Wynton Marsalis

God’s will is dynamic! We see examples of the divine improvisation all the time if we keep our eyes open to the gentle whisper of the Lord.

In the middle of last week’s JobSeeker meeting, someone’s cell phone went off. The incident reminded me of a sermon I once heard; the key illustration was about Wynton Marsalis, arguably the greatest jazz musician of his generation – and one of the finest classical musicians as well. Marsalis has won Grammy awards in both categories.

The story took place on a Tuesday evening in late August 2001 in Greenwich Village at a jazz club called the Village Vanguard. This excerpt is from Faith Today:

Marsalis began an unaccompanied solo of the heartrending 1930′s ballad, “I Don’t Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You.” Hajdu [a journalist covering the performance] records that the audience became rapt as Marsalis’s trumpet virtually wept in despair, almost gasping at times with the pain in the music.

Stretching the mood taut, Marsalis came to the final phrase, with each note coming slower and slower, with longer and longer pauses between each one: “I … don’t … stand … a … ghost … of … a … chance … ”

And then someone’s cell phone went off.

It began to chirp an absurd little tune. The audience broke up into titters, the man with the phone jumped up and fled into the hallway to take his call, and the spell was broken. “MAGIC – RUINED,” the journalist scratched into his notepad.

But then Marsalis played the cell phone melody note for note. He played it again, with different accents. He began to play with it, spinning out a rhapsody on the silly little tune, changing keys several times. The audience settled down, slowly realizing they were hearing something altogether extraordinary. Around and around Marsalis played for several minutes, weaving glory out of goofiness.

Finally, in a masterstroke, he wound his cadenza down seamlessly to the last two notes of his previous song: “… with … you.” The audience exploded with applause.

God was at work in that club. That same versatile, resourceful God is at work in your life and mine.

That same brilliantly adaptable God is at work throughout this sin-sick world, bringing beauty out of baseness, heroism out of holocaust, love out of loss – even salvation out of sacrifice. He calls us to believe, and then do the same.

In the sermon, Chuck Hodges (Senior Pastor at Athens First UMC) said God works for our good every day; His will is dynamic. Keith Moore (Senior Pastor at Dogwood Church) preaches the same thing; God’s dynamic will takes over when sin spoils His plan. In other words, we are subject to the consequences of our will and our decisions – as well as the will and decisions of others – and stuff happens. Like losing a job. Or coming in second on an interview. Or missing a mortgage payment. Or getting a divorce.

Let God do something amazing in your life. This adversity is an opportunity to experience what God can do – an opportunity to experience His grace. Submit to His will and trust him with all your heart. He can take whatever mess you are in right now and weave glory out of goofiness. He will divinely improvise to (re)create a joyful and abundant life for you. If there is never a burden, how will we discover what great things God can do?

Here are two versions of Proverbs 3:5-6:

1) Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. (NKJV)

2) Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track. (The Message)

See you Friday at JobSeekers, the place where we experience God’s divine improvisations!

Copyright © 2013 / Dave O’Farrell / All Rights Reserved

Zig Ziglar
(11/6/26 – 11/28/12)

Zig Ziglar used to say we need “a check up from the neck up.” One time I spoke to an HR manager who was having a hard time filling a position; the position had been open for more than two months. I immediately recommended a member of JobSeekers; he was imminently qualified for the job. She said they had already interviewed him and decided not to hire him. Why?

Because he needed a “a check up from the neck up.” He had a poor attitude.

Friends, sometimes the number one thing standing between you and a job is your attitude! Maybe you need to do, as Zig Ziglar said, “a check up from the neck up.”

I witnessed this at a job fair one time. As people approached the JobSeekers’ table, I’d ask, “What do you do for a living?” They’d look at me and squint one eye and wrinkle their brow and say, “[Well duh], I’m unemployed!” While I was checking for attitude, they were checking to see if I had a brain.

If attitude is your problem, this is good news because it doesn’t take years to earn or learn a new attitude the way a college degree, a certain skill set, or specific industry experience would. Your attitude is a decision you make right now. I learned this bit of wisdom several years ago: “Before your feet hit the floor in the morning you make a decision about what kind of day you’re going to have.” I challenge you to “decide” to have a good day today, tomorrow and every day from now on.

In addition to job search, attitude plays a key role in how we deal with poor health, death, divorce, persecution and financial woes.

Here are five examples:

An old lady.

I read a story once about an old lady who lived in an assisted living facility. As her health deteriorated, it became necessary to move her into a nursing home. She was almost blind. When the day came, her son walked her into the nursing home and down the hall toward her new room. As they approached the door to her room she exclaimed, “Oh I love it! The furniture is so nice and the curtains are beautiful!” Her son said, “Mom, we’re still in the hallway.” She replied, “I know son, but I’ve already decided that I’m going to like it here.”

Bill Cosby.

In January 1997, Cosby’s only son, Ennis, was robbed and murdered on a Los Angeles highway after he stopped to fix a flat tire. On Dr. Richard Rahe’s well-known life change index, the death of your child is worst life change a person can experience. It must be even more bewildering if your child is the victim of a random murder. I wondered how Cosby would ever be able to make people laugh again. I was amazed when he was back at work and as funny as ever just a few months later.

Viktor Frankl.

Our chaplain, Howard Tisdale, quotes Viktor Frankl (1905-1997) often. Frankl survived the Holocaust, even though he was in four Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz, from 1942-45. His mother, father, brother and wife died in the camps – from the harsh conditions or the gas ovens. His entire family, except for his sister, died. In Man’s Search for Meaning, he wrote about choosing one’s attitude: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way … Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually.” (p. 104-105)

The apostle Paul.

Paul wrote to the church in Corinth: “I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea. I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27) With this in mind, he wrote to the church in Philippi: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the sec
et of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” (Philippians 4:10-12)

You.

These examples are great, but do you know who the best example is to those around you? It’s you! Not only has God given you the opportunity to grow and to draw closer to him; he’s calling you to be a powerful witness in his name. Don’t let God down. There are people watching you to see how you bear up under the difficult circumstances you are in right now. Decide right now that you will bear this burden with dignity, that you will overcome any obstacle, and that you will be joyful no matter what the circumstances. You will bless others by doing so, and as a result, will bless yourself.

Rick Warren says, “Life is a series of problems: either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one or you’re getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that’s not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ-likeness.”

I rejoice greatly that I know you. Along with the other members of the Ship’s Crew, we want you to find a job, but even more so, we want you to know the joy of the Lord.

See you tomorrow at JobSeekers – where we’ll do a check up from the neck up!

Copyright © 2013 / Dave O’Farrell / All Rights Reserved

How much time are you wasting?

Here we are in the early in the summer and I can see that Satan is winning some battles among us. We’ve got to resist the temptations of summer. I can tell many of you are not putting your full effort into your job search. Your absence at JS shows it; your lack of activity on LinkedIn proves it.

The topic last week was “How to earn $13K real fast.” Would you run eight $20 bills through the shredder every day? If you take the summer off, that’s the lost income for the average member of JobSeekers. Some of you are doing the equivalent of shredding money by your lack of effort!

During the meeting I asked, “If you were accused of looking for a job, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”

For many of you, the answer is “no.”

Are the temptations of summer causing you to lose focus?

In this hyper-competitive job market, you’ve got to get your game face on. You’ve got to get your act together. You’ve got to get out there every day and put the pedal to the metal. Sitting on the sidelines waiting for the economy to improve in NOT an option.

If you want to change your results, come to JS and do what we teach.

If you really want to get back to work, do everything you can do to find a job – and leave to God what only He can do. We believe in a God who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. (See Ephesians 3:20.)

What are the implications of this?

When you succumb to the temptations of summer, your job search gets stretched out. These temptations are not sins as we typically think of sin; sin is doing (or not doing) something that prevents us from finding a job. See James 4:17, which says, “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” Here are three examples:

1. An employer called me looking for a payroll administrator with ADP experience. I searched my database of résumés and couldn’t find a single match. I was certain we’d had someone at JobSeekers within the past six months with that background. He or she failed to send a resume to me and he or she missed a job opportunity.
2. One time I was speaking to Pat Brannon, who has given hundreds of networking leads to JobSeekers over the years. He said he gets really upset with people who he invests time with, learns their needs, gives them leads, and then they fail to follow up on them. Both Pat and I can cite specific people who have failed to follow up on networking and/or job leads. Since 80% of all jobs are found through networking, it is a safe bet that someone has missed a job because they failed to follow up.
3. People tell me they are going to take it easy during the summer. If you earn $62,500 per year and succumb to temptation by taking the entire summer off, your summer vacation will cost you $13K. If you reduce your effort by 30% (how would we measure such a thing?), your summer slump will cost you $3,600. If you can afford to do that, great; but most people I talk to need a job now.

When we are out of work and money is tight, we are more vulnerable.

Resist the temptations of summer.

Friends, the devil may have been waiting since the last crisis point in your life – like the last time you looked for a job – for you to be as vulnerable as you are now! Whether or not the Evil One caused you to lose your job, I don’t know. But I know this for sure: he will do everything he can to take advantage of the situation.

In Waking the Dead, John Eldredge asks (p. 155, the text within the brackets are my additions), “If you are having trouble taking in all of this, let me ask you: Have you had this experience? Something bad happens [you lose your job], and you start telling yourself what a jerk [failure] you are. Do you really think the source of that is just you? Or God? Think about it this way: Who would take the most delight in it? … Start by simply entertaining the notion that the source might be something besides your ‘low self-esteem.’”

Your lack of confidence, self-doubt and low self-esteem may not come from within. Here’s another thing I am sure of: when you have a negative thought that causes you to lose momentum in your campaign, it is not coming from God. Furthermore, Eldredge says that other Christians, including and especially our families, deliver some of the worst blows to our heart (p. 116 and 154). These people don’t understand who is stirring them to say things to wound you. He sights Peter as an example. When Peter told Jesus he shouldn’t go to Jerusalem for Holy Week Jesus said, “Get behind me Satan” (Matthew 16:21-23).

Since reading this book about spiritual warfare I look at my life, my business and your job search in a different light. For example, Satan can use a televised baseball game to his advantage. Oftentimes I stay up late to watch a game that I don’t even care about. Then I sleep a little later the next day. Maybe I could have used the extra hour in the morning to help one more person find a job. When I let myself get distracted by low priority items, I can also see that they are preventing me from growing my business. If I don’t grow my business, I won’t be able to serve Christ as ably. And who would take delight in that?

In James 4:7 we are commanded to “resist the devil and he will flee from you.” And 1 Peter 5:8-9 says, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone [you, while you are unemployed] to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers [other JobSeekers] throughout the world are undergoing the same sort of sufferings.” Take hold of these promises from God.

Be aware that the assaults on your heart can be overt, or they can be very subtle. Added together though, all of them can have an impact with eternal consequences. Your heart is good. You matter to God. He wants you to have a job and an abundant life. Resist the devil and he will flee from you!

Action item: Write to me and share how you have been engaged in battle with the Enemy.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I implore your to recognize the enemy, resist the devil, get into God’s word, claim the power of the Holy Spirit, be steadfast in prayer, fellowship with other Christians, and work harder and smarter on your job search during the summer than you did a month ago. God has many blessings in store for you. Now that’s something you can have faith in!

Come to JobSeekers on Friday to claim the abundant life God has in store for you!

Copyright © 2013 / Dave O’Farrell / All Rights Reserved