Up in the Air

How do those Olympic ski people go backwards up in the air and do somersaults. And land on their feet backwards.

We watch and are dumbfounded. The answer is, they are trained for the impossible by years of doing small jumps? And not being afraid of falling because they know now to roll. Of course it is. Dangerous and to the non expert skier it looks well nigh impossible.

Every excellent in sports involves training and experience. No one gets to the top without discipline and self denial and a good coach. It is in the life of the spirit. We need to listen to our instructions. We must know who we are serving and we are not competing for an earthly gold medal but for something much more lasting.

We will feel pain. We will be disciplined for our own good, but if we stay the course, we will be able to do things for God, we could never have imagined.

Good Old Fashioned American Service

Businesses spend lots of money on figuring out how to win customers. There are all kinds of little words that banks use now to sound more engaging to customers. As for example: How is your day going? Have a nice day! Or any plans for the weekend?

Are we won over by these pasted on programs? The answer is I am not buying into it. Very few people on the other side of the counter really listen to what the customer says.

So, I had a big surprise when a teller remembered something I said from making a transaction with her before. She asked about the class I was attending. It was like a real person listening to me and expressing interest. Was she really interested? There is too much pretend service.

Young people today need to be trained in order to serve. If they are fortunate enough to have basic Christian values taught them in the home, they may extend this in their work area. We need to get back to real service by thanking and underlining when someone really does listen and respond to us in the business area.

And reality check: Are we, am I, becoming sucked into superficiality by the culture? Jesus took people one at a time. He was never too rushed to hone in on the needs of the individual before him. Our basic service values in this country come from a Biblical base. We need to serve each other and we need to know each other and be as real as we can in a very phony plastic society that is fast loosing its moorings in what made it great.

Don't fool yourself. If you want to build up your business or grow a church, you better become more real and work real hard at that. Results are not from programs or slogans or false interest. Results happen when we find that we can be real as we transact our business and that the person on the other end is trustworthy and will do more than just go through the motions.