You haven't given up, have you?

Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment, said in 1977, “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” A Western Union Telegraph Company internal memo in 1876 read, “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.” When Gary Cooper turned down the lead role in Gone with the Wind, he said, “I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.” When in 1962 Decca Recording Co. rejected the Beatles, it was because “We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”

“Given-up thinking” is everywhere, isn’t it? But don’t you give up. Conventional thinking isn’t always on target. God’s thinking is. The dreams you have in your heart are God’s gift to you. Follow those dreams. Never give up pursuing no matter how old you are.

Hang in there as listen to life and make a life, not just a living today.

Are you hooked up?

A guy had just started his own firm. He’d rented a beautiful office and furnished it with antiques. Sitting at his huge oak desk, he saw a man come into the outer office. So the businessman picked up the phone and pretended he was working on a big deal.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “that’s just too small an account for a firm like ours. We only deal with accounts worth $1 million and higher. Now if you want to bundle some accounts together in your company and let us handle all of your business, we can do that.”

He waved the man in from the outer office and motioned him to a chair.

“Sure, we can take care of $250 million for you. No problem! Okay, let’s talk again soon,” he said. He hung up the phone and turned to the man in the chair. “And what can I do for you today, sir?”

And the man said, “I’m here to hook up your phone.”

Are you hooked up? I mean, with someone other than yourself?

Hook up with God today as you listen to life and make a life, not just a living.

What do you understand?

A second grader came home from school and said to her mother, "Mom, guess what? We learned how to make babies today."

You can imagine that the mother was more than a little bit surprised, thinking that she should have signed some sort of paper stating the teacher could start offering such information. And she thought, "Isn’t second grade a little early?" But she kept her cool anyway.

"That's interesting," she said to her little girl, "How do you make babies?"

"It’s simple," the little girl said. "You just change ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add ‘es’."

Amazing, isn’t it, how you think you know what someone is talking about and you don’t? That’s why listening to life today for what God has to say is so important in your spiritual growth. That’s why listening to life and making a life, not just a living is so critical to your joy. You assume you know what someone means, even God, and oftentimes don’t.

So as you listen to life and make a life, not just a living today, listen with an open heart. God may mean something different than what you’re thinking.