Joel Stiff's Adventure

 

The rule of investing in the stock market is buy low and sell high.

Buy a stock when its price is low and then sell it when the price is high so that a profit is earned.

The trouble with our nature is that we don’t want to let go of something when it is doing good.

We want to abandon the ship when it is sinking.

This is what many people do in the market. When the price starts dropping, they start selling off.

It is an emotional reaction.

We carry this emotional, knee jerk reaction into other areas of life as well.

No one gets a divorce when the marriage is doing great. No one gives up on his kids when they are well behaved and achieving good grades. No one quits a job right after the boss gives them a raise, more vacation time and a new office.

We walk out when things are down.

The winners in the market and life are the ones who can ride out the downturns and avoid acting emotionally.

 

Communication is the act of transferring one person’s thoughts or ideas to someone else.

We communicate in more ways than we are aware of. Our words, tone, dialect, eye contact, body language, facial expression and posture are all a part of our communication.

You may say the words you want to communicate, but your eyes or your tone may change the meaning.

The goal of communicating is to get our message across clearly while achieving the desired result from the person we are trying to communicate with.

Just because you succinctly say what you want doesn’t mean you will get what you want.

How you say it means almost more than what you say.

 

 

When I was a kid, we saw these memorex commercials of a guy sitting on a chair whose hair was being blown back by music coming from a speaker. The insinuation was that music recorded on a memorex cassette possessed the same quality as live music.

That couldn’t have been further from the truth. 

It doesn’t matter if it’s an LP album, cassette, CD or even digital music, nothing compares to live music.

Our church pianist has been in the hospital the past few days. As a result, we had to rely on recorded music for our services. We sang to prerecorded CD’s. It’s not the same.

It is ok as a temporary substitute, but I wouldn’t want to do it every week.

This is the way it is with technology. Now, I am far from being a Luddite. After all, I am posting this on the internet. It still stands that technology is a wonderful temporary substitute, but is vastly inferior to reality. For instance, I enjoy talking to my wife on the telephone when I cannot be in her presence, but I would far rather look in her eyes face to face.

The organic is always preferred above synthetic.

Other examples:

Live musical instruments vs. computer generated music

Playing football vs. Madden on the Playstation

Bananas vs. banana flavored anything

A handshake vs. a facebook poke

Running outside vs. running on a treadmill in front of a screen showing video of outside

Human conversation vs. checking facebook, email, text message, etc.

A real kiss from my wife vs. an xoxo in a text

Again, I participate in all of the above, but rely on them only when the real thing is not available. I far prefer reality to the artificial substitute. 

The difference is quite apparent.

What else do you prefer in reality over synthetic? Am I just out of touch with progress?

Submit a comment.

P.S. Say a prayer for Ila Sharp, our pianist, please.

 

This is my dad. His name is Nicci Stiff. His birthday is Tuesday, but we are celebrating today.

He’s my dad by his choice. I really appreciate him for that.

As I was growing up, he was the epitome of the biker lifestyle. I often kid him by telling people he looked exactly like Tommy Chong did in the seventies. In spite of being a rough and tough Harley enthusiast, he loved his family.

He wasn’t the mushy, lovey dovey kind of dad, but he was always there. He never ran around on my mom and took time for my brother and I. Case in point, my brother once knocked his motorcycle off of a jack to the garage floor and my dad didn’t take his life. He was good like that.

He taught us things like work first and play later. Whatever you put your hand to, give it your best. Don’t do stupid stuff like smoking, drinking and running around with women. 

He got saved in 1988 when he was in his early thirties. He has been serving Jesus like he’s making up for lost time ever since. I really don’t know what we would do without him around the church.

To sum him up, I would say he always got the big stuff right.

One day, I was privileged to catch him smiling and quickly snapped this photo.

Happy birthday, Dad. I love you.

Can I borrow some money?

 

Have you ever woken in the middle of the night because of a full bladder?

There is a choice to make. Do you get up and go or do you stay in bed and ignore it?

On one hand, you are so comfortable. The bed is warm and soft. The air outside the covers is cold. The floor upon which your bare feet will land is cold. You think it better to stay in bed. It just doesn’t seem worth it.

On the other hand, it’s not going away. In fact, it’s only going to get worse. If you try to continue to sleep, you will be woken repeatedly by this pressing need. Eventually, you are going to have to make the trip.

It’s a lot better to just make the trip the first time the need arises. It gets the task behind you and lets you get on with much better sleep.

Waiting just prolongs the inevitable and makes you uncomfortable until you get the job done.

What do you need to quit putting off?

What do you need to do today?

 

It’s a better time of winter. Early and mid-winter in Michigan leave us with seriously overcast skies. Late winter has the sun showing its face again. 

I haven’t used an alarm clock in years. My internal clock works quite well. This time of year has the sun shining into my room which helps get things going on the right foot.

We are only able to give out what we have first taken in. The old computer acronym was GIGO – garbage in, garbage out. If we fill our minds with dark negative thoughts, we will be dark and negative. If we will surround ourselves with positive optimism, we will lead a positive, optimistic life.

I had a roommate in college that would greet us in the morning by saying it was the best day ever. It hadn’t even happened yet, but he was making a declaration. He was setting the tone. If you asked him how things were going he would respond with, “Excellent. Never better.”

Zig Ziglar used to say, “A positive attitude won’t let you do everything, but it will let you do everything better than a negative attitude will.”

There is no such thing. 

Shannon makes great dinners. One of my favorites is her roast beef. There is no such thing as fast roast beef, not that’s any good anyways. The longer it is in the crock pot, the better.

Colonel Sanders gave the world a gift with his eleven herbs and spices. I don’t know what they are. It seems no one else does either because there is no chicken that tastes remotely as good as a chicken leg from KFC. It’s a complicated recipe.

My favorite meal of the year is at Thanksgiving. Everyone pitches in for this one. A moist, baked turkey, mashed potatoes with the perfect amount of milk, butter and salt, grand’s butter tastin’ biscuits, followed with a slice of lemon meringue pie topped with Cool Whip. Pulling this one off is anything but easy.

Anything worthwhile is a bit complicated, pretty difficult and takes a long time to accomplish.

The restaurant next door to our church just closed down. All in that location do. I had high hopes for them. They were around a while, but just didn’t make it.

I hear preachers talking about how easy it is to have a victorious life. They must not have read Ecclesiastes chapter 9. It is possible to live a victorious Christian life, but it’s not fast, simple, or easy.

A victorious life is not a life lived without difficulty. It is a life that overcomes difficulty. 

I have to stop writing when I’m hungry.

 

 

We live in a time when everyone gets a trophy. 

Why do we feel the need to give everyone a trophy?

To avoid them feeling bad? To avoid feeling bad ourselves?

If we give trophies to the losing team to help them avoid feeling bad, we also rob them of the joy that comes from success.

If we give trophies to the losing team to help them avoid feeling bad, we rob those who succeeded of the joy of winning.

Sometimes we give trophies to keep ourselves from feeling bad.

Christians are giving Matthew Mcconaughey a trophy for thanking God for bringing him to the place he is in his life. I think they are giving him a trophy to make themselves feel better.

He doesn’t deserve a trophy for praising God.

Mark 7:6: He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

 

This is my pen. It is also my hand holding it. I once had an aspiring career as a hand model, but it was sidelined after an unfortunate accident with an iron. Not Really. 

The pen was a gift from a friend. He is one of my true friends. I once heard a man say that if you died having five true friends, you would be a very fortunate person. So far, I think I am doing better than that. 

I had a man come and preach at our church and he asked me if I had any friends that I spent time with regularly. I didn’t. The friends existed, but I wasn’t in regular communication with them. I decided then to start making time for my friends. Some are local and some are out of state. Regardless, I try to connect with them regularly. Not social media “connect” either. Real connection.

The thing I appreciate most about my friends is their willingness to accept me just as I am. When a person accepts you warts and all without judgment or criticism, they are a friend. 

A couple of verses come to mind:

Proverbs 18:24: A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

Proverbs 27:17: Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

Are you smiling? If not, you should call a friend.

 

We stopped at a snowmobile repair shop to check for parts to fix my brothers sled. Upon entering, a large German Shepherd approached us barking and snarling rather ferociously. I stuck out a closed fist so she could get a scent (fingers are lost when extended to an angry pooch). She relaxed and the owner came out. 

He wasn’t an angry man, but wasn’t a stellar example of customer service either. He reminded me of the dozens of men I met growing up whenever my dad would take me to the auto parts store. If you needed it and they had it, you could buy it or leave. There wasn’t a lot of emotion involved.

He did have the kit we needed and charged $10.50 for it. After being handed $11, he asked for fifty cents so he wouldn’t have to make change. Upon receiving it, he deposited the entire $11.50 in his drawer rather than returning the dollar. 

We realized this after walking out and the discussion turned to how rotten he was for “stealing” that dollar. We formulated a bizarre motive and series of calculated deceptions he made happen in order to rip us off. After a moment of vilifying the man, I said, “He’s not our enemy.” We all laughed as the entire production was pretty much said in jest.

The reality of how quick we can be to make an enemy at the slightest indiscretion didn’t pass me by. 

As I read about Jesus going from town to town during His ministry, I learn of numerous interactions He had with as many different types of people. Those who could be perceived as enemies, He didn’t treat as such. He recognized those who were His enemies, but responded to them in very different ways than we would expect. 

You’ve no doubt heard the phrase, “He never met a man he didn’t like.” Sometimes we can act as though we have never met a man we’ve liked. 

You can pick apart anyone if you really want to.