The Threads that Weave the Mosaic!

Howdy partners, I just got back from the zoo, well its been several days now. I had the occassion to enjoy the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia. My was it a treat!  It has been some years since Ive been to a real zoo, and this one had over 2000 species, a very good  set animal exhibits, elephants, giraffes, zebra, lions and tiger.

As I roamed the grounds it was very apparent that I could  only skim the exhibits, not  take time to thoroughly enjoy them; it would have taken more than a day! SO many times we take things, including creation, for granted. We look at Animal Planet and National Geographic  yawn and change the channel.. remark that Ive seen that before. Remarkably it sometimes fails to make the impression on us that it should. THis world we live in, even in this advanced civiliation is still full of God mysteries resplendent through the animal kingdom!


Ps 40:5 Oh Lord how wonderful are Thy Works.
Oh Yes there was a Botanical Garden, I hurried through that, but at least I  now have some appreciation for the explosion of color and dizzying array of plants and flowers. The pools and fountains were a refreshing  and provoked the question, " I wonder what the Garden of Eden looked like?"

Doing some research I found out that there are approximately 1.5 to 2 million species discovered, and there might be 2-50 million yet to be discovered!  10.000 new species are discovered each year!!

I caught a picture of the giant snapping turtle, without realizing that there are 300 species of turtles. We went into the reptile house, ooh ing ahhing at the snakes and lizards, There are almost 8000  types.  Birds? forget it, there are  10,000 species of birds,a nd 30000 fish. Those is the  ones that we know.
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0934288.html


The genius of Gods creation is revealed threads that occurred to me after I left the zoo.. I shall name a few.

We have covered the diversity. The sheer numbers boggle the mind and drive us to worship the Creators intelligence. He wasnt content with just creating one bird or fish, He is prolific. creator as seen throughout the universe.. man is just discovering how much he doesnt know.  A truism emerges, " When man thinks he knows all there is to know, there is a discovery in science that makes him a babe in the woods."



One:  The vast array or diversity of animal, reptile and plant life and Oh dont forget the mind boggling number of sea creatures. When man explores the deep sea he is still finding out creatures he didnt know existed!  God poured out his genius when he designed each creature. I only saw a few creatures, but I never come away nothing less than stunned.

Romans 11:33  Oh Lord how excellent is thy works and they ways past finding out.  We will never plum the depths of His creation, but we can enjoy and reflect upon it as God's crown jewel.
 
Oh Lord How wonderful are thy works... .
Second:  Because there is so many creatures on Planet Earth, there is also a interconnectivity throughout the food chain.

FOr example:  plants depend on insects, animals depend on plants, man depends on animals and plants for sustenance. A tiger depends on deer and various creatures for its meat, those creatures depends on the rain and the growth of plant life. We depend on tigers to keep the animal population down. etc the

All creatures draw from the breath of God, and are connected by the magnetic field, sight, sense, and sound. The world is one vast network of connections!  The Bible says,   Acts 17:28       " In whom we live and move and have our very being."

Third thread, is the functionality of the animals.. Take the bird for example. Each bird has a specific habitat which it thrives, certain food which it depends on, and a cerain coat which makes it adaptable to the climate that it lives in. Birds are migratory creatures, and as such they  can adapt to extremes of weather hot or cold.

Elephants are designed to not only capture their food by their tusks and trunk, but also to thrive in their environment. Their are desert elephants as well as African or Asian elephants. The trunks are designed to catch and split apart branches and fruit, and to also ward off lions.

I could go on and on with each creature bird or mammal, but you get the picture. A vast mosaic of the God handiwork.  When I consider the works of thy hands.. I am overwhelmed, and so should you!

For all those that think that all this evolved over billions of years, and that  animals developed this over time, youd got another thing  coming.  "In the beginning God created the heavens and  the earth, and GOd saw that it was very good!. Indeed it was!!    Within the millions of creatures each was given weapons and skills to provide and defend itself.

The scope of creation is too marvelous for us to comprehend but it is here for us to enjoy..

I could add another  thread and that is the artifice and intelligence in creation.

William Bartram was a 19century naturalists who had some interesting things to say.


If we bestow but a very little attention to the economy of the animal creation, we shall find manifest examples of premeditation, perseverance, resolution, and consumate artifice, in order to effect their purpose.






If we bestow but a very little attention to the economy of the animal creation, we shall find manifest examples of premeditation, perseverance, resolution, and consumate artifice, in order to effect their purpose.


William






If we bestow but a little attention to the economy of animal creation, we shall find manifest examples of premediation, perseverance, resolution, and consummate artifice, to affect their purpose.!!

It would do justice to render Bartram's quote about the whole of creation. After all he spend a lifetime studying it,  " On the recollection of so many and great favours and blessings, I now, with a high sense of gratitude  presume to offer up my sincere thanks to the  Almighty, the  Creator, and the Preserver."

Downward Spiral...

Learning how to handle the disappointments in life is a key to emotional stability. I learned this in a rather stark way through a friend of mine. We had talked about a previous suicide attempt and her desire to end it all..  LIFE JUST WASNT WORTH LIVING FOR!   Her family graciously talked her through it and she recovered sort of...
I found out later that she had a date set up and that person did not come through and stood her up. Now what do you think the average person would think or do. I know I would shrug it off and say, " Hey, this person is not worth my time and move one."  Unfortunately this person simply took a nose dive and started drinking. The old adage " you gotta be  stop when you had too much"   She just kept drinking more and more shots of  jack and coke. I received a call when I was in bed at 200 am.. come get me, I cant even walk!

Reluctantly I went to a local bar and picked her up literally and  helped her to her car, Wait no she was so "out of it" that she wasnt able to walk let alone drive! As  I was going out one of the patrons, said jokingly, "another satisfied customer" I laughed because it was funny,  but actually it was pretty pathetic!

The most salient point here is the Downward Spiral that we cause when we respond to situations as if it were life and death. Pulling on a Jack Daniels, etc is just too easy and may  be a  way of escape, but only for a little while. Your body will remind you of your  dumb move.  Why not think of more constructive ways to handle your frustration?

How about exercise, or a game of chess? how about kicking the crap out of punching bag, or running on the treadmill? instead of quaffing beer? How about attacking the problem at its core, or thought  process?

We are not so different: all of us have our little vices that we use when we are down ,depressed, or angry. The trick is to strive make them healthier. We cannot run from ourself and our problems, so its best stand up own our stuff and work through  it!

MISSING LINK?

Have you ever had the experience of dating someone,  getting to know them, (you think) then suddenly they vanish like Houdini in a puff of smoke? You are going along pretty well, communicating and the bottom drops out. You try to text or call them and they simply refuse to get back with you.!

You can call it what you want, you just lost interest, she was seeing somebody else, or just got busy. I really have little patience for such. There is  such a thing as courtesy and respect.,.. something that was present a week ago, now all of a sudden its not. It doenst make sense and  demeans the other party.  When you dont communicate with that person, you are basically insulting them. You are saying in so many words, or lack of them, (I dont think you are important enough to talk.. too soo Ill do the easiest thing and cop out...

Silence is not golden when it comes to relatioships. More people are hurt by the lack of communication that are helped by it. What you dont do if you respect and value a person, is just disappear without an explanation. Sometimes I think some people have a total lack of empathy,, they cannot  put themselves in the other  person shoes, or be able to reverse  that and see it through their own eyes.

The missing link in marriages and in failed business ventures is missing or bad communication. Assumptions are deadly because they are many times erroneous. The  very people that put up nice profiles that want rich rewarding relationships, often  are the  pathetic  at  communication . Take it from me , I know.

Relationships take work, and that means open honest and free communication.  It takes time and energy to work on one..something apparently that some people are not ready to do!

One tip:  Be clear about what you want.. and fearlessly express it..It will separae the pretenders from the contenders!

http://www.dailycal.org/2011/10/04/sex-on-tuesday-love-in-the-time-of-facebook/

She makes some very salient points , but expresses the same bewilderment about what dating has come to,. Perhaps Im  a lttle old fashioned ,but.. she is on to the updated and ultra sleek  modern form of cyber dating. We think we have more but we actually have less.  Short attention spans mean that we are juggling..  instead of focusing on the moment and the person we are too busy planning our next move.

No silence is not golden, and there is a missing link. ala really honest open communication!

RIPPLE EFFECTS

I remember as a child skipping rocks across a lake and watching the flat stones skip much farther than I thought possible. Another phenomenon that I discovered as a young guy was the ripple effect. WHen you dropped  a rock or anything in the water it created a wider swatch of circles from the source. Similarly, the consequences of our actions hold a much wider effect than we can possibly imagine.

Case in Point:  9-11  When that event smashed into our life, it created ripple effects of staggering purportions! In  a smaller way our actions, and particularly the way we interract with others causes very profound ripple effects. These can be very good  or not so good at all.  Mahmhat Ghandi started a movement in India that has very constructive effects to this day, He  was the primary reason why India has evolved into a growing democracy.

Othe effects:   Large churches such as the ones here in town; I.E  Brookwood and Redemption  in Greenville with started with strong intention and healthy faith. A handful of people with a strong belief has affected not only this community but large numbers of people around the country, and around the world! The ripple effects are deep and pervasive. For example Brookwood send missiionaries around the globe but it all started with a small group that broke off from Mauldin First Baptist.. they saw a niche that could be filled with broken and hurting people in the community and it mushroomed into a megachurch of 6,000 people!

Redemption Outreach started witht the vision of Ron Carpenter  and a handful of folks that rented out a building off Woodruff Rd just a few years back, today it has created one of the largest church in the southeast, with effects on many thousands of lives.

Personally, I attend  the church I do because of the way I was treated. Several people from a Sunday School class took time with me and showed me the love of God. THey reached out and invested in me their time and energy and it impressed me profoundly. Ripple effects: they are small causes that explode into bigger ones if properly nourished.

Conpanies distinquish themselves, by applying the golden rule of customer service. Treat another like you would like to be treated and then go one better. Be better at it than anyone else.

This article really brings it out:http://www.fastcompany.com/1762975/world-class-companies-create-compelling-customer-experiences

Every company whether it was Amazon or Fed Ex went out of their way to overdeliver on their promise. They spent just as much energy retaining a customer as they did purseing them initially! That is how you make meaningful connections and corral lifelong customer service.

This is the fulcrum of dynamic sales professionals. They know that their future income and the life of their company is based on how well they treat their customers! The wrong ripple effect creats a wrong impression that can last for years. Weve all had it. Lets make positive ripple effects, knowing that Solomon said it best in Ecc. 11:1              "Cast thy bread upon they waters for thou shall find it after many days."

This young man caught my attention as a shining example of putting relationship before profit. He personifies the spirit of what capitalism and Christianity should be, Get to know somebody first and build on a relationship before you go on to what you can "do for them"  Linkhttp://www.ripplecentral.com/

Are you creating ripple effects? Good ones..are you looking at the long term or more concerned about your bottom line?

A friend once told me her story in rural central KS of a ministry that challenged her thinking and patience. Many were the obstacles to sustain it, but so were the blessings: the ripple effects that she was creating in her community for long term and eternal good. When she leaves that ministry she will have "paid it forward" she will have created relationships that will change lives.. that is the ripple effect we are talking about.

Steve Harper has an approach that works very well. When going to a network, how many times has a business card been thrust in your face, and an elevator pitch been rolled out before you actually got to know tha person? Its often, and the difference, is small but very crucial. Steve recommends building a relationship first before trying to tell them your story!!  Again youve heard it before. "People dont  care about you know until they know how much you care"  So true, and so rare to see.. building a relationship with somebody and caring about them as a person shows up in the small things. Steve can tell you firsthand!
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Its the kind of thing that builds life long sales and loyal clients.  Want to build a huge referral base and have business coming to you?  Start building a connection first.

The McDonalds Miracle!

Business are a lot like scienitific experiments. A lot of them do not work, but a few prized ones do. The facts remains  that more than 50 % of  businesses fail in their first couple years of operation. But for those that do.. ie Apple, Netflix, Microsoft, Oracle, Sara's Kitchen. among many others  that do  sometimes work beyond the wildest expectations!  McDonalds    started  by Ray Kroc more than 50 years ago has grown to serving more than 64 million customers daily. That is more than the population of most countries! It has been a model business  that has been improved and refined over the years; securing its place in the top most successful businesses  of all time.

While some may debate the health, ethical, or career issues with MCD's there is no debating their success.

All  successful businesses have a certain enviroment and product that makes it unique. McDonalds product by and large are not unique.  You can get a latte or a burger in a dozen places, however  MCD's  manages to sell more burgers and happy meals that anybody else. Why? Why does Mcdonalds reign king for over a half a century in a very hotly contested fast food market. Simple and yet not so simple.

I was there  the other day.. and no I actually wasnt eating. I was using their wi fi, and just watching the people flow in and out.  Upon reflection I have noticed several things that distingquish MCD's from any other fast food joint and that word is CONVENIENCE!!  McDonalds masters the only thing that really matters timing and customer service. . Rarely have I been in any McDonalds that I had to wait more than a few minutes for my food. However I have been in a plenty of other FFJ that they got my order wrong, they made me wait 5 minutes or longer, or worse yet acted like I interrupted something when I came to order!

McDonalds also has another a great System in place that can be duplicated in the world with the same predictable results. It has perfected a business plan over the decades of trial and error. There is no guess work when it comes training, design, and system implementation. Obviously they have the winning combination. In business, usually the best system is what is already in place by the top distributor or business owner. Incredibly, many smart people still want to tinker and reinvent the wheel!

McDonalds still has its finger on the pulse of American society, and adjusts to trends as needed, For instance when the coffee craze with Starbucks, and other franchises; it adjusted to and rolled its own decent brands. It didnt have to be the best brand only somewhat competitive. When the wifi craze has swept across the country, and many cafes with wi fi hotspots sprang up, McDonalds adjusted and remodeled its bldgs to accomdodate the student and  younger generation.

For all its faults, and high calorie meals, McDonalds stands alone in its apparent domination of the market for decades to come. The Mcdonalds brand  is one of the chief ways Americanism and its products are introduced to other countries.

Chief lesson here, sometimes success doesnt have to be invented it has to be only effectively copied. I doubt Ray Kroc with the Speedee logo back in 1940 would have imagined the juggernaut they had started, but I do know that McDonalds can serve as an inspiration to all of us. 

No one else does what they do as well consistently over the vast platform that they preform as Mcdonalds!  THat is the not so easy key to their success!

Some fun and not so fun facts about McDonalds:


Fun Facts about them

Handling Fear

I had the occassion to spend time with my little brother, Malaki. Malaki is my adopted brother who is taking part in the Big Brother program. I have had the unique privilege and joy of talking and sharing moments of joy with this precocious youngster. He is all of seven and bound and determined to explore all that life has to offer him. Once I took him out to the pool and he was like a young man possessed, He couldnt't get enough of it, I had to practically drag him out of the pool.

Hes not afraid to take a hit. Malaki plays football and is just learning what his body and mind can do. Sometimes though his body and mind get confused and fear rules. We've all had fears: I had fear of heights when I was young.. fear of public speaking (most of us do)... Malaki as it turns out had a morbid fear of dogs! I didnt know that until he practically did a 180 turned  and jumped  into my arms as we went into Petsmart!. For a second, I didnt know  what he was doing, until a little furry creature (dog) showed up just wanted to sniff him, youd think it was a crocodile lunging out of the lagoon, He was terrified.

All of a sudden he wanted to hold my hand tightly, so  we walked around the store and I calmed him down. Evidently Malaki has had a very bad experience with dogs. Funny, what other consider threatening others consider nonthreatening... The same boy that loved the water, and meeting new friends, felt threatened by a little dog.?

Fears are illogical, sometimes it doesnt make sense. When we assess our fears it stimulates the fight or flight response. Other times it is just new experiences that we resist. We get so comfortable with the routine. However this limits our future prospects. We cannot live solely  by our emotions, we have  to use our minds when confronting fear.

Fear is paralyzing. Just as Malaki had a mortal fear of dogs, we all have paralyzing fears. If we allow them to paralyze us, it is our trap built with our own hands. Instead of being the free and open youngster he was cowering behind my back in the store.  Fear will do that to any body.

Shakespeare once said, " Fear makes us cowards of us all."

Lastly, fear distorts reality. Malaki  had seen dogs before, but his sense of reality was distorted because he felt that a harmless old Muffi was going to get him. Only by desensitizing him, do we have a chance to cure him of this. Eventually hes going to have a couple of good experiences with dogs, and he will be fine.

In much the same way.. in life we all need good experiences to replace a fear of phobia. In many cases the fear of public speaking and a new job, is unfounded. With confidence  and conditioning, we can overcome many obstacles that thwarted us many times before. I once read a book by Susan Jeffers entitled, Feel the Fear and Do it anyway"     So true, many times the fear is what Zig Ziglar calls   False   Evidence Appearing Real.

And so it is, the same primal fear that stymied normally a happy go lucky kid stops many adults.  Face your fears head on and take action.

The Eyes of Faith

The hands that built this country were also accompanied by eyes of faith. How can you ascribe personal qualities to faith?..The Bible tells us that "faith is the substance of thing hoped for the evidence not seen."  Hebrews 11:1 This week I read through Greg Braddens book, the  Divine Matrix.  In it he talked about the "other reality" Everything we see was once in someone's mind. The invisible reality made the present reality.

This reality is not yet realized, it a thing of the future. In one of the chapters..he talked about acting in the present about the future.. In other words,  feeling as if you were already there. 'Acting as if you were already there"  is the key to  making it all come together!  We all have amazing imaginations that work wonders or wreck our dreams before we start!

All of us have dreams and  aspirations. Some of  them are unrealistic, some are real to us..  I read  about  a John Paul DeJona who came from being homeles twice to becoming a billionaire. The man who sold the dream of the famous line of hairstyling products whos known the  world over.. An unbelievable story but the same truth prevails: Each person had a dream but they saw through 'the eyes of faith' what could be.  AND THEY ACTED IN THE PRESENT.

You need not have a huge dream to lead nations, or a Fortune 500 corp, but you need to revive your own personal dreams. You need to nourish that dreams, picture  it, and associate  with people that are dream makers, not dream stealers.

Personally I see the future and where I want to be, i step into the picture and try in envision it intensely with as much detail as I can. The mind can only act on the images the subconscious gives it. The stronger images you give your mind to work from, the more "personal experience"

Imagine the life you want, through the "eyes of faith."