Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Mark Batterson from his book, Play the Man: Becoming the Man God Created You to Be (p. 19). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Mark says, “Teddy Roosevelt was a fighter, no doubt. But he was also a thinker. And that’s part and parcel of playing the man— brains, and brawn. Roosevelt was a gentleman and a scholar, modeling the second virtue of manhood. He knew more about more things than perhaps anyone of his era. But the more you know, the more you know how much you don’t know! True knowledge results in profound humility, which fuels childlike wonder. Mark goes on, “This virtue certainly isn’t exclusive to men, but I find it more lacking in men than in women. At some point, most men lose their childlike sense of wonder. That’s the day we stop living and start dying. And while that may sound somewhat sentimental, it’s actually a stewardship issue. Later Mark says, “A big man knows how small h

A thought by Mark Batterson from his book, Play the Man: Becoming the Man God Created You to Be (p. 13). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) That is so true, isn’t it? Mark says, “One of my annual rituals is choosing a verse of the year. The verse I chose a few years ago was Proverbs 19: 11: ‘It is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.’ It was the same year I released a book, The Circle Maker , which has sold more copies than any of my other books but has also garnered its fair share of criticism. It’s no fun being falsely accused of false teaching or false motives. And I could have swallowed that pill and let it poison my spirit, but I made a decision to overlook the offense. My goal that year was to be unoffendable . “Don’t let an arrow of criticism pierce your heart unless it first passes through the filter of Scripture. (I first heard this idea from Erwin McManus. So good. So true.)   No one is abov

A thought by Mark Batterson from his book, Play the Man: Becoming the Man God Created You to Be (p. 10). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Here is how Mark says it, “I’m naturally a peacemaker, and that can be Christlike. But sometimes keeping the peace is just conflict avoidance. Yes, Jesus calmed the storm. But He also rocked the boat! Jesus didn’t avoid conflict; He often caused it. Why? Because Jesus knew that conflict, not comfort, is the catalyst for growth. He goes on, “Orson Welles gives a famous speech in The Third Man : In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed— but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. ( The Third Man . Directed by Carol Reed. London: London Films, 1949.)   My ap