imagine. This includes simple and mundane things. Why you should never cut into a steak to see if it’s done. Why prevent defense never works. How you swing a hammer by holding it at the end of the handle. Then there are larger realities. Integrity. Love. Sex. Money. I never stop thinking about them and their future wives and kids. But mostly I pray. I know full well I’m a sinner raising sinners. Only God can do what needs to be done in their lives. I’m just an instrument”

Excerpt From: Byron Forrest Yawn. “What Every Man Wishes His Father Had Told Him.”

65. AMBITION “I saw no point in being the richest man in the cemetery.”

Excerpt From: Peter F. Drucker. “The Daily Drucker.”

66.ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S LETTER TO HIS SON’S TEACHER

He will have to learn, I know,

that all men are not just,

all men are not true.

But teach him also that

for every scoundrel there is a hero;

that for every selfish Politician,

there is a dedicated leader…

Teach him for every enemy there is a friend,

Steer him away from envy,

if you can,

teach him the secret of

quiet laughter.

Let him learn early that

the bullies are the easiest to lick…Teach him, if you can,

the wonder of books…

But also give him quiet time

to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky,

bees in the sun,

and the flowers on a green hillside.

In the school teach him

it is far more honourable to fail

than to cheat…

Teach him to have faith

in his own ideas,

even if everyone tells him

they are wrong…

Teach him to be gentle

“with gentle people,

and tough with the tough.

Try to give my son

the strength not to follow the crowd

when everyone is getting on the band wagon…

Teach him to listen to all men…

but teach him also to filter

all he hears on a screen of truth,

and take only the good

that comes through.

Teach him if you can,

how to laugh when he is sad…

Teach him there is no shame in tears,

Teach him to scoff at cynics

and to beware of too much sweetness…

Teach him to sell his brawn

and brain to the highest bidders

but never to put a price-tag

on his heart and soul.”

67. JESUS IN PSALMS The New Testament quotes from the Psalter more often than from any other Old Testament book.

• Of the 283 direct quotes of the Old Testament in the New, 116 (41 percent) are from the Psalms.

• The Psalms are used more than fifty times in the Gospels to allude to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

• When the author of Hebrews sought biblical proof that Jesus was God, at least seven of his citations were from the book of Psalms.”

Excerpt From: Murray, David. “Jesus on Every Page.”

68. BIBLE “The Bible is not a rule book.  It is a treasure book.” — Unknown

69. CHRISTIANITY vs. SCIENCE “Every person of faith must learn how to live the in-but-not-of discipleship that Christ calls us to. Managing the tensions between science and faith is part of that journey. We need to develop young leaders who can capably serve in science, but not be so habituated to scientism that faith becomes untenable. More than half of churchgoing thirteen- to seventeen-year-olds say they hope to train for a science-related career. This includes medical and health-related industries (23 percent), engineering and architecture (11 percent), research science (8 percent), technology (5 percent), and veterinary studies (5 percent). Yet issues of science are a surprisingly rare topic in U.S. churches. Only 1 percent of youth pastors told us that they have addressed a subject related to science during the last year. I am not suggesting that churches should change their entire mission approach to address science, but if only 1 out of 100 youth workers are talking about issues of science, how can we possibly hope to prepare a generation to follow Jesus in our science-dominated culture?”

Excerpt From: Kinnaman, David. “You Lost Me.”

70. COACHING Sports engage more individuals, more families, and more communities in a shared experience than any single cultural activity, organization, or religion in America. Twenty to 30 million kids play recreational sports, while another 10 million teens play interscholastic sports. This means that between 30 and 80 million parents are invested and involved in their children’s sports. There are at least 5 million coaches with the potential to become one of the most influential adults in a young person’s life. Forever.”

Excerpt From: Joe Ehrmann, Paula Ehrmann & Gregory Jordan. “InSideOut Coaching.”

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