THE POWER of PLANNING, 2.

"The most important part of an attack is the planning." - Jarod Kintz

"Have you ever been in this situation?" Asked Gino Blefari, "You rush out the door because you’re late for a morning meeting. Didn’t bother to take your time and verify, if you had all the materials you needed for the meeting. Halfway into the meeting, it hits you. You had forgotten something vital. So you drive all the way back home to get it. You’re now even later than you were to begin with. If you’d taken just a few minutes to look around and check before running out the door, you could’ve saved yourself some time and trouble."

He then illustrated a very insightful narrative that drives the point home with riveting precision. He said, "A group of American car executives visited a Japanese automobile assembly line. They watched the cars go through the assembly line, which all seemed routine, but were confused by the process at the end of the line when the doors were put on the hinges of the cars. The Japanese process seemed to be missing a critical part. In the United States, a worker was hired to tap the edges of the car

THE POWER of PLANNING 1

"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago." - Warren Buffet

Planning, Alan Lakein said, "Is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now." Virtually everyone is aware that, if you fail to plan, then you have planned to fail. In fact, it has been a long standing adage. Yet, interestingly, if there is one thing that almost everybody falls short of doing, it's PLANNING. Especially in Africa. The harvest of a good and fulfilling life must be preceded by some conscious calculated efforts, reflected in a plan.

A funny, but instructive story was told of three fishes which lived in a pond. One was named "Plan ahead", another was "Think fast" and the third was called "Wait and see". One day they heard a fisherman say he would be going to cast his net in their pond the next day. Plan ahead, said,"I am swimming down the river tonight". "Think fast" said, "I am sure I will come up with a plan". "Wait and See" lazily said," I just can't think about it now".

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH; GO TO CHURCH!

"You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips" - Oliver Goldsmith

Once upon a time, there lived a very rich snob who planned a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He met with the bishop to discuss his plans. He said, "My greatest ambition is to reach the top of Mount Sinai. Standing there, I will proclaim aloud the 'Ten Commandments of God' to the whole world with all my strength." The Bishop advised him, "In my opinion, it would be more rewarding if you can practice the commandments at home, with your family, at work, in your neighbourhood and even in the market place; instead of shouting from the mountain top."

We're told in the scriptures, (2 Corinthians 5:20) that, "we're God's representatives on earth." A representative, lives in a different environment from his boss or master (in most cases). His duty is to stand in for his boss . The representative is expected to know his master's business, and thus be able to correctly represent him.

YOUR WORTH DETERMINES YOUR PAIN 6; THE HEAT

"Our trials, our sorrows, and our griefs develop us." - Orison Swett Marden

 

Going through some breaking, the furnace and the process of refining are not easy experiences. Like all other useful products today, the process is inevitable. It is a requirement. After gold has gone through the Breaking, the Crucible and the Dross has been expelled, it's exposed again to ; THE HEAT.

The refiner raises the temperature to higher degrees. After the painstaking efforts of skimming off the impurities. He turns up the heat, and places the crucible back into the blistering furnace. Again and again - about seven times more, we are told - as more impurities rise to the surface. An expert refiner knows that only certain impurities are released at certain temperatures. Different impurities require varying degrees of heat to expel them from gold.

ONE GOD

"That to which your heart clings is your god." – Martin Luther

The Bible proclaims plainly and clearly that there is one, and only one God. When the Bible says that God is one, the word "one" does not refer to a "Family of gods," but to ONE, ONLY, IRREPLACEABLE God.

In some of the villages on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu in the South Pacific, Prince Philip of Great Britain is worshiped as a god. It seemed as though, this began during the 1960s, when Vanuatu was an Anglo-French colony known as the, New Hebrides.

For centuries, villagers had believed in an ancient story about the son of a mountain spirit, venturing across the seas to look for a powerful woman to marry. They believed that, this spirit had pale skin. Somehow the legend gradually became associated with Prince Philip, who had indeed married a rich and powerful lady. Villagers would have seen his portrait - and that of the Queen - in government outposts and police stations run by British colonial officials. Their beliefs were bolstered in 1974, when the Queen and Prince Philip made an official visit to the New Hebrides. Here was their ancestral spirit,