Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. Being therefore
exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy
Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear.
If we could do better, why don't we? Ah, that's the question, isn't it? If we could answer that
question, we could write a best-selling book and retire for life. Everybody is asking how it is
done. Teachers are asking how to motivate students, parents are asking how to motivate
children, employers are asking how to motivate employees, and most of us would be happy if we
could just motivate ourselves.
Los Angeles Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda is one of the most colorful figures in baseball. He
is also one who still believes in the inspirational value of the pep talk. Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it doesn't.
In 1985 Lasorda welcomed his Dodgers to Florida for spring training and immediately launched
into a pep talk with a "patriotic" theme.
"If the president of the United States informed me I had to take twenty-five guys to Nicaragua to
fight for the United States," said Tommy to his troops, "I'd take you twenty-five guys who are
going to play for me."
There was dead silence in the locker room.
Sometimes pep talks work. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes we get excited for awhile, but
then it fades. The excitement, the enthusiasm that first Pentecost, made a permanent change in
the disciples' lives. Why? Because it was real. It was not simply raw emotion. Rather, it was the
coming of the Spirit which Christ had promised them.
(Acts 2.32-33
NRSV)
Motivating people is a perennial problem. I was reading recently that each day across this
country 50,000 people quit their jobs. Some are moving to better jobs. Many are not. And these
statistics ignore still other people who have also "quit" their jobs but keep coming to work. In fact,
in a recent survey of workers across the United States, nearly 85% said that they could work
harder on the job. More than half claimed they could double their effectiveness "if (they) wanted
to."
Dear God, Christ is my motivator. Amen.
