All posts tagged: Failure

Jim Bakker Credit: YouTube Capture/The Jim Bakker Show

Jim Bakker is back. Did you know?

Published by

If you are older than 40, you should know the names Jim and Tammy Bakker, although the younger generation might not know about the famous television-evangelist couple. Their story is still interesting. For at least a decade, they were household names, and people who had no interest in Christian things knew about them. It ended with scandals involving misuse of money and sexual misconduct, and Jim Bakker went to jail. His wife Tammy divorced him, and later died of cancer. Jim is out of prison now, and remarried, and active as a Christian speaker again. Apparently, he owes millions to the tax department. We can never accuse Jim and Tammy of being boring. The media needs stories to sell, and Jim and Tammy probably generated millions in revenue for the press. People paid to read those stories. RELATED: Jim Bakker: Wikipedia Jim Bakker has been operating as a Christian speaker for several years now, and it’s not correct to say he just came back, but I think he is getting more attention recently. For most …

Credit: Sydney Daoust/Flickr/Creative Commons

Oh, you are such a loser!

Published by

A new buzz word in pop psychology is “vulnerable.” There is some good advice out there, and this idea can be good for us. If I looked at you and said “loser!” I would be rude, and you would take that as an insult. We learned that in elementary school. So, “loser!” I just called you a loser, and you can say the same to me. If we are not losers, we are failures. Every Christian should know the words in the Bible “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6) That is the bedrock of our Christian faith. Jesus made it right, after we made it wrong. A few days ago, I had a meeting with an old friend. We talked about business and we also had time to catch up on our personal stories, like old friends. This man is a Christian, my brother in Christ, and he described himself as …

Credit: Jessica Meckmann/Flickr/Creative Commons

Pushing through our fears to victory

Published by

Choosing to push through our fear often means not knowing what lies on the other side of it. We waver wondering if we are doing the ‘right’ thing or if we’re going to end up making another mistake. It is always the ‘right’ decision to push through your fear.  Many times we won’t know what the outcome will be, but we do know that God is with us in the good and bad decisions of our lives. The Lord will work it out because we did the ‘right’ thing trusting Him in our decision to move beyond our uncertainty. The great men and women of faith had a deep understanding that God was always with them: “King David said this about him: ‘I see that the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.” (Acts 2:25) It is the same belief that all of us need. When we push through our fear God honors our choice and walks with us. The whole weight of God’s presence, power …

Launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery on April 5, 2010. Photo: Scott Kublin/Flickr/Creative Commons

Success despite failure

Published by

When the Atlantis Space Shuttle was returning from its space flight in 2002 a piece of insulation intended to protect the craft from the searing heat as it traveled through the atmosphere broke off on re-entry. It resulted in minor damage to a rocket booster. The crew and shuttle landed safely and because of this successful landing, the insulation issue received only a cursory inspection. The next year, insulation broke off the heat shield again. It happened during the launch of the Columbus space shuttle destroying the craft and killing all seven members of the crew. This time NASA suspended all flights and undertook a thorough investigation resulting in nearly 30 recommendations to increase shuttle safety. This story was highlighted in 2010 by two researchers — Vinit Desai, assistant professor of Management at the University of Colorado Business School and Peter Madsen a professor at BYU School of Management. They used this story as part of their study on failure as a learning tool. The said the difference responses were due to one flight being …

The Cult of the Victim

Published by

A few days ago I saw something that shocked me. I was walking near a large supermarket, when I saw a distraught young woman. She was very drunk and holding the remains of a beer six pack, and she kept shouting at people and falling down. I saw my neighbors passing her as they went for groceries, some with children, and I immediately took out my phone and called police 911. The police dispatcher promised to send a car and I waited for a while, but that never happened. Thinking back, the woman became less drunk when she saw me on the phone. She walked in a straight line off the property and onto a public space. I stayed shocked and appalled until the next day, when I realized that I and my neighbors had been scammed. The police weren’t interested, because they knew. The young woman was just acting out in a public place, we may never know why, but she was not seriously drunk. My question now is, why did we believe her, …

Photo Maureen McLaughlin/Flickr

Failure is Guaranteed, or Don’t Ship Your Enemies Glitter

Published by

Someone, named Mathew Carpenter started promoting a new business Ship Your Enemies Glitter. I believe our new world economy is entrepreneurial. We need to start new things to survive and prosper, and Mr Carpenter started a new thing indeed. Here’s the glitter story. The founder built a web site to promote his crazy idea: We’re going to be pouring a tonne of glitter into an envelope with a folded up piece of paper. You know what’s going to happen when that special someone opens the envelope & pulls out the letter? The craft herpes will be released & will go everywhere. By Far the most effective and easiest prank ever … Click the buy button. Decide whose day you want to ruin & then enter their address. Please note, there is a lot of swearing on that web site. Also note, the new business made money. Ray Hennessey, a writer for Entrepreneur comments about this surprising new business: You need to have a business behind your idea — as great as that idea may be …

The failure that helped make Lincoln president

Published by

[by Earl Blacklock] Robert Todd Lincoln was a witness to some of the most momentous moments of American history. As Secretary of War under President James A. Garfield, he witnessed Garfield’s assassination at the hands of Charles Guiteau. He was Minister to the Court of St. James (U.S. Ambassador to Britain) under President Benjamin Harrison. He succeeded George Pullman as the President of the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1898 and, at the invitation of President William McKinley, he was at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo when McKinley was gunned down by Leon Czolgosz. Despite his lifetime of achievement, however, it was his record of failure which was, perhaps, his greatest contribution to history. Robert Todd Lincoln was the first son of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, and the only one to reach adulthood.

Failing

Published by

[by Sandy McIntosh] Are you failing? I hope so. A new book “Roadmap” presents a road trip as a life. A real trip has risk, adventure, detours, and new friends and ideas. Traveling on the shortest, fastest route is a business trip, how truck drivers pay their bills. A successful life is the same. We can make all the approved life choices; school, marriage, career, car in the driveway. But a sterile, straight-line, quick march to the grave is a profoundly failed life. In Roadmap “That Leave it to Beaver suburban lifestyle went belly up with the rotary phone” (p12). In the Bible, it’s “the god of this world.”

How to be a successful failure

Published by

From man’s perspective, the prophet Ezekiel was an absolute failure. God sent the prophet to call Israel to repentance. But everybody hated him. Nobody listened to him. Nobody repented. It all started in chapter 2, when God commissioned Ezekiel. The Lord told the prophet, He was sending him to a rebellious people (v 3).  And if Ezekiel had any expectation the people would respond, God told him: