NowTHINK!AboutIt

Avoiding Hackneyed...Making Sense

Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination With The Afterlife

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Heaven may be considered a figment but it sure isn't fading.

Heaven
According To Everyone

Heaven is a trending topic so it is no surprise that people are thinking and writing about it. Lisa Miller’s book, however, breaks the mold.

Lisa’s book isn’t a Bible study. It isn’t a book on theology. Instead, she writes from the perspective of human longing, expectation and hope.

The Bible isn’t ignored but it doesn’t feature as the only or even the primary source of information.

About The Author

I first learned of Lisa, and her book, when she did an interview with Rob Bell for the release of his book, Love Wins. Although the interview was more about Rob’s book, there was an obvious secondary motive. [Read more…] about Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination With The Afterlife

4 Things Failure Is Not

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Sitting around doing nothing is waste, not failure.

Failure Catalyzes
Clarity And Focus

Is failure a good thing or a bad thing? When does it happen? Should I avoid it? How does it work?

Failure provokes many questions and it’s common. Is there anyone who hasn’t been body slammed by its after effects?

Some think failure is synonymous with loser. Not a nice idea. Also not true. People who succeed greatly also fail badly.

In order to get through failure effectively, and use it to win rather than lose, we need to manage it like popular winners. The first step toward doing that is understanding what it is not. [Read more…] about 4 Things Failure Is Not

8 Resolutions For New Beginnings Every Year

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Now is the time for new beginnings, not tomorrow

Failure Is The Doorway
To New Beginnings

Fortunately, we get more than one attempt at success. In fact, life constantly moves from New Beginnings to Failures and back to New Beginnings. It’s the universal cycle of personal experience. The cycles begin when we take our first breath and never end till we take the last. Unfortunately, Failure is the center piece of that cycle.

We don’t like it, but what that means is failure is inevitable. Not bad. Not regrettable. Not unusual. Everyone fails. It is unavoidable, but perceptions notwithstanding, failure isn’t entirely negative.

Winston Churchill said:

Failure is not fatal!

It may feel like you’re dying at the time but with the right approach, failure becomes the mechanism that helps us improve. The number of people who have succeeded through failure is endless.

Don’t worry. I’m not going to bore you with the entire list of every person who failed and then succeeded. Someone else has done that elsewhere.

More to the point, Failure is why there are Refresh buttons on browsers, Restart buttons on Apple TV and Ctrl+Shift+Esc on PC’s. Software development, like life, is an imperfect science and constantly needs updating. Happily, the outcome of that process is a new start and a better experience.

Since we live the process, we should own it and following are eight ways to refresh your life, whether your aiming to improve the next year or the next week. [Read more…] about 8 Resolutions For New Beginnings Every Year

Is Christmas Love Different To Old Testament Love

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Visiting Sins fits somewhere between direct judgment and doing nothing.

Love Takes On Many
Shapes And Sizes

This is the Christmas season.

It’s a happy time. It’s bright, cheery, fun, energetic and the spirit of Christmas-Love pervades.

I don’t know if it’s the decorations or the family time or the idea of peace and goodwill toward all men but Christmas breeds hope.

And it takes over.

Every TV series has a Christmas episode. New Christmas movies are produced annually and old ones are shown again.

Retail sales go crazy. One-fourth of all personal sales are made during the Christmas season. That means that one single day, out of 365, accounts for 25% of all personal expenditures.

Before your jaded, non-commercial side screams foul, please remember that all or most of that spending is done for other people. That is, one person is thinking about another person and attempting to buy them just the right gift. One that says, “You’re special to me.”

Personally, l love it. [Read more…] about Is Christmas Love Different To Old Testament Love

The Butterfly Effect – Everyone, Everything’s Connected

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God makes neither junk nor finished products.

Ring around the rosy
A pocket full
of posies
Ashes, Ashes
We all fall down

Ring Around The Rosy is one of the best known and time enduring nursery rhymes. Ever! It may be the first.

It is widely known throughout the English speaking world and versions are also found in German, Dutch and Italian. Even more noteworthy is the fact that it dates back to the Great London Plague – mid 1600’s – or possibly earlier.

We don’t know exactly when it was first written or popularized but that’s not the important question.

The important question is how did such a short and apparently meaningless nursery rhyme become so popular?

What influential person wrote it?

How was it popularized without a major publisher?

We don’t have answers to these questions but we do know what inspired it. This little ditty was motivated by a flea. Not a great person. Not a great publisher, but a flea.

One small flea made this happen. [Read more…] about The Butterfly Effect – Everyone, Everything’s Connected