Monday, August 31, 1998
Monday, August 31, 1998
Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
(Matthew 10:38
NRSV)
People who succeed in life deny themselves and take up a cross. You don't get to be the best by
staying in your comfort zone. You do it by working till you sweat blood. You sit at your
computer or your designing board or your blueprints or your lesson plan or whatever, long after
everybody else has gone home. That's what it means to deny yourself and take up a cross. And it
works!
The University of Chicago did a five-year study of leading artists, athletes, and scholars.
Conducted by Dr. Benjamin Bloom, the research was based on anonymous interviews with the
top twenty performers in various fields. These people included concert pianists, Olympic
swimmers, tennis players, sculptors, mathematicians, and neurologists. Bloom and his team of
researchers from the University of Chicago probed for clues as to how these achievers developed.
For a more complete picture, they interviewed their families and teachers.
The report stated conclusively that drive and determination, not great natural talent, led to the
extraordinary success of these individuals. Bloom noted, "We expected to find tales of great
natural gifts. We didn't find that at all. Their mothers often said it was another child who had the
greater talents." What they found were extraordinary accounts of hard work and dedication: The
pianist who practiced several hours a day for seventeen years; the swimmer who rolled out of bed
every morning at half-past five to do laps for two hours before school, etc.
If we are to be equally successful in our relationship with God, it will take some work and
dedication!
Prayer: Dear Jesus, I work so hard to achieve success in reaching my goals. May my
goals also include you. Amen.
Ronald Newhouse, Texas, USA