Tag Archives | peace
May 19, 2012

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Thoughts of a Lost Boy

Devotion: Find God In Nature

From the NIV Stewardship Study Bible:

Today’s reading: Psalm 66:1-20

In Psalms 65 and 66, the psalmist recounts all that God has done and all that he has created. In jubilant psalms of praise, the psalmist describes God’s “awesome and righteous deeds” (Ps 65:5), God’s power displayed in his creation, God’s abundance in caring for the land and watering it, God’s bounty in providing for humankind and animals alike. “Come and see what God has done,” he says in Psalm 66. “his awesome deeds for mankind” (Ps 66:5). Physician and author J. Matthew Sleeth invites us to share the healing that comes from bearing witness to the miracle of God’s creation:

When the psalmists advise us how to heal spiritually, they do not tell us to purchase a television, car, house, self-help book, or exercise equipment. God, they say, is to be found in the natural world that he created, a world filled with the grandeur, beauty, and peace that are so often lacking in our material world.

What remedy does God prescribe for our souls? [Quiet] waters and green pastures (see Ps 23:2). Find a place where there is nothing man-made in sight. Sit or lie down. Be still, and know who God is (see Ps 46:10). Do not pray. Do not worry. Do not think. Your house, your cell phone, and your new kitchen do not give glory to God. The Bible states that if it is God-made (streams, mountains, birds, trees), it praises God … When only God-made things surround you, you are in a fellowship of praise.

If you live in a city, try to find one small area that consists of only God-made things. If you must, lie on your stomach and stare at a one-square-foot area. If there is noise or highway sound, put your hands over your ears. You will hear the sound of your own pulse and breath. That’s okay. And that’s the point. You are God-made. We have forgotten that we have far more in common with a honeybee than we do with our SUV or DVD …

Perhaps many of our problems, including those of depression and anxiety, are warning signals that we are living a lifestyle that God does not sanction or want us to lead. The response to mental pain and discomfort should be to seek restoring connection with God. In seeking quiet moments, green pastures, and still waters, we may find just what our souls need.

Do you know in which direction the Milky Way traverses the sky? As the phases of the moon progress, does the light go from right to left, or left to right? Can you identify a greater number of trees or cars? If the Bible says God knows every flower and bird, why do we spend so much effort knowing the names of man-made items? Maybe we’re paying attention to the wrong things. Maybe this is why life seems so hard. If this is our Father’s world, maybe we should pay more attention to it.

November 1, 2011

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Thoughts of a Lost Boy

Psalm 121:1-8

A song of ascents.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;

indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;

the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;

the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

November 3, 2010

3



What's It Worth?

4 Turnaround Lessons

I’ve spent most of the day looking at financial statements. One of the things I’m doing now is working on the turnaround of Issho Genki Interntional, the producers and distributors of the most trusted brand of Squalene (which is currently a small yet growing category). We’re not completely out of the woods yet, but this last quarter is looking very positive for Issho Genki. We have improved enough to make me a little more comfortable with writing about the lessons we have learned from our mistakes. There are actually a lot of lessons I would like to share but I’ll start with these four.

What Do You Love?
Squalene is a natural antioxidant which protects and enhances the body’s cells. I’ve been taking the thing for about 15 years now and love the stuff. So aside from the challenge and necessity, loving the product was an attraction to me. I’m not really a salesman. I can’t sell anyone anything. What I am is a highly contagious sick man. When I fall sick in love with something I’m going to infect you with it if you hang around me long enough.

Turn Around Lesson #1: Work on something you’re passionate about. Turnarounds have a lot of baggage that can distract and discourage you. Working on something you’re passionate about helps keep you motivated. While need is a great motivator, never underestimate someone who is madly in love.

Go Treasure Hunting
Issho Genki used to be a very popular supplement brand but dropped out of people’s consciousness when management was not able to transition well into retail outlets. It’s a classic case of a business that did well, overspent, didn’t change relevantly, and descended. The good part though is that there was a lot to work with, such as the brand recall due to its, at the time I took over, 13 year existence, historically large distributor base, high-quality manufacturing base in Japan, and existing distribution relationships with Mercury Drug, Watsons, and other retailers and customers. The most important thing the company had though was some really trustworthy and hardworking people that made the chance of a turnaround possible.

Turn Around Lesson #2: Look for the pieces of value. These are things you’ll be able to work with and build on. What are the assets? (Of course depreciate accurately!) How much cash? (This is your blood. Even if people owe you, you run out of cash, you’re dead.) Can you use your assets to generate cash? (Either through sales or as collateral) In our case, we didn’t have any hard assets aside from a very nebulous concept of brand goodwill. We had no way of accurately measuring this so working with that was a step of faith. We also didn’t have a lot of cash. We had a third of what we needed to survive month 1. (That month was very stressful for me!) But what we did have other than the brand were good people who made the sales happen and extended payables and stretched and stretched. Good people are always a great asset.

Cut the Fat
When I walked into my corner office on the 25th floor of a nice commercial building in one of Metro Manila’s business districts I had the following thoughts in sequence:

1. Wow. This is cool.
2. This is really big. Too big.
3. This must be expensive.
4. This has to go.

One problem businesses have as they go along is that they take on too much fat. That’s actually like us humans. Hehe. We take on so much unwanted baggage that weigh and slow us down, or worse, choke our organs which kills us. We had to do a lot of cost cutting in Issho Genki, more than a third of our operating expenses. This also meant there were contracts we could not renew, people we could not hire, perks we could not enjoy, and rewards that had to be differed. Of course not everyone was happy – including me. But you have to do what you have to do.

Turn Around Lesson #3: Cut the fat. Look in the mirror and see where everything is starting to sag and cut those parts out. (I’m in no way suggesting liposuction. I’m talking figuratively.) While Lesson #1 is to work on something you’re passionate about, don’t mistake the fat for the purpose. Fat are the unnecessary things or parts or even functions we’ve accumulated that no longer effectively contribute to your purpose or bottom-line. So to cut the fat you should have a well-defined purpose for your organization. I see this so many times in business and even non-profits where everyone wants to do everything, so there are so many people accumulating fat, and no one can recognize what’s fat anymore because there is no clearly defined purpose. So define the purpose based on what’s important to you (values) and what doesn’t fit is fat. Cut that. Some people can afford to go on a diet. We couldn’t. We had to have surgery. So we did just that.

Who’s Your Daddy?
I was 23 years old when I took over a company that was closing down. When I look back I really had no idea what I was doing. They say that sometimes not knowing is actually better so that you don’t know what to be afraid of. I don’t know if that’s true. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was really scared. More people would have seen it if my repertoire of facial expressions was more than just a smirk, but in my gut I was really really scared. I was scared because I knew that I didn’t have what it takes to make this work, and this is what led me to what I consider my life’s greatest lesson: Run to God.
 

Turn Around Lesson #4: This isn’t from the business books, but it’s really from my life manual: run to God and wait on Him. There were days when I would go to the office at 6am just to pray for a miracle. That somehow something would happen that day and we would live to fight another day. I would walk around our empty office and say “Father, please help Beth with the finances. Please help Guada with administration. Help Lolit with logisitcs.” I would pray for everyone and everything, and guess what? Most of what I prayed for didn’t happen. Hehe. But better things came along. Life lessons instead of quick profits. Humility instead of promotions. Contentment instead of abundance. Peace beyond understanding. These, along with the knowledge that my Father is watching over me, fixing my mistakes, redeeming my wrongs, forgiving my sins, and surely preparing a place for me, these are my profits.


Money is useful, but these experiences, they’re priceless.
And life is not being able to afford the numbers on the price tags. Life is about discovering what’s really priceless and enjoying them fully.

…By the way, while there’s still a lot to do, sales are up and expenses are down. That’s always a good sign.

June 9, 2010

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Thoughts of a Lost Boy

Evening Thoughts

Phone rings of expectation
To be a king
To be a prince
To take my place

Calls ring of admiration
For a servant
For a hero
For strangers to me

Soul’s lost in imagination
To find rest
To find peace
To finally disappear

June 6, 2009

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What's It Worth?

The Song of David

Someone recently told me, “I wish I had your life. You get to do so much. And you don’t have any problems.” I just smirked. He didn’t have a clue. Everyone has their own set, of victories and challenges. Some just complain more than others.

I wrote this in September of last year, after a tiring and painful episode in my career. I surprise myself at how creative the adjectives my mind comes up with whenever I remember the people who brought it about. Then I repent, and remind myself to overlook offenses, to forgive, and to offer up my hard heart to God for softening.

The Song of David
He was a hero. He was THE hero of Israel. He had saved the nation. He had killed Goliath. The king’s daughter, Michal, loved him, so did the heir to the throne, Jonathan. He had earned a high rank. He had found favor in the eyes of the people. The beautiful daughters of Israel sang his praises, “Saul has killed his thousands, David his ten thousands.” The young boy, David, had reached the top. And in his heart and soul the promise of kingship rested, for the prophet Samuel had anointed him.

But now he is on the run, living in caves with criminals and outcasts, with nothing to his name, and no weapons with which to fight. Considered insane by the very people he once conquered, the Philistines, he will survive through the kindness of others and by inquiring of the Lord. And He will become king. In the process he will have to fight and learn to forgive, he will fall in love again, and he will sing a new song.

-

After quite a difficult last few months, dealing with challenges in business, accusation, and an overwhelming workload, I found myself praying the words of Psalm 40 early one morning, that God would answer me as I wait patiently on him, that he would hear my cry. The Psalm starts:

V.1

I waited patiently for the Lord;

And He inclined to me,

And heard my cry.

V. 2

He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,

Out of the miry clay,

And set my feet upon a rock,

And established my steps.

As I read the words aloud I came upon verse 3:

V.3

He has put a new song in my mouth –

Praise to our God…

I stopped and thought about that. “He has put a new song… “ What does a new song have to do with God saving David?

The answer would come to me one evening, during one of my legendarily long baths. As I stood under the shower, the hot water easing my tired self after another deflating day, I thought about everything I was doing and the challenges in some of the businesses, that despite MY obedience and MY hard work and MY accomplishments the burdens seem to keep getting heavier and the adversity much tougher. I found myself asking God for answers. Why do my days feel like a roller coaster, one day high on achievement and the next day crushed beneath responsibility? Why do the events surrounding me seem to block the prophecies planted in my heart? Why do you raise my hopes only to allow them to be crushed anyway? And as I was running through it all in my head the audible voices of women chanting interrupted my arrogance, “Saul has killed his thousands. David his ten thousands. Saul has killed his thousands. David his ten thousands.” Over and over I could hear them, “Saul has killed his thousands. David his ten thousands. Saul has killed his thousands. David his ten thousands.” And I felt myself shiver and couldn’t help but cringe, because I finally understood. Just like David in the Bible, God had to remove the old song of my soul, my own praises, the pride in my own achievements and respectability, so that He could replace it with a new song – praises to Him.

There’s nothing that brings out the worst in people like a problem. Tempers rise, greed awakens, worry abounds, short-cuts are taken, accusations are hurled, and relationships are strained during times of testing. It’s easy to rationalize our evil actions as our effort to solve our problems but this kind of response doesn’t solve anything, it actually leads to more problems. I always believed that the purpose of adversity was to make me stronger. I would face a challenge that would reveal my limitations and I would respond by working harder, studying more, sleeping less, pushing people more, sacrificing more, anything to help me rise up to the test because I knew that after all the effort I would be better and more capable. While this is partially true, I realize now that I had missed the real purpose of adversity and, because I did, missed out on its true benefit as well.

The purpose of adversity is to humble us, to bring us to a point where we realize we cannot do it alone, and to respond, not in self-reliance and human effort, but to respond in worship. In adversity we see how incapable we are and how much God is really worth. And that is worship, to ascribe to God His true worth. Amazingly, when we enter God’s presence and worship we are able to overcome for in God’s presence is fullness of joy (somewhere in Psalm 16), and the joy of the Lord is our strength (somewhere in Nehemiah), the strength we need to defeat whatever we’re facing.

David had learned the secret to overcoming, and he found it in the new song God had taught him. One of my favorite verses in the Bible goes, in Isaiah 26:3-4: You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You. Trust in the LORD forever, For in YAH, the LORD, is everlasting strength. With the understanding of the true purpose of adversity we are led to worship, and then we experience the true benefit, which is not so much that we can rise up, but so that we can see our God rise up for us.