This Week's Collection - Volume 2

It is that time again. Pull over. Grab a cup of coffee and take a few moments to enjoy some of my gleanings from this week.

• Empathy vs Sympathy by Dr Brené Brown -- We can only create a genuine empathic connection if we are brave enough to really get in touch with our own fragilities. This 3-minute video has been viewed almost 4 million times. Watch it by clicking here.
• The Coming Victory Over ISIS by Stephen Mansfield-- Mansfield is insightful, biblical and practical. Check out this very brief podcast which includes this great line: “Just because I do something shocking doesn’t mean I’m powerful. In fact, the more I lean toward something shocking the less powerful it probably means I am.”
• CEOs Need Mentors Too -- This piece from the April 2015 Harvard Business Review touches an issue I hear about quite frequently. Here is one part that resonated with me: "Although executive coaches are often superb at providing feedback and closing gaps in specific managerial skills, precious few have actually work in equivalent roles themselves. Mentors, by contrast, are role models who have 'been there and done that.' They can offer timely, context-specific counsel . . . ."
• God's Providence by C.H. Spurgeon: This from the entry: "Morning, August 5." Spurgeon is commenting on Romans 8:28 -- And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. “He knows too that God is always wise, and, knowing this, he is confident that there can be no accidents, no mistakes; that nothing can occur which ought not to arise. He can say, ‘If I should lose all I have, it is better that I should lose than have, if God so wills: the worst calamity is the wisest and the kindest thing that could befall to me if God ordains it. "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God." The Christian does not merely hold this as a theory, but he knows it as a matter of fact."  Devotional Classics of C.H. Spurgeon, Sovereign Grace Publishers, 2008 - Religion - 744 pages
• A book I finished:Washington's Revolution: The Making Of America's First Leader-- Robert Middlekauff does a masterful job of providing insightful and powerful anecdotes as he takes you on a journey with Washington through the Revolutionary War. You'll understand Washington better. You will understand our country better. You will see leadership in action. Here is one excerpt:
• A book I am reading: Churchless: Understanding Today's Unchurched and How to Connect with Them by George Barna and David Kinnaman.
• Two books I bought:The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most Of Them Nowby Meg Jay. The ONE Thing: The Surprising Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results.
• Good words from Peter Drucker:“There are no results without a concentration of resources.”
• A key truth from Sunday's sermon: "We think the answer to our predicament is for God to get us out of it. God knows the answer to our predicament is for us to find him in it." You can watch a one-minute video that captures this truth from the SRC Facebook page by clicking here. You'll have to scroll down just a bit.
• Timely words from Washington: Washington's admonition to soldiers who considered taking military action against Congress at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War. The soldiers were frustrated by the inattention of Congress to their needs. Washington urged them not to repudiate their "own enormous sacrifices and instead to 'express your utmost horror & detestation of the Man who wishes, under any specious pretences, to overturn the liberties of our Country & who wickedly attempts to open the flood Gates of Civil discord, & deluge our rising Empire in Blood.'"
• Thanks to John Slavic who pointed out at our Faith@Work gathering this week that the Hebrew word for "work" and "worship" is the same: AVODAH. We often separate those two spheres of life, not God.