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Monday, June 17, 2013

Sunday Lessons


The first thing I must share is a story in today’s devotional by Jimmy Carter. He tells a story that I think has wide application and is definitely something we need to hear when tolerance is just another name for “I don’t give a damn!” Here’s the story.

A small company was contemplating a new health-insurance plan. Everyone in the company supported it, except one man, named Rudolph. This was a problem because everybody needed to accept the plan for it to move forward. So every company employee wrote a message to Rudolph asking him to change his mind. He refused. Then they invited a special salesman to come and explain the benefits to Rudolph, but still Rudolph said no. Finally his boss called him in and said, “Either you approve the plan or your job is terminated.” Immediately Rudolph agreed. Later, when asked what changed his mind, he replied, “Well, the boss was the first one to explain it to me clearly.”

(Through the Year with Jimmy Carter, page 168).

In Sunday school today Kunta Kinte Luellan celebrated the blessings that daily fill his life. He exhorted us to have patience and count our blessings. This trenchant challenge by Kunta brings home the central point that by fixating too narrowly on a goal—(an anticipated outcome currently presumed to eventuate in a blessing) and thus holding in abeyance any and all other blessings—robs us of serendipitous developments born of a receptive spirit within a multifarious universe. In this sense open-ended creativity proves to be essential for a happy, abundant, and blessed life.






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