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Decisions
Decisions
It may be true that there
are two sides to every question
but it is also true that there are two sides
to a sheet of flypaper. And it makes a big difference to the fly which side he
chooses! ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations
for Biblical Preaching》
Decisions
Jim Elliot
a dedicated
missionary in Ecuador who was killed by the Auca Indians in 1956
said it well:
“Father
make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not
be a milepost on a single mad; make me a fork
that men must turn one way or
another on facing Christ in me.” ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations for Biblical
Preaching》
Two men who lived in a
small village got into a terrible dispute that they could not resolve. So they
decided to talk to the town sage. The first man went to the sage's home and
told his version of what happened. When he finished
the sage said
"You're absolutely right." The next night
the second man called on
the sage and told his side of the story. The sage responded
"You're
absolutely right." Afterward
the sage's wife scolded her husband.
"Those men told you two different stories and you told them they were
absolutely right. That's impossible -- they can't both be absolutely right."
The sage turned to his
wife and said
"You're absolutely right."
David Moore
Vital
Speeches of the Day.
Former president Ronald
Reagan once had an aunt who took him to a cobbler for a pair of new shoes. The
cobbler asked young Reagan
"Do you want square toes or round toes?"
Unable to decide
Reagan didn't answer
so the cobbler gave him a few days.
Several days later the cobbler saw Reagan on the street and asked him again
what kind of toes he wanted on his shoes. Reagan still couldn't decide
so the
shoemaker replied
"Well
come by in a couple of days. Your shoes will be
ready." When the future president did so
he found one square-toed and one
round-toed shoe! "This will teach you to never let people make decisions
for you
" the cobbler said to his indecisive customer. "I learned
right then and there
" Reagan said later
"if you don't make your own
decisions
someone else will."
Today in the Word
August
1991
p. 16.
During World War II
Winston Churchill was forced to make a painful choice. The British secret
service had broken the Nazi code and informed Churchill that the Germans were
going to bomb Coventry. He had two alternatives: (1) evacuate the citizens and
save hundreds of lives at the expense of indicating to the Germans that the
code was broken; or (2) take no action
which would kill hundreds but keep the
information flowing and possibly save many more lives. Churchill had to choose
and followed the second course.
Klyne Snodgrass
Between
Two Truths - Living with Biblical Tensions
1990
Zondervan Publishing
House
p. 179.
When the author walks onto
the stage
the play is over. God is going to invade
all right; but what is the
good of saying you are on His side then
when you see the whole natural universe
melting away like a dream and something else comes crashing in? This time it
will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike
either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be
too late then to choose your side. That will not be the time for choosing; It
will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen
whether we
realized it before or not. Now
today
this moment
is our chance to choose the
right side.
C.S. Lewis.
The words of Eleanor
Roosevelt ring true: One's philosophy is not best expressed in words. It is
expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run
we shape our lives and we
shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make
are ultimately our responsibility.
Tim Kimmel
Little
House on the Freeway
p. 143.
When you have to make a
choice and don't make it
that is in itself a choice.
William James.
"When I was a boy
my
father
a baker
introduced me to the wonders of song
" tenor Luciano
Pavarotti relates. "He urged me to work very hard to develop my voice.
Arrigo Pola
a professional tenor in my hometown of Modena
Italy
took me as a
pupil. I also enrolled in a teachers college. On graduating
I asked my father
'Shall I be a teacher or a singer?'
"'Luciano
' my father
replied
'if you try to sit on two chairs
you will fall between them. For
life
you must choose one chair.'
"I chose one. It took
seven years of study and frustration before I made my first professional appearance.
It took another seven to reach the Metropolitan Opera. And now I think whether
it's laying bricks
writing a book--whatever we choose--we should give
ourselves to it. Commitment
that's the key. Choose one chair."
Guideposts.
A pastor I know
Stephey
Bilynskyj
starts each confirmation class with a jar full of beans. He asks his
students to guess how many beans are in the jar
and on a big pad of paper
writes down their estimates. Then
next to those estimates
he helps them make
another list: Their favorite songs. When the lists are complete
he reveals the
actual number of beans in the jar. The whole class looks over their guesses
to
see which estimate was closest to being right. Bilynskyj then turns to the list
of favorite songs. "And which one of these is closest to being
right?" he asks. The students protest that there is no "right
answer"; a person's favorite song is purely a matter of taste. Bilynskyj
who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Notre Dame asks
"When you decide
what to believe in terms of your faith
is that more like guessing the number
of beans
or more like choosing your favorite song?" Always
Bilynskyj
says
from old as well as young
he gets the same answer: Choosing one's faith
is more like choosing a favorite song. When Bilynskyj told me this
it took my
breath away. "After they say that
do you confirm them?" I asked him.
"Well
" smiled Bilynskyj
"First I try to argue them out of
it."
Tim Stafford
Christianity
Today
September 14
1992
p. 36.
He who chooses the beginning
of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determine the
end.
H.E. Fosdick.
Film maker Walt Disney was
ruthless in cutting anything that got in the way of a story's pacing. Ward
Kimball
one of the animators for Snow White
recalls working 240 days
on a 4 1/2 minute sequence in which the dwarfs made soup for Snow White and
almost destroyed the kitchen in the process. Disney thought it was funny
but
he decided the scene stopped the flow of the picture
so out it went. When the
film of our lives is shown
will it be as great as it might be? A lot will
depend on the multitude of "good" things we need to eliminate to make
way for the great things God wants to do through us.
Kenneth Langley.
British prime minister
Herbert Asquith once spent a weekend at the Waddesdon estate of the
19th-century Rothschild family. One day
as Asquith was being waited on at
teatime by the butler
the following conversation ensued:
"Tea
coffee
or a
peach from off the wall
sir?"
"Tea
please
" answered Asquith.
"China
India
or Ceylon
sir?" asked the butler.
"China
please."
"Lemon
milk
or cream
sir?"
"Milk
please
" replied Asquith.
"Jersey
Hereford
or Shorthorn
sir?" asked the butler.
Today in the Word
May 5
1993.
Former president Ronald
Reagan once had an aunt who took him to a cobbler for a pair of new shoes. The
cobbler asked young Reagan
"Do you want square toes or round toes?"
Unable to decide
Reagan didn't answer
so the cobbler gave him a few days.
Several days later the cobbler saw Reagan on the street and asked him again
what kind of toes he wanted on his shoes. Reagan still couldn't decide
so the
shoemaker replied
"Well
come by in a couple of days. Your shoes will be
ready." When the future president did so
he found one square-toed and one
round-toed shoe! "This will teach you to never let people make decisions
for you
" the cobbler said to his indecisive customer. "I learned
right then and there
" Reagan said later
"if you don't make your own
decisions
someone else will."
Today in the Word
MBI
August
1991
p. 16.
During World War II
Winston Churchill was forced to make a painful choice. The British secret
service had broken the Nazi code and informed Churchill that the Germans were
going to bomb Coventry. He had two alternatives: (1) evacuate the citizens and
save hundreds of lives at the expense of indicating to the Germans that the
code was broken; or (2) take no action
which would kill hundreds but keep the
information flowing and possibly save many more lives. Churchill had to choose
and followed the second course.
Klyne Snodgrass
Between
Two Truths - Living with Biblical Tensions
1990
Zondervan Publishing
House
p. 179.
The hardest thing to learn
in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.
David Russell.
When in charge
ponder.
When in trouble
delegate. When in doubt
mumble.
Take time to deliberate;
but when the time for action arrives
stop thinking and go on.
Andrew Jackson.
It may be true that there
are two sides to every question
but it is also true that there are two sides
to a sheet of flypaper
and it makes a big difference to the fly which side he
chooses.
Traditional.
In my search for an
assistant
I had narrowed the applicants to two women. One had more experience;
the other was more personable. I headed for my boss's office
still undecided.
Realizing I needed help
he produced a quarter
saying
"Heads
It's
experience. Tails
it's personality." He flipped the quarter into the air
and then asked
"Quick! What are you thinking?" "Tails
" I
blurted. It was true. I had been wishing it would come up tails. The quarter
landed in his palm and without looking at it
he said
"Call Personnel
with your executive decision."
Donna Paciullo
in Reader's
Digest.
A husband and wife
prior
to marriage
decided that he'd make all the major decisions and she the minor
ones. After 20 years of marriage
he was asked how this arrangement had worked.
"Great! in all these years I've never had to make a major decision."
Source Unknown.
A farmer hired a man to
work for him. He told him his first task would be to paint the barn and said it
should take him about three days to complete. But the hired man was finished in
one day. The farmer set him to cutting wood
telling him it would require about
4 days. The hired man finished in a day and a half
to the farmer's amazement.
The next task was to sort out a large pile of potatoes. He was to arrange them
into three piles: seed potatoes
food for the hogs
and potatoes that were good
enough to sell. The farmer said it was a small job and shouldn't take long at
all. At the end of the day the farmer came back and found the hired man had
barely started. "What's the matter here?" the farmer asked. "I can
work hard
but I can't make decisions!" replied the hired man.
Source Unknown.
In April
1986
Larry
Burkett (on his radio program) spoke of a young couple who wanted to buy a
home
but felt it to be too expensive for them. They told God
"If you want
us to buy it
1) have the contractor accept only 1/2 of what he's asking for
the down payment
and 2) have the bank approve our loan. Both events happened
and they bought the home. They soon began to go into debt. The problem: what to
do now
since God "directed" them to do this!
Larry Burkett.
I remember one winter my
dad needed firewood
and he found a dead tree and sawed it down. In the spring
to his dismay
new shoots sprouted around the trunk. He said
"I thought
sure it was dead. The leaves had all dropped in the wintertime. It was so cold
that twigs snapped as if there were no life left in the old tree. But now I see
that there was still life at the taproot." He looked at me and said
"Bob
don't forget this important lesson. Never cut a tree down in the
wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your
most important decisions when you are in your worst mood. Wait. Be patient. The
storm will pass. The spring will come."
Robert H. Schuller
Tough
Times Never Last
But Tough People Do!
Thomas Nelson.
Irving Janis lists some of
the symptoms of groupthink in his study of high-level governmental decision
makers:
-Prime among these is the
sharing of an illusion of invulnerability which leads to over optimism and causes
planners to fail to respond to clear warnings of danger and be willing to take
extraordinary risks.
-Secondly
the participants in groupthink ignore warnings and construct
rationalizations in order to discount them.
-Third
victims of groupthink have an unquestioned belief in the inherent
morality of their in group actions
inclining the members to ignore the ethical
or moral consequences of their decisions.
-Fourth
victims of groupthink hold stereotyped views of the leaders of enemy
groups. They are seen as so evil that there is no warrant for arbitration or
negotiation or as too weak or too stupid to put up an effective defense.
-Fifth
victims of groupthink
says Janis
apply direct pressure on any
individual who momentarily expresses doubts about any of the group's shared
illusions
or questions the validity of the arguments.
-Sixth
unanimity becomes an idol. Victims of groupthink avoid deviating from
what appears to be the group consensus; they keep silent about their misgivings
and even minimize to themselves the importance of their doubts.
Victims of groupthink
sometimes appoint themselves as "mindguards" to protect the leader
and fellow members from adverse information. Janis quotes Robert Kennedy as
having taken one of the members of the group aside and told him
"You may
be right or you may be wrong
but the President has made his mind up. Don't
push it any further. Now is the time for everyone to help him all they
can." Janis also lists some of the symptoms of the resulting inadequacy of
problem-solving. Among these are the limitation of discussion to only a few
alternative courses of action
the failure to reexamine some of the initially
preferred and now discarded courses of action
and the failure to seek
information from experts within the same organization who could supply more
precise estimates of possible losses and gains from alternate courses of
action.
K. Menninger
Whatever
Became of Sin?
pp. 96
97; Irving L. Janis
"Groupthink
" Psychology
Today
5:43 (November
1971).
The words of Eleanor
Roosevelt ring true: One's philosophy is not best expressed in words. It is
expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run
we shape our lives and we
shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make
are ultimately our responsibility.
Tim Kimmel
Little
House on the Freeway
p. 143.
Years ago a professor at
Stanford devised a check lest of nine questions that can be applied to any
problem. Used as a self- quiz
the questions spur imagination. They are:
1. Is there a new way to
do it?
2. Can you borrow or adapt?
3. Can you give it a new twist?
4. Do you merely need more of the same?
5. Less of the same?
6. Is there a substitute?
7. Can the parts be rearranged?
8. What if we do just the opposite?
9. Can ideas be combined?
Bits & Pieces
February
1990
p. 20.
While an open mind is
priceless
it is priceless only when its owner has the courage to make a final
decision which closes the mind for action after the process of viewing all
sides of the question has been completed. Failure to make a decision after due
consideration of all the facts will quickly brand a man as unfit for a position
of responsibility. Not all of your decisions will be correct. None of us is
perfect. But if you get into the habit of making decisions
experience will
develop your judgment to a point where it is better to be right fifty percent
of the time and get something done
than it is to get nothing done because you
fear to reach a decision.
H.W. Andrews.
Actually
a manager needs
the ability not only to make good decisions himself
but also to lead others to
make good decisions. Charles Moore
after four years of research at the United
Parcel Service reached the following conclusions:
1. Good decisions take a
lot of time.
2. Good decisions combine the efforts of a number of people.
3. Good decisions give individuals the freedom to dissent.
4. Good decisions are reached without any pressure from the top to reach an
artificial consensus.
5. Good decisions are based on the participation of those responsible for
implementing them.
Charles W.L. Foreman
"Managing a Decision Into Being
" from the Management Course for
Presidents
pp.3-4.
What kind of person is
best able to involve others and himself in good decision making? J. Keith
Louden lists seven qualities:
1. The ability to look
ahead and see what's coming -- foresight.
2. Steadiness
with patience and persistence and courage.
3. A buoyant spirit that in spite of cares generates confidence.
4. Ingeniousness
the ability to solve problems soundly yet creatively.
5. The ability to help others.
6. Righteousness
the willingness to do the right thing and speak the truth.
7. Personal morality of a quality that commands the respect of others.**
J. Keith Louden
"Leadership
" from the Management Course for Presidents
pp
10-11.
To every man there openeth
A way
and ways
and a way.
And some men climb the high way
And some men grope below
And in between on the misty flats
The rest drift to and fro.
And to every man there openeth
A high way and a low;
And every man decideth
Which way his soul shall go.
John Oxenham.