Thought Exercise on Pressure

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The Correlation Between Privilege and Pressure

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Keywords

According to a December 2014 article in The Economist, there is a “distinct correlation between privilege and pressure.” We may earn more money, but we can never earn more time. And because we’re work...

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Stronger on the Inside

Author

Alisha Illian

Keywords

I was listening to a show on the National Geographic channel. Two deep-sea diving experts were discussing the physics of a submarine. I found it fascinating that every square inch of a submarine’s hul...

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The Two Runners

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Matthew 6:33, Colossians 3:23, Psalm 39:6, Luke 12:15, Acts 15:29, Matthew 5:14-16, Ephesians 2:10, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:62, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, James 1:12, Romans 8:16-17, Galatians 2:20

The true story of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, two British sprinters who qualified for the 1924 Olympic Games, illustrates two contrasting approaches to life and identity. Abrahams was driven by ...

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Stuck in Deadline Mode

Author

Carl Honoré

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Of course, speed has a role in the workplace. A deadline can focus the mind and spur us on to perform remarkable feats. The trouble is that many of us are permanently stuck in deadline mode, leaving l...

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The Drama of Leadership

Author

Andy Crouch

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The most highly classified document in the United States government is called the President’s Daily Brief. Usually delivered to the president in person each morning by the director of national intelli...

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That Blind Pressure to Grow

Author

Ronald Rohlheiser

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This excerpt from the Catholic priest Ronald Rolheiser is quite profound. It is reminiscent of that great line from Dr. Ian Malcom in Jurassic Park: “Life finds a way.” Speaking on the subject of desi...

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How Much Stress Would You Like?

Author

Richard A Swenson

Keywords

Would you like a no-stress life? A wise person would not accept that option, no matter how tempting it might sound. A stress-free life would be fatal. If we do not have change, challenge, and novelty ...

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The Best Thing About Being 104

Author

Billy Graham

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A reporter interviewing a 104-year-old woman asked, “What is the best thing about being 104?” She simply replied, “No peer pressure.”

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Overextending Ourselves & The Tyranny of the Urgent

Author

Stephen W. Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 55:22, Isaiah 26:3, Jeremiah 17:5-8, Philippians 4:6-7

In his highly book, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding balance, even as life seems to pull us in different directions: Overextending yourself is stretching your physic...

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Why Strike the Rock?

Author

Steven C. Roy

Keywords

Scripture

Numbers 20:, Exodus 17:1-7

Why did Moses strike the rock? He was a man of faith, whose life had been characterized by trust in God (see, for example, the description of Moses in (Heb 11:24-29). So why did he fall into unbelief ...

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Climbing the Wall

Author

John C. Maxwell

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 12:1-4, Joshua 3:14-17, 1 Samuel 17:32-50 , Matthew 14:28-31, Psalm 34:8 , Acts 10:9-16

I…vividly remember one of my teachers telling the story of three young boys whose route to school went alongside a high wall. Every day as the boys walked to school, they wondered what was on the othe...

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Who Said That?

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Scripture

Proverbs 29:25, Acts 4:19-20, John 12:42-43, Daniel 3:16-18, Psalm 56:11, Matthew 10:28, Romans 8:31, Hebrews 13:6

During his years as premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev denounced many of the policies and atrocities of Joseph Stalin. Once, as he censured Stalin in a public meeting, Khrushchev was inter...

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Going to Congress

Author

Jon Meacham

Keywords

When [Abraham] Lincoln was running for the House of Representatives from Illinois, he was charged with being “a scoffer at religion,” wrote the historian William J. Wolf, because he belonged to no chu...

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You are who you Surround Yourself with

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 15:33-34, Proverbs 27:17, 1 Corinthians 5:11, Proverbs 13:20, 1 Corinthians 15:33, Psalm 1:1-2, Hebrews 10:24-25

Context matters. According to the Terman Study, which followed one thousand study participants from childhood until their death, the people we surround ourselves with are who we become. We see those a...

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The Waiting Room

Author

Max Lucado

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So here I sit in the waiting room. The receptionist took my name, recorded my insurance data, and gestured a chair. “Please have a seat. We will call you when the doctor is ready.” I look around. A mo...

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Love for the Long Haul

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 30:18, James 5:7-8, Psalm 37:7

Patience is love for the long haul; it is bearing up under difficult circumstances, without giving up or giving in to bitterness. Patience means working when gratification is delayed. It means taking ...

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A Danger in Venting Your Anger

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 5:22-23, Colossians 3:8, Proverbs 16:32, Ephesians 7:9, Proverbs 15:1

We often speak of unexpressed anger with metaphors of explosive pressure. We are like “a ticking time bomb” or “a volcano.” We are “bottling it up.” And sometimes letting it out feels good—cathartic. ...

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The Importance of Selective Change

Author

Jared Diamond

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 3:1, Romans 12:2, Isaiah 43:19, Hebrews 12:27, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, James 1:2-4

Crises, and pressures for change, confront individuals and their groups at all levels, ranging from single people, to teams, to businesses, to nations, to the whole world. Crises may arise from extern...

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Building on a Solid Foundation

Author

A. J. Swoboda & Nijay K. Gupta

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Building an antifragile faith takes time. It can’t be rushed. Consider this: It takes (on average) around twelve to eighteen months to construct a new single-family home in America. This process incl...

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Getting Unstuck with a Grand Gesture

Author

Mark Batterson

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In 2007, author J. K. Rowling was struggling to finish the final novel, The Deathly Hallows , in her seven-part Harry Potter series. She was feeling stressed, trying to connect the dots in a way ...

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Vladimir the Great: Choosing Christianity for All the Wrong Reasons

Author

Ryan Bundrick

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 1:27-29, John 6:44, 1 Corinthians 1:21, 2 Kings 5:, Joshua 2:

The Grand Prince of Kiev (now called Russia), Vladimir the Great, was under intense pressure to choose a national religion. The year was 987 AD, and paganism was quickly going out of fashion. More and...

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The Greatness of Solomon’s Temple

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 6:7, Exodus 35:30–35 , Isaiah 28:16 , 1 Peter 2:4–5, Psalm 118:22–23 , Matthew 16:18

In the 1800s, a group of people were exploring just outside the ancient walls of Jerusalem, near the Damascus Gate, when they came across a hole in the ground. Curious, they began to dig—and uncovered...

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Warped Wood & Crooked Timber

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 18:1-6, Isaiah 64:8, Genesis 6:5-6, Romans 7:18-25, Philippians 3:12-14 , Psalm 51:10-12 , Romans 3:23

The recognition of humanity's flawed nature is not exclusive to Christianity. Aristotle, in his work Ethics , compares human nature to a warped piece of wood. To rectify this warp, a skilled ...

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Distraction is the Greatest Threat to Churches

Author

Andrew Sullivan

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 19:11-13, Ecclesiastes 5:1-2 , Isaiah 30:15, Luke 10:38-42 , Mark 1:35 , Psalm 46:10

The journalist Andrew Sullivan has some strong words of advice for the modern church, If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, p...

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Seeing the Value of Their Work

Author

Tom Nelson

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 2:15, 1 Kings 5:13-18, Colossians 3:23-24, Ephesians 4:28, Matthew 25:31-40, Psalm 90:17

After attending a conference in New York City, a pastoral colleague, Reid Kapple, was flying home to Kansas City on US Airways flight 745 when the plane suddenly lost cabin pressure. As the plane desc...

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A Jagged Symbol of Equality & Inequality

Author

Tony Evans

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 59:1-3, Micah 6:6-8 , Ephesians 2:13-18 , Galatians 3:26-28, Romans 12:4-5 , Psalm 85:10

My friend Ray McMillan introduced me to the Liberty Bell as a perfect object lesson for America’s racial divide. In addressing why “the bell won’t ring,” Ray describes the crack as a perfect illustrat...

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The Warning Light

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 4:6-7, Exodus 32:7-10, Jonah 1:1-4, John 8:3-11, Psalm 51:10-12

Imagine you’ve just purchased a brand-new car—it’s no ordinary car, it’s a luxury vehicle, with the highest trim levels, equipped with all the latest technology. Among its many upgrades is a voice ale...

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Your Elevator Pitch

Author

Sarah Puryear

Keywords

Have you ever put together an "elevator speech" or "pitch" for a job or a project? It's a 30-second (or less) statement of who you are or what you're selling which you coul...

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Starving Amongst Abundance

Author

Dave Peterson

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 9:8, 1 Timothy 6:6-10, Luke 12:16-21, Matthew 16:24-28, Matthew 6:19-21

Dave Nessia was starving himself to death while hoarding food. It was on the hit reality show Alone. After 73 days alone in the wilderness, he had lost 40 lbs. and his blood pressure had fallen to 80/...

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One Very Important Word of Encouragement

Author

Dan B. Allender and Larry Crabb

Keywords

As a youngster I developed a thoroughly annoying and humiliating problem of stuttering…In the ninth grade, I was elected president of our junior high student body. During an assembly of the seventh, e...

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