Tag: Joel Arnold

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Enliven your speech

One of the groups I work with has this sort of goofy recognition program call “Pizza Slices”, where when one of your coworkers does something worth while or whatever, you send then a mythological pizza slice, by recognizing their work via a nice email.

Well, one of our fellow daily buffeters, and recent contributor, Joel A,  has been on fire with these lately.  Not quantity, but quality.  He has been encouraging others and building them up with his words – his enlivened words.  That’s a great way to impact people.  Even though his pizza slice was not for me, his encouragement of others has even given me some encouragement.  Sort of reminds me of the type of reaction that the gifts from God spurn in us!

15-17So, friends, take a firm stand, feet on the ground and head high. Keep a tight grip on what you were taught, whether in personal conversation or by our letter. May Jesus himself and God our Father, who reached out in love and surprised you with gifts of unending help and confidence, put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech. (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, The Message)

How will you enliven your speech to impact others today?

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The Caleb Factor

My friend Joel heads to Aruba this weekend, and I am jealous.  Yes, jealous.  Not really because of his destination, I am jealous of his preparation.  For the last 3 months, despite our constant barrage of heckling, he has been working each day to prepare his body for this trip.  Now, some of you may say – how vain, and as a matter of fact that is what most of the heckling was about.  But today I say how marvelous.  I am not sure if he hit all of his goals or not, but at least he was forcing himself everyday to work and strive for his goal.

Last night I was with a group of men who have been studying the book of Joshua.  Right there in Joshua 14 is the ultimate daily buffeter.

7 I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, 8 but my brothers who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear. I, however, followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly. 9 So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly.’

10 “Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! 11 I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. 12 Now give me this hill country that the LORD promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.”

Caleb had a promise from Moses and God, and waited 45 years to receive it.  But he says he was as fit as the day he recieved the promise.  Don’t you think that he must have woke up everyday and thought about the gift he was to receive.  I want to believe that he worked everyday to keep himself ready to take the land and receive his gift.

What so awesome is we have a gift like that waiting for us.  A promise of eternal life if we  fix our eyes on Jesus.  Of course that’s one of the reasons I write this blog; to help each of you work each day to attain your spiritual goals and to stay focused on our promise.

Caleb was fit spiritually, he was fit physically, he “followed the LORD [his] God wholeheartedly”.

I have a trip like Joel’s coming up this summer, and he and Caleb have inspired me.  I want to follow the Lord God wholeheartedly every day, even though I fail most days.  So today I am going to publicly introduce  a small addition to this blog that I will call the Caleb Factor.  To help force me to keep in shape, not so I can take the land, but so I can always be ready to serve.  I will be sharing a little number from time to time to show my progress and my goal.  I am not turning this into a fitness blog, however, I hope you this will continue to motivate you to buffet each aspect of your body each day.

So the starting number is today’s; 184 and the idea is that in June it will be 174.

How will you let the Caleb Factor inspire you?

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Happy Ada Lovelace Day

Its Ada Lovelace Day!!!  The day that girl geeks treasure!

Who, many of you ask, is Ada Lovelace?  Well, Ada Lovelace is the world’s first computer programmer.  Yes, that’s right.  She wrote software for Mr Charles Babbage’s analytical engine way back in the 1840’s!  That’s right again – the 1840’s.  It was really even more then that, she really developed software development!  Talk about bootstrapping!  Learn more about this incredible piece of geekistry here or here.

So all geeks of the world, I being one of them, raise their handheld devices today in honor of Lady Lovelace!

Also, there is a group called findingAda.com, that is rallying around this day to recognize women in science and technology.  So, I thought I could give a quick shout out, in honor of Lady Lovelace, to several of the great women who I develop software with everyday including a fellow daily buffeter – Lisa Ignaszak!  Thanks Lisa for all the great work that you do!  I will raise my sweet tea up to you today!  (Make sure baby-j takes you out to lunch! )

So today, don’t be bound by things that don’t bind.

27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:27-29 (New International Version)

Use the talents that you have been given, and make a difference in the world – one day at a time!

4There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but they all come from the same Spirit. 5There are different ways to serve the same Lord, 6and we can each do different things. Yet the same God works in all of us and helps us in everything we do.

7The Spirit has given each of us a special way of serving others. 1 Corinthians 12:4-7 (Contemporary English Version)

And to finish up a little bit of Ada to celebrate the day:

with Ada.Text_IO;

procedure Hello is
begin
  Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line("Happy Ada Lovelace Day!");
end Hello;