Author: Kevin Spear

I am a content creator and storyteller based in Florida, where I work for OneHope. I love digital and content marketing, writing, and the occasional doodle.

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motivation

Failure and Achievement

Failure and Achievement

Are you afraid to fail? Who loves it? Who wouldn’t like to achieve something perfectly and with zero failures? But that isn’t the way life works. There is a connection between failure and achievement. In fact, I would say you can’t have one without the other.

Nobody has it all figured out at the beginning. No matter how much we plan, it is impossible to account for every possible failure or outcome. C. S. Lewis says it best with this quote.

“Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.”

C. S. Lewis

A few years back, I was on a project that involved the edition of a book. This book had great sales and we were going to update the design and illustrations.

As we were planning for the release, I heard a phrase that made me cringe; “Failure is not an option!” As the comment echoed in the room, I thought, “Well then, we are in serious trouble, because that doesn’t allow for any improvement.”

Failure is Always an Option

If anything is going to change, failure is always an option. Failure and achievement go hand in hand. Sure, we can plan and strive to avoid obvious mistakes.

Failure is success if we learn from it. But even then, we have to be careful. What didn’t work before could work today, and vice versa.

  • Technology may have improved
  • Customer preferences may have changed
  • The timing may have just been off before
  • What we thought was the root cause of a past failure wasn’t really the problem

As we get older, we can be tempted to turn down ideas that didn’t work yesterday but could be wildly successful today. Failure is an option if you want success. We have to face those fears!

cartoon of a girl and a monster. The monster is eating someone. A girl says, "You see Roger? This is why I don't like facing my fears."

Doing Nothing is a Bad Option

Sure, we can choose to do nothing. It is an option if we fear failure. And it is a choice. Staying put is a choice that guarantees no failure, nor success. But it is also is a choice that leads to regret.

It is better to encounter short-term failure because we tried than long-term failure because we were afraid of the possibilities. While doing nothing is an option, I hope you decide to take the risk, learning from failure, and succeeding is far better than wondering if you could have been successful.

Categories
children cartoons children's ministry cartoons Parenting Cartoons

Jacob and Esau

The other day, I was in a Sunday school class when two boys began wrestling. One of the boys was in the school wrestling program and wanted to show the moves he learned on the other. I watched closely since it would be bad for a fight to break out in Sunday school. As I made sure it didn’t get out of hand, it reminded me of the Bible story of Jacob and Esau. Voilà! I had my cartoon idea for January!

Cartoon of two adults watching two boys fighting. The dad says, "It's okay. They're just a little rambunctious. Hey, Jacob! Esau! Come meet your new Sunday school Teacher!
Published in the January 2022 CHOGnews

The Jacob and Esau Bible story usually perks the ears of young boys. Since I am the firstborn son in my family, it certainly got my attention. Of course, I had not heard anything until the story of Moses and Passover made me cringe. Hey! Why were things so hard on the firstborn kids? I thought we got all the goods, not a death sentence!

As a child, part of the story made sense because Esau was prone to make rash, unwise decisions. Still, that Jacob was a deceiver. His name in Hebrew suggests that. Later, it made me uncomfortable to learn Esau’s name meant “hairy.” The poor kids didn’t have a chance. How would you like to be introduced as Hairy and Deceiver?

Their father’s name was Isaac. That means “Laughter.” It makes me wonder if he was laughing while his two sons were squabbling. In fact, for this cartoon, I shall hereby name the dad in this cartoon Isaac. It seems appropriate enough.

One of the many lessons of this story is to be careful what you name your kids. It can be a self-fulfilling prophecy!

I drew this cartoon for the November 2022 CHOGNews.

Categories
Exodus motivation

Opportunities and the Impossible

Opportunities and the Impossible

Most of us would like an opportunity. But very few of us want an impossible situation. We see a problem and we are tempted to throw up our hands and give up. But what if that annoying situation is the opportunity we’ve been looking for?

“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

Charles R. Swindoll

Today I started reading in the Book of Exodus. It looked like the Israelites were in an impossible situation. Moses even believed it was the case. He tried to solve the situation forty years later. Instead, he murdered an Egyptian and fled for his life. Now he was safe while his fellow Hebrews continued to suffer under Pharaoh.

Then God shows up and gives Moses an impossible assignment. Moses tries to convince The LORD he has the wrong guy. Moses even pleads to just send someone else. God wasn’t having any of it.

But the LORD didn’t sugarcoat the assignment either. He tells Moses that he knows Pharaoh will not relent without great pressure. Any opportunity is like that. There will be opposition and we will wonder at times if it is worth it.

That is why comfort is so appealing. We like to think someone else will do it, sit back, and let others duke it out. After all, it is always much easier to do nothing and complain than to do something that could change the situation.

Are we ready to come face to face with opportunities and the impossible? Or are we going to sit back and complain about the world? One option makes us and the world better. The other just makes us comfortable in our bitterness.

Categories
Book Review motivation

Towards Deep Work

The previous two days, I have written about the book, Deep Work by Cal Newport. It took me several months after receiving the book to read it. Before that, this book was on my to-read list for a couple of years. How ironic is that? I knew the concept was important, but I was hesitant. Could I really move towards deep work?

I have far from mastered it so far. But at least I see the importance and am taking steps. For some time, I have been concerned about the tyranny of the urgent. I have observed that there are important tasks that all of us need to accomplish. Yet, urgent matters keep us from checking the important off our list.

The last couple of days, the book prompted me to write about the following:

Today, I am writing about the rules Cal Newport presents for deep work.

The Rules

  1. Work Deeply
  2. Embrace Boredom
  3. Quit Social Media
  4. Drain the Shallows

Work Deeply

It should go without saying, but to move towards deep work, we need to work deeply. We must see the value of deep work and commit to executing it. Cal goes into several ways to do that and I encourage you to read the book.

All of us are different and one method will work better than others. He goes into methods that range from closing ourselves off for a day, to finding time like a journalist throughout the day to use bits and pieces of time and using it with intentionality.

The bottom line is that we can make time if we make it a priority. That doesn’t mean we will always be successful, but we tend to do and go where we are focused.

Embrace Boredom

This is a hard one for most of us. When I am waiting for a computer to catch up with me, I tend to grab my phone and see what the latest headlines are. We have wired ourselves to eliminate boredom. We want that endorphin rush that a social media post or latest new article brings.

But Cal maintains that we must allow time to think. It made me realize how often I am willing to let an unknown source influence my thinking instead of allowing myself to think on my own.

This will be very difficult for most of us, as it is for me. Can we be satisfied with just sitting in silence? Can we think a thought without being heavily influenced by a source? I will need to work on that one!

Quit Social Media

I don’t know about that one! And the more I think about that possibility, the more I realize how addicted I am to different platforms. However, does social media really add value?

Do social media influencers influence us in positive ways? At best, they may give us a unique, creative twist on doing something. At worst, they may cause us to do something harmful. Who are these social media influencers anyway?

We get dragged into so many directions when we are on social media. I will have to reconsider my consumption and how it has affected me.

Drain the Shallows

Cal doesn’t say get rid of all shallow work. There are emails we need to answer and urgent items that we will need to take care of. Very few of us can live the life of a monk and sequester ourselves in an undisclosed location.

However, he does maintain we can tame the amount of shallow work we do. There is a difference between answering important emails and living by the email list. Let’s face it. Many emails are distractions from marketing lists anyway.

Much of draining the shallows involves recognizing which work is shallow and which is deep. He gives examples in the book

Towards Deep Work

I am nowhere near succeeding at these steps. But they have given me much to think about. At the very least, it has made me consider how much time I am devoting to deep work that will have lasting value. The book is definitely worth a read or listen.

Categories
motivation

The Lure of Screens

The Lure of Screens

Screens are all around us. They became, even more, a part of us in the last two years. We use them to communicate with our schools and workplaces while hunkering down at home. Screens have been a part of our work and play. They have even become a part of our churches. It is no wonder we have an issue when it comes to the lure of screens.

Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work, came out before the Pandemic. But its message is more appropriate for today.

“One of the main obstacles to going deep: the urge to turn to something more superficial.”

Newport, Cal. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. New York, NY: Grand Central, 2016. 

Discerning the Superficial

The problem today is that superficiality is much more subtle. One moment, we can be in the middle of research for work or school. The next moment, we are distracted by an online ad that popped up in the middle of the research.

I have been working from home for the last couple of weeks. One challenge I have had is a slow VPN. I need to connect to it for work. But the connection can be very slow. While I wait for the computer to catch up, I have to discern what I can do while waiting.

We can be very distracted from deep work when we are working on computers. If the connection is slow, we can be challenged by the lure of another screen. We have no shortage of screens these days. If a computer is slow, there is always the phone or television to check on.

“The lure of the Internet and televison proved especially strong.”

Newport, Cal. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. New York, NY: Grand Central, 2016. 

Between our temptation to multitask and the lure of yet another screen, we can find ourselves being lured away from deep work. When we try to rely on willpower, we often find that it is limited and as the day progresses, we are more apt to give in to our desire to be distracted. Very few of us have the luxury to be marooned on a desert island.

Guy on desert island: Three days earlier, Gary asked God to eliminate from his life all temptation.

Screens lure us. After all, you may have been lured here as you waited for your computer too. We are all prone to be distracted. Tomorrow, I’ll look into some solutions to our distraction dilemma.