A manufacturing firm had a breakdown in one of their machines. Staff engineers tried everything they could think of, but they couldn’t fix the problem. Desperate, they contacted a retired engineer with a reputation for repairing all things technical.
The engineer spent a day studying the huge machine. With a piece of chalk he marked the trouble spot with an X.
The part was replaced, and the machine worked perfectly again. But when the company’s accountant received the engineer’s bill for $50,000, they demanded and itemized tally of his charges.
The engineer responded: One chalk mark, $1. Knowing where to put it, $49,999.
When its time to make major decisions, knowing how to make the right ones is invaluable. That’s why we’re told to pray for wisdom.
Tags: decision, humor, wisdom
Back in the days before electric clocks and batteries, clocks were powered by a swinging pendulum and mainspring. Evangelist Dwight L. Moody told the following story about Lady Pendulum:
“When Mr. [Ira] Sankey and I were in London a lady who attended our meetings was brought into the house in her carriage, being unable to walk. At first she was very skeptical; but one day she said to the servant, “Take me into the inquiry room.”
After I had talked with her a good while about her soul, she said, “But you will go back to America, and it will be all over.” “Oh, no,” said I, “It is going to last forever.”
I couldn’t make her believe it. I don’t know how many times talked with her. At last I used the fable of the pendulum in the clock. The pendulum figured up the thousands of times it would have to tick, and got discouraged, and was going to give up. Then it thought, “It is only a tick at a time,” and went on. So it is in the Christian life – only one step at a time.
That helped this lady very much. She began to see that if she could trust in God for a supply of grace for only one day, she could go right on in the same way from day to day. As soon as she saw this, she came out quite decided. But she never could get done talking about that pendulum. The servants called her Lady Pendulum. She had a pendulum put up in her room to remind her of the illustration, and when I went away from London she gave me a clock – I’ve got it in my house still.”
Tags: decision, pendulum, time
A woman and her husband interrupted their vacation to go to a dentist. “I want a tooth pulled, and I don’t want Novocain because I’m in a big hurry,” the woman said. “Just extract the tooth as quickly as possible, and we’ll be on our way.”
The dentist was quite impressed. “You’re certainly a courageous woman,” he said. “Which tooth is it?”
The woman turned to her husband and said, “Show him your tooth, dear.”
Have you ever noticed that some people like to make decisions for other people? When we make decisions for others, even if those decisions are best, we are handicapping them from learning their own lessons. Once we become the decision-maker for them, we are forever destined to follow them around continually making all their decisions, because they never grow up enough to make their own wise decisions.
Who do you know that makes decisions for others?
Tags: control, decision, humor
Presidential candidates spend months in the limelight striving for attention and support. Presidential candidate wives typically just follow along. But once a candidate gets elected, his shadow becomes “First Lady”. She is then sought after for interviews. And, historically, First Ladies tend to be very wise women indeed.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, once made this searching statement: “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.”
Wise King Solomon said it like this: “How much better to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather than silver” (Proverbs 16: 16).
Do you agree with Eleanor? Do you believe it is fair to judge a person’s philosophy of life on the choices he or she makes?
Tags: choices, decision, Roosevelt
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 later said, “if you don’t make your own decisions, someone else will.”
There are decisions we have to make everyday. Some are easy, but some a more difficult. Freedom of choice is valued highly in America. This reminds me of the scripture: “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).
When can you remember someone else making a decision for you?
Tags: choice, decision, Reagan