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The Secret of Successful Salesmanship

April 18, 2012 by zgardener

True salesmanship means finding out what your customer really needs, and supplying him with it; or if you cannot furnish it yourself, advising him to go elsewhere. Such a policy will not mean loss of business. On the contrary, working in this way you may lose one order but you will get half a dozen in its place – and you will have peace of mind. Any one particular sale does not matter; it is the annual turnover that counts.
The policy, the Golden Rule, was taught by Jesus, the wisest and most practical teacher who ever lived. Salesman, treat your customer exactly as you would like him to treat you if the positions were reversed. Tell him exactly what you would like to be told about the merchandise, if you were the purchaser; and if you will do this the whole universe will cooperate to make your business career an outstanding success.
Teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God: thy spirit is good… (Psalm 143:10)
While the good guys may take a beating in the short term, they will always prevail in the long term if they keep doing good. The Golden Rule works in business as well as personal affairs. Live by it in all ways and God will ensure your best good.
Being golden,
Z gardener

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The Kaffir Didn’t Know It

April 17, 2012 by zgardener

 
 
About the middle of the last century, a traveler was journeying along through what was then a remote part of South Africa. One day while smoking his pipe outside the hut in a native village, he noticed a group of little naked children playing what was evidently a native version of the time honored game of marbles. He watched the game idly for a while, and then something about the rough stones caught his attention. They were quite small pebbles, dull, but – here his pulse began to steeplechase. He spoke to the children’s father, with studied carelessness, and the Kaffir said, “Oh yes, the children like these little stones. They have some more in the hut, “and he brought forth a small basket containing several more.
 
Repressing his excitement, the traveler took out a large plug of tobacco, worth perhaps twenty or thirty cents in our money, and said, “I would like to take the stones home for my children. I will give you this tobacco for them. Are you willing?” The Kaffir laughed and said, “I am robbing you but if you insist, all right,” and the bargain was sealed – which not only enriched the stranger but led in time to the great discovery of the South African diamond fields.
 
The fate of the Kaffir is really the fate of most human beings. Man holds a fabulous treasure in his possession – the power of the Spoken Word – and yet, in most cases, he does not know it.
 
The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure … to bless all the work of thine hand… (Deuteronomy 28:12).
How many plugs of tobacco have we traded our precious jewels to receive? God’s gifts are the most valuable things we can inherit, yet we often trade them for plugs of vanity, pride and ego (and the other human weaknesses). Love, patience, tolerance, forgiveness and our manifestation of those gifts are priceless, yet too often, we quietly let them slip through our fingers as we grasp for gratification, attention, praise and position.
 
We must hold fast to the priceless gifts from the Father as if our lives depend on it…because they do.
 
Treasuring the gifts,
Z gardener

 

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Brains or Excelsior?

April 16, 2012 by zgardener

You all know the Great Law. One way of stating it is to say: Like produces like. What we sow in thought we reap in experience.
People know that these things are true, and yet in spite of this transcendent knowledge they constantly use the Great Law for their own destruction. They would not dream of pouring water in the gas tank of their car, or sand into their watch, or broken glass into their food; but they do something just as foolish every time they think, speak, or act negatively. One cannot help wondering what such people have inside their heads – brains or excelsior.
In the future, when you catch yourself thinking negatively, say to your self severely, “Brains or excelsior?” and immediately switch to what you know to be the Truth of Being.
Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord… (Ephesians 6:8).
Its just this simple. Negative thinking creates negative outcomes. Now, we will never completely eliminate negative thoughts, however, keep in mind that they will always produce bitter fruits. Let us ask ourselves today, how much bitter fruit are we willing to tolerate in our gardens. As for me and mine, less is better.
Sewing positive seeds,
Z gardener

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The Good God

April 12, 2012 by zgardener

 
God knows everything, at all times. The Bible sometimes speaks of God as having changed His mind or being disappointed. God is supposed to have tested Abraham’s obedience in the matter of Isaac. God is supposed to have had His plans upset by the misconduct of Adam and Eve, by the general wickedness of humanity before the flood, and, in fact, He is frequently represented as being disappointed and even frustrated by the conduct of mankind. In orthodox theology, the devil was continually upsetting God’s arrangements and bringing his plans to naught. Indeed, to listen to some preachers, one would have supposed that the devil was a good deal more powerful than God.
 
Of course, all this is nonsense. Such things could not be really true of God. It was Abraham’s idea of God that led him to prepare to kill Isaac. It was the wickedness of mankind in the antediluvian world that brought on the flood as a natural consequence, just as the fears, hatreds, jealousies, and greed of mankind over many years have brought on war.
 
We make an idolatrous image of ourselves and call it God. Let us destroy this image today and worship the true God who is infinite and unchanging Good.
 
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent … (Number 23:19).
 
One day we will know that all our troubles emanate from our separation from God and God’s children. When we choose to put ourselves before God, we separate ourselves from God. This causes us to live in the world we created instead of the Eden God created for us. The world we create exposes us to every form of human weakness such as vanity, pride and ego. When we allow these weaknesses into our garden we subject ourselves to those things we experience as doubt, fear, anxiety and every other form of human weakness. When we indulge these weakness it causes the words, thoughts and deeds that hurt us and hurt others.
 
The source of our problems is not God, it is separation form God. When we put God first, then we become one with God and can live each day in the joy and gladness of the garden he created for us. In this world we have access to peace and the love of the Good God, and we rise above the negative experiences and obstacles of this world.
 
In communion,
Z gardener

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Theoretical Centipede

April 11, 2012 by zgardener

 
Do not dissect things too much. By the time you have dissected a living thing you have killed it, and you no longer have the thing that you began with. Take a rose out of the bowl, pull its petal apart, count them, weigh them, measure them, and then, while you will have certain interesting information, you no longer have a rose.
 
There is a place for analysis, but it is apt to be quite fatal in prayer and meditation. Do not dissect the love of God, but feel it. Do not dissect divine intelligence, but realize it. Do not wonder how God can possibly solve this problem, but just watch Him do it in His own way – and He will if you will give Him a chance.
 
You know that God is Love. So go ahead on that, and do not get theoretical about it.
 
Do you remember the old verse that says:
 
A centipede was happy quite,
Until a frog in fun
Said, “Pray, which leg comes after which?”
This raised her mind to such a pitch,
She lay distracted in the ditch,
Considering how to run.
 
The righteous shall be glad in the Lord, and shall trust in him: and all the upright in heart shall glory (Psalm 64:10).
 
We have all heard the phrase “thinking something to death”. While our reasoning ability is God given and is to be used for our best good, it can interfere with our spiritual progress if we let it. This happens when we let our rational side override our spiritual side with doubt, fear or resignation. Then it becomes a foothold for anxiety, cynicism and resistance to God’s will and capability.
 
Remember the Bible says, “their wisdom will make them foolish and our foolishness will make us wise”. This means our intellect can blind us to the truth that our spirit and faith reveal. This will not happen if we listen to our spirit, trust God and follow his will regardless of our intellectual resistance.
 
Keeping the rose,
Z gardener

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A Smile Is An Investment

April 10, 2012 by zgardener

 
 
Most people feel intuitively that the simplest things in life are the most important, or, if you prefer, that the most important things in life are found to be the simplest. This is a very profound discovery. What is more important to us than breathing, for instance?
 
Another simple thing that is of great moment is a smile. A smile affects your whole body from the skin right in to the skeleton, including all blood vessels, nerves, and muscles. It affects the functioning of every organ. It influences every gland. Even one smile often relaxes a number of muscles, and when the thing becomes a habit you can easily see how the effect will mount up. Last year’s smiles are paying you dividends today.
 
The effect of a smile on other people is no less remarkable. It disarms suspicion, melts away fear and anger, and brings forth the best in the other person – which best he immediately proceeds to give to you.
 
A smile is to personal contacts what oil is to machinery, and no intelligent engineer ever neglects lubrication.
 
Rejoice evermore (1 Thessalonians 5:16).
 
This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it! The best way to share gladness and radiate joy is through smiling. So today, let us share our joy with ourselves and others by manifesting our love through our smiles.
 
Smile on,
Z gardener

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Foresight and Hindsight

April 9, 2012 by zgardener

When you have to make a decision or take a certain action, all that you can do is to do the best you know at that time, and if you do that you will have done your duty. In the light of after events it may turn out that you made a mistake, but that will not be your fault because you could not possibly do better that the best you know at the time.
Claim that the Christ is guiding you; and believe it, and the ultimate outcome will be favorable even if things seem to go wrong for a time.
And the Lord shall guide thee continually (Isaiah 58:11).
While the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray, God’s plans never do. They may seem at times that they have gone very wrong. If we trust God fully and keep to his commandments, all things will work for our best good.
In this week of Easter, please remember that the light of the world appeared to be extinguished by the shame of the cross. How wrong that appearance was!
So, trust God, love freely and give joyfully. It is God’s plan for us.
In God I trust,
Z gardener

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The Consecrated Life

April 5, 2012 by zgardener

 
 
Of what does the consecrated life consist?
 
Your life is a consecrated one when you are ready at all times to do the will of God – when you are willing and anxious that God may be fully expressed through you, through your thoughts, words, and deeds, during every hour of the day.
 
You are not concerned with the question of results. Results belong to God.
 
Here am I; send me (Isaiah 6:8).
 
When we release the self, we open ourselves to God’s will manifesting itself through us. Our lives become sacred when God is at its center.
 
Being here to be sent,
Z gardener

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GOD’S WORK OF ART

April 4, 2012 by zgardener

 
Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)           We are God’s masterpiece.
 
Over a hundred years ago, a group of fishermen were relaxing in a Scottish seaside inn. One of the men gestured widely and his arm struck the serving maid’s tea tray, sending the teapot flying into the whitewashed wall. The innkeeper surveyed the damage and sighed, “The whole wall will have to be replaced.” “Perhaps not,” offered a stranger. “Let me work with it”.
 
Having nothing to lose, the proprietor consented. The man pulled pencils, brushes, and pigment out of an art box. . . . In time an image began to emerge: a stag with a great rack of antlers. the man inscribed his signature at the bottom, paid for his meal, and left. His name: Sir Edwin Landseer, famous painter of wildlife.
 
In his hands, a mistake became a masterpiece. God’s hands do the same, over and over. He draws together the disjointed blotches in our life and renders them an expression of His love.
 

Each day Lord, give us the faith to truly believe that the mistakes we make can become miracles if we let you render them.

 

Render me,

Z gardener

 

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Praying With A Feather

April 3, 2012 by zgardener

 
 
Years ago many devoted preachers and Sunday School teachers were fond of telling people to “pray hard.” Well-meaning as this advice was, it was mistaken. I often tell people to pray “soft,” which of course, means gently.
 
I do this because I know that the more quietly and gently we pray, the better results we get. In prayer, as in many other activities, effort defeats itself. More than once I have said to my congregation, “Pray with a feather – not with a pickax.”
 
Always pray gently, and especially if you have a good deal of fear, or if your difficulty seems to be a very important one.
 
For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee (Psalm 86:5).
 
A gentle prayer is a sign of strong faith. It is like the calm confidence of a child who quietly asks their Father for help with a project, knowing that help will come as surely as the sunrise. Granted, there are times we pray when we are not calm ourselves. In such times it is very hard to say a calm prayer. But what one will find is that when we do exert the confidence of calmness, even a chaotic environment can become peaceful when our faith conquers our fear or hurt.
 
Praying with gentleness,
Z gardener

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