Our Greatest Danger in Life Is in Permitting the Urgent Things to Crowd Out the Important



A time-management expert addressed a group of business students.  He pulled out a one-gallon Mason jar and set it on the table.  Then he produced a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them into the jar.  The he asked, "Is this jar full?"

Everyone said yes.  Then he reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel.  He dumped it in and shook the jar.  He asked the group again, "Is the jar full?"

By this time the class was on to him.  "Probably not," one student answered.  Then the instructor reached under the table and grabbed a bucket of sand.  He dumped the sand, which went into all of the spaces between the rocks and the gravel.  He asked, "Is this jar full?"

"No!"  the class shouted.

Next, he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim.  "What is the point of this illustration?"  he asked.

One student offered, "No matter how full your schedule is, you can always fit some more things in it!"

"No," the speaker replied, "the truth this illustration teaches us is:  if you don't put the big rocks in first, you'll never get them in."

Ask yourself, "What are the 'big rocks' in my life?"  Put those in your jar first.

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:21

Everyone Has An Invisible Sign Hanging From His Neck

Saying, "Make me feel important!"

It isn't enough to say in our hearts

That we like a man for his ways,

It isn't enough that we fill our minds

With paeans of silent praise;

Nor is it enough that we honor a man

As our confidence upward mounts,

It's going right up to the man himself,

And telling him so that counts!

If a man does a work you really admire,

Don't leave a kind word unsaid,

In fear that to do so might make him vain

And cause him to "lose his head."

But reach out your hand and tell him,

"Well done," and see how his gratitude swells;

It isn't the flowers we strew on the grave,

It's the work to the living that tells.

Anonymous

For lack of praise, many think others draw negative conclusions about them.  We can actually wound people by withholding our praise.  Let someone know you think well of him or her today.  What a difference your words will make!

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:11