"Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,
knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance;
for you serve the Lord Christ." (Col. 3:23-24) As I thought about this text sometime ago the following acronym popped
in my mind: D R E A M. That's right, but it stands for a few things
that will take more than going to sleep or sitting on the swing all day
and looking at the clouds go by. The first letter is D and it stands for DETERMINATION.
It was Theodore Roosevelt who once said: "Do what you can, with what
you have, where you are." In other words, if you want to do more
than mediocre kind of work, as George Horace Lorimer put, "You've
got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to
bed with satisfaction." Hockey's legend, Wayne Gretzky said: "You
miss 100% of the shots you never take." Yes, your dream fulfillment
begins with DETERMINATION. And many times that means you will join voices
with Dwight Moody and say: "I am only one, but I am one. I cannot
do everything, but I can do something. And that which I can do, by the
grace of God, I will do." The second letter, R stands for READINESS.
The most important aspect of being ready is that you need to have a plan.
You know, it really pays to have a plan. As we all know, it wasn't raining
when Noah built the Ark! It's like making wise investments that will turn
in timely dividends later on. So, it's your choice, you pay now and play
later, or you play now and pay later. The third letter is E and it stands for EXCELLENCE.
Sometimes the difference between mediocrity and excellence is fifteen
more minutes. As you set out to do whatever comes into your hands with
all your heart, you'll discover that there's a syndrome to be fought off-and
that is the "it's good enough syndrome" that has so infected
most people. Why settle for "good enough" when you can reach
excellence for the Lord?! The fourth letter is A and it stands for ATITTUDE.
Speaking on attitude, Chuck Swindoll says: "Attitude, to me, is more
important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education,
than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what
other people think or say or do. It will make or break a company, a church,
or a home. The remarkable thing is that we have a choice every day regarding
the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past.
Nor can we change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We also
cannot change the inevitable. The only thing that we can do is play on
the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that
life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it.
And so it is with you-we are in charge of our attitudes." For sure,
attitude is that small thing that can make a big difference. And the last letter is M, which stands for MEANING.
When he was around 60 years of age, author Robert Fulghum had calculated
that so far he had spent 35,000 hours eating, 30,000 hours in traffic
getting from one place to another, 2508 brushing his teeth, 870,00 hours
just coping with odds and ends, filling out forms, repairing things, paying
bills, getting dressed and undressed, and 217,000 hours at work. "There's
not a whole lot left over when you get finished adding and subtracting,"
he says. "The good stuff has to be fitted in somewhere. Which is
why we can all say, "It's not the meaning of life, it's the meaning
in life." In this process of living out our dream we will grow in the appreciation
that life is a precious gift that God places in our hands for a most beautiful
purpose. -Robson DeOliveira |
