Jeff Bezos was an exceptionally bright young man. Even in grade school, he became a leader of his peers in the program for gifted and talented children. He has used his abilities well. You most likely know of him as the founder of Amazon.com. He is one of America’s wealthiest tech giants, but the lessons he has learned as a genius and entrepreneur are insignificant to one that he learned from his grandparents.
Young Bezos had to learn that there is more to life than being bright. When he was only ten, his grandparents took him on a road trip. From the backseat of their car, he heard an anti-smoking public service announcement. Bezos took the data he heard on the radio and did some mental math, before proudly announcing to his grandmother that her smoking habit was likely to cause her to die nine years prematurely.
You probably aren’t surprised to know that she didn’t take this pronouncement very well, but Jeff was caught off-guard. He didn’t understand her reaction. What he said was true. He His grandfather pulled the car over and escorted him away as his grandmother continued to cry. Bezos wasn’t sure what would happen next—a lecture, a spanking, a disagreement—but he never forgot what happened next. He said, “My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, ‘Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.’”
It’s not that hard to be right. Clever isn’t that difficult, either, but kindness, that takes work.
Maybe we need to learn the lesson that young Jeff Bezos learned. Maybe we need to do the hard thing. Maybe we need to do the better thing.
Have you ever thought about all the things that happen when a person is baptized?
Sometimes when people hear about some of the good things going on at Burns, they ask, “How can I help?” There probably are a million ways—but here are five that almost anyone can do.
If you ask most people, love is God’s number one attribute. I won’t argue with passages like 1 John 4:8 that say “God is love,” but we shouldn’t forget some of the other qualities that scripture attributes to God.
The tongue has incredible power. When James wrote about it, he said that the tongue is the spark that ignites a forest fire or the rudder that steers a large ship. He said that humans can subdue and control everything—except the tongue (James 3:1-12).
Violence leads the news every night as we’re told of another shooting or attack. The talking heads ponder over the motives. Everyone asks the same question, “How can we keep this from happening again?”
Telemachus was a monk who lived in a small monastic community near the end of the fourth century. He had a peaceful life of Bible study, prayer, and gardening for the cloister. His peaceful life was interrupted by the sense that God wanted him to move from the country to the distant city of Rome. Telemachus didn’t want to move. He loved his simple life, but he believed it was what God wanted, and so he left.
Love is more than a feeling. It is a choice, a pursuit, a decision, an action, a lifestyle. When we reduce love to something as fleeting as an emotion, we tear out the support that allows it to weather the storms of life. Here’s a short lesson on Christian love from a helpful book about the purpose of marriage by Gary Thomas called Sacred Marriage.
Most people marry for selfish reasons. “She makes me happy.” “She’s beautiful.” “She treats me well.”