faith and work on Greatness

Our cities’ gleaming spires point to the greatness that mankind can achieve, but also to our hubris.... Urban innovation can destroy value as well as create it.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

When Jesus caught his disciples arguing about who among them was the greatest, they felt embarrassed—but Jesus didn’t rebuke them for wanting to be great. He simply gave them an unexpected formula: Be...

Have you ever heard of a Stradivarius violin? It’s the gold standard of violins—instantly recognizable and famously expensive. These aren’t $29.95 instruments. One sold for $1 million, another for $4 ...

No one image or model, however elusive or rich, can do more than offer glimpses and hints toward the divine.

This past week I have been at a reunion with college friends (this is the main reason I missed last week's update). It's been significant for a number of reasons. I hope to unpack a few other ...

God uses the nobodies to show himself to be somebody. God uses the nothings to show himself to be something. And maybe you feel like a nobody, a nothing. My friend, you're the one God's chosen...

Elisabeth Elliot once stayed in the farmhouse of a Welsh shepherd and his family high in the mountains of North Wales. She stood watching one misty summer morning as the shepherd on horseback herded t...

In his book, Scary Close , Donald Miller acknowledges that over time he developed a mask, or a persona that kept even those closest to him from experiencing with him. As he began to peel back layers ...

J.B. Phillips was a successful pastor and prolific author in the mid-twentieth century. He was a colleague and friend of C. S. Lewis’s, and it was Lewis who personally endorsed Phillips’s translation ...

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.

The wonderful word master used to describe the person who is at the top of his or her craft, whatever the profession. It was a title that one could work toward and with some degree of confidence ascri...

The following advice on success, written by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, is extremely different from what we are used to (at least in the West,) where success is often seen as an absolute good. ...

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

The words “gratitude” and “grace” come from the same root word, gratia in Latin and kharis in Greek, as mentioned earlier. In addition to being the name of a goddess, “grace” is a theological word, on...

A young boy was heard talking to himself as he wandered through his backyard, sporting a full baseball uniform, jersey and cap included, as well as a ball and bat. "I'm the best hitter in the...

Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, of building a personality beyond its normal limitations.

Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.

Ambition has no rest.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

Authority exercised with humility, and obedience accepted with delight are the very lines along which our spirits live.

Since failure is our unforgivable sin, we are willing to ignore all forms of deviance in people if they just achieve the success symbols which we worship.

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the sobering truth of what happens to many leaders when they climb the “ladder of success”: The ground at the foot of the ladde...

The pressure to succeed is greater than it has ever been—People feel that they must pursue that goal been…people feel that they must pursue that goal even if it means crawling over the bodies of cowor...

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.

Jim Collins writes in his book Good to Great, we need the right people on our bus and we also need them in the right seats. Relational Intelligence: The People Skills You Need for the Life of Purpo...

If our identity is in our work, rather than Christ, success will go to our heads, and failure will go to our hearts.

John Coltrane stands out as one of the giants of 20th-century jazz. His legacy is a generation of hearts touched and the light of God shining through his songs. Yet, for years, his work was haunted by...