MY DAD AND I

I read the first chapter of "A Brief History Of Time" when Dad was still alive, and I got incredibly heavy boots about how relatively insignificant life is, and how, compared to the universe and compared to time, it didn't even matter if I existed at all. 

When Dad was tucking me in that night and we were talking about the book, I asked if he could think of a solution to that problem. "What problem?" "The problem of how relatively insignificant we are." 

He said, "Well, what would happen if a plane dropped you in the middle of the Sahara Desert and you picked up a single grain of sand with tweezers and moved it one millimetre?" I said, "I'd probably die of dehydration." He said, "I just mean right then, when you moved that single grain of sand. What would that mean?" 

I said, "I dunno, what?" He said. "Think about it." I thought about it. "I guess I would have moved a grain of sand." "Which would mean?" "Which would mean I moved a grain of sand?" "Which would mean you changed the Sahara." 

"So?" "So?" So the Sahara is a vast desert. And it has existed for million of years. And you changed it!" "That's true!" I said, sitting up. "I changed the Sahara!" 

"Which means?" he said. "What? Tell me." "Well, I'm not talking about painting the Mona Lisa or curing cancer. I'm just talking about moving that one grain of sand one millimetre."

"Yeah?" "If you hadn't done it, human history would have been one way ..." "Uh-huh?" "But, you did do it, so ...?" 

I stood on the bed, pointed my fingers at the fake stars, and screamed: "I changed the universe!" "You did."

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today pic: where are they going?

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THE FAT AND SKINNY FROG

This is the story of two frogs. One frog was fat and the other skinny. One day, while searching for food, they inadvertently jumped into a vat of milk. They couldn't get out, as the sides were too slippery, so they were just swimming around. 

The fat frog said to the skinny frog, "Brother frog, there's no use paddling any longer. We're just going to drown, so we might as well give up." The skinny frog replied, "Hold on brother, keep paddling. Somebody will get us out." And they continued paddling for hours. 

After a while, the fat frog said, "Brother frog, there's no use. I'm becoming very tired now. I'm just going to stop paddling and drown. It's Sunday and nobody's working. We're doomed. There's no possible way out of here." But the skinny frog said, "Keep trying. Keep paddling. Something will happen, keep paddling." Another couple of hours passed. 

The fat frog said, "I can't go on any longer. There's no sense in doing it because we're going to drown anyway. What's the use?" And the fat frog stopped. He gave up. And he drowned in the milk. But the skinny frog kept on paddling. 

Ten minutes later, the skinny frog felt something solid beneath his feet. He had churned the milk into butter and he hopped out of the vat. 

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A MUST WATCH

FUNNY VIDEO

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GETTING YOUR WORK DONE

Are you having trouble getting all your work done? Is there a project you can't seem to find time to finish, or something you haven't been able to get started? If it doesn't seem you'll ever be able to cross everything off your "to do" list, see if any of the following are keeping you from getting your work done.

1.  You have too many distractions
A survey by the research firm NFI Research found that 66% of senior executive and managers say email is one of the biggest distractions in the workplace, followed by the crisis of the day, and personal interruptions. 
According to the bosses surveyed, other workplace distractions include unexpected meetings, phone calls, web surfing, socializing, instant messages, and noise. 

2.  You don't have the resources you need
A carpenter needs a hammer, an accountant needs an adding machine, and most office workers need a computer. But new employees don't always have what they need to hit the ground running. (Tag was once hired by an employer that took a month to supply the software she needed to do the job.) 
Likewise, if your co-workers aren't providing you with the data or assistance you need, your work may suffer. But before you blame your co-workers for not helping, consider if they are facing challenges getting their own work done.

3.  You don't know what you're doing
Clayton Warholm, an expert on workplace miscommunication, says there are two main reasons employees may not know enough to do the job. Either the assignment wasn't clearly stated by your employer (you don't know what to do) or you haven't been trained properly (you don't know how to do it). However, training will only help if you have the talent needed to do the job. 

In their book First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman reported findings of interviews conducted by the Gallup Organization of more than 80,000 managers in over 400 companies. They found "the right talents, more than experience, more than brainpower, and more than willpower alone, are the prerequisites for excellence in all roles" and, unlike skills and knowledge, "you cannot teach talent." 

4.  You have too much work
Some people have so much work on their plates they couldn't do everything on their "to do" list even if they worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This may happen in any job, but particularly in fields facing a shortage of workers. The result is workers experiencing the frustration of trying their best to get everything done but simply not being able to do so. 

5.  You have poor time management skills
Workers with good time management skills do what's most important, while those with poor time management skills work on what looks most fun or easy -- then frantically try to catch up on important work that has become urgent because the fun and easy work was done first. Hint: work is rarely easy or fun if you end up missing deadlines and have to deal with an irate boss or customers.

6.  You're procrastinating
Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today? Actually, you may have a good reason -- to avoid pain. When we procrastinate it's often because we're afraid the job or the outcome will be unpleasant. For example, if you're afraid of failure and fear that no matter what you do it won't be good enough, chances are you'll avoid doing anything. 

If your own need for perfection is holding you back, realize most employers and clients would prefer that you do an imperfect but good job, rather than not do the job at all.

7.  You feel undervalued
If you feel underpaid and unappreciated, chances are you won't be working at 100%. Consciously or not, many employees try to "balance the scales" to ensure that what they give the employer is equal to what the employer gives them. 

According to Louis V. Imundo, author of The Effective Supervisor's Handbook, when the negatives of a job outweigh the positives, "employees may put less effort into their jobs, be absent more frequently, be careless, or psychologically withdraw from work while being physically present."

8.  Your company's priorities keep changing
You are working on Project A when the boss says "drop everything and work on Project B." When this happens it may feel you're not getting any work done, but your employer may feel otherwise. As the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (the most widely-used personality assessment) shows, some people are flexible and find it easy to change direction and exciting to start new projects, while others find it frustrating not to complete projects. If you are the latter, and work in an industry where change is constant, you may want to consider a career change.

9.  You're burned out
According to the website of the American Psychological Association, burnout is emotional exhaustion resulting from overwhelming stress at work. It may be caused by a hostile work environment or fears about job security, but is often the result of long hours, stressful deadlines, high expectations, worrying about a project, or taking on more work than you can handle -- in other words, working too hard. 
Because it can lead to serious conditions such as depression and heart disease, you should seek professional help if you are experiencing burnout. 

10. Your "reward" for completing the job will be more work
What happens if you consistently go the extra mile to do exceptional work ahead of schedule? Oddly enough, many companies "reward" their hardest working employees with more work. So instead of time off, a bonus or another perk, productive employees are only given more work to do. If this happens in your company, it's no wonder you're not feeling motivated to work hard.

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JIM IYKE DELIVERANCE

EVERY BODY NEED DELIVERANCE

AS JIM IYKE WAS DELIVER

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VIDEO OFAGAGU CRASH CASKET

WHAT THE VIDEO OF A CRASH CASKET this is really a sad news...

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AKPOR IS DEAF AND DUMP

Akpors was going to benin and he boarded a bus at warri...when they were close to benin, the conductor of the bus decided to to collect money 4rm the passengers... When it got to akpors turn, the conductor asked him for his own money but he claimed to be deaf and dumb and the conductor fosting him to pay when a lady in the bus interfared and told the conductor dat she will pay, gave the conductor the money ask him to keep the charge.

Akpors shouted.......keep what keep what pls bring the it??????

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today's pic

if this horse can laugh......

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THE FALSE VIRGIN

The bride tells her husband, "Honey, you know I'm a virgin and I don't know anything about sex. Can you explain it to me first?"

"OK, Sweetheart. Putting it simply, we will call your private place 'the
prison' and call my private thing 'the prisoner'. So what we do is: put the prisoner in the prison.

And then they made love for the first time....

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REFAEl NADAL WILL RETURN

Refael Nadal will return to the top of the world rankings on Monday after reaching the final of the China Open.

The 27-year-old earned his place in Sunday's final when his semi-final opponent Tomas Berdych retired with a back injury, with the Czech trailing 4-2 in the opening set in Beijing.

Nadal's rise to the top follows a remarkable return to the court following a lengthy lay-off with a knee injury.

Since his comeback in February, the Spaniard has won 10 titles from 12 finals, including the French Open and US Open.

Nadal's last spell as world number one lasted 56 weeks before he was replaced at the summit by Novak Djokovic in July, 2011.

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Former Arsenal star on England's struggles, coaching and beating Bayern 6-0

Patrick Vieira synchronises his new Manchester City academy squad’s training sessions with the first team’s so some of that elite class might rub off, but the senior players have been the ones needing a little of what the juniors are drinking this week. The scoreline Manchester City 6 Bayern Munich 0 – registered by the Under-19s in a Uefa Youth League match on Wednesday afternoon – was obscured by what Pep Guardiola’s players dished out, having breezed into the Etihad in their elegant three-piece suits four hours later. It was a breathtaking football exposition from Vieira’s players, though. His 17-year-old Portuguese captain, Marcos Lopes, was sometimes unplayable in the course of completing a hat-trick.

“They’re young, they’re young!” says Vieira’s assistant Christian Lattanzio, gesturing that we must keep a lid on expectation because these boys don’t need to let this result run away with them. Lattanzio’s several branches of expertise include sports psychology, so he would know.

There’s actually been more talk around Manchester about City’s overwhelmingly Mancunian Under-14s and Under-13s – both English national champions last season. But Vieira and his boys have made some impact on the new Uefa competition. It’s a sign of how obsessive City’s attempts to develop young talent have become that their chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak, a man more accustomed to handling multimillion-pound Abu Dhabi investment funds, was in the 1,500 crowd at Hyde on Wednesday to view a starting XI which included five young Englishmen.

City’s chief executive Ferran Soriano says he told Vieira last year that it was time to decide whether his future was going to be “in the office or on the turf” and there are grounds to believe that the Home Nations might be a beneficiary of his decision to take the latter and assume custodianship of City’s Elite Development Squad. The 17-year-old Dubliner Jack Byrne was Vieira’s most influential player in Plzen a fortnight ago, elegantly running the midfield in a 4-1 win, and also flourished against the Germans. The Mancunian defender Shay Facey offers promise.

Vieira’s agonies about the English football nation stem from its habit of obsessing over the volume of foreigners in the Premier League when it might be getting to grips with developing more British youngsters capable of playing alongside them. We have arrived at another of those international breaks when the paucity of English players will dominate the football narrative.

Bayern deployed six Germans at the Etihad on Wednesday; England’s four Champions League sides mustered 10 between them. “But for me, this is the way to hide what is the real problem in this country,” Vieira tells The Independent. “The problem is deeper than just saying there are too many foreigners and for me that is the comment everybody wants to hear.

“When you see so many kids playing the game and so few being top players, you have to say something is wrong somewhere. I think England has to change the way they are teaching football, because football is changing and the method isn’t changing as much.”

 The issues boil down to the fact that the young players City receive from the Continent generally do possess a better technical component. The likes of Lopes (below) have “more knowledge of the game, I will say: the football knowledge,” Vieira says, his seat in his Carrington office facing that of the director of football, Txiki Begiristain – peering intently into a laptop; perhaps planning another of the acquisitions which Vieira’s work is designed to render less of a requirement.

“On the other hand, there is so much passion and love for the game among the youth [in England] that you don’t always have elsewhere,” adds Vieira. “That is essential. But now it’s more about the creativity. How do you move around the pitch to be in the right places? How do you control and pass? It sounds really simple but at the end it’s complex and really difficult.

“So England should start from the grass-roots. You need the facilities – and even though you look at St George’s Park, the facilities have to improve. And if you have the right project, you need to educate the coaches. Because you can have the best project in the world but if you don’t have the right people to deliver to the kids, it’s worthless.”

The superior Continental technique accrues from longer hours, too, he says. When Vieira was a young player coming through the dormitory existence of French academies – the centres de formation – at FC Drouais and Tours, he would not see his home for a week. “When you are 14, 15, 16 you can train every day in France and sometimes you can train twice a day,” he says. “You train far more in France than in England. Here, we still see football as a game. Football is a job. There is still the mentality where training is at 11, you come in at 10.30 and when it is finished you leave straight away. No….” So life has suddenly changed for his City boys: there are three double training sessions and two singles, each week. Their lives are at Carrington.

What Vieira and the club are attempting to inculcate is a single way to play: creating an awareness in players, as they move the ball out from the back, of how “to find the right position to receive the ball in the right place and play it forward. How to give a lot of solutions to the players who get the ball”. And how to maintain that philosophy whether they are winning or losing.

“It’s not about the result but how you can deal with certain situations. How you can deal with the game when you are winning 1-0, there are 10 or 15 minutes to go and the other team are pushing. Are you maybe going to change the system to go more defensive? No. You need to deal with winning 1-0. Keep the ball better and select the right time to go forward. And if you are losing 1-0 with 10 minutes to go, how can you be more offensive and keep in the same system? You can push the block forward and put them under pressure and not let them get it out. Winning is not important. It’s how you can deal with the situation at this age.”

Some want to learn more than others. City’s academy head, Mark Allen, tells a story about Lopes being unexpectedly asked across to join first-team training last season and sprinting back to the academy ranks when that session had finished – to illustrate that rather British trait of ridiculing those who do the extra work. “I am sorry to say it is especially true in British football,” Allen says. “It’s a case of ‘Look at him, he’s busy’ or ‘He wants to get on the right side of the coach’. But it’s your career, so just get on with it.” Vieira grimaces. “Yes, I do see that.”

Some of the challenges are less resolvable. Soriano and his Manchester United counterpart Ed Woodward both yearn, for example, to be allowed to put reserve teams through the lower professional leagues – and both know that it will never happen. Vieira recalls his days playing for Cannes reserves in the lower reaches of the French pyramid and a hostile trip to play Corsica, in particular.

“It’s tough. You grow up. The [Premier League’s] Under-21 division is better than last year but it’s taking too long to improve. The gap between the Under-21 and the first team is massive. That is why so many boys from the Under-21 have failed to make the leap to the first team.”

It was not his players’ recent 6-3 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur’s academy – “a really good game; we stuck to our philosophy” – which frustrated Vieira, but the fact that the game took place on an academy pitch. “No atmosphere. No crowd. It’s was like a training game.”

The clatter of boots tells us that his players are assembling outside. “Too soon to know,” Soriano says, to the question of whether any from this group could serve Manuel Pellegrini. But every self-respecting City fan will tell you that they were the last side to win the league by fielding a team of 11 Englishmen – 45 long years ago.

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SEED, NEED AND GREED?

But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work (2 Corinthians 9:6–8).

INTRODUCTION: This morning we are going to talk about money. My message is based on a really good book that was written by Larry Stockstill concerning giving called: ‘The Blessed Life.’ Did you know that one out of every eight verses in the Bible talks about bling bling (money)? That alone is reason enough to talk about it at least a couple Sundays of the year. Martin Luther said that a Christian must be converted three times: the first time for his mind; the second time for his heart; and the third time for his wallet, and of the three the most difficult conversion is of the wallet. Arrogance is driven by what it can gain. Confidence is aimed at what it can give. When it comes down to it, we all face three specific challenges when it comes to our finances. When we have need, we should trust God to be our sufficiency. When we move beyond sufficiency into abundance, we must deal with the temptation of greed. When we move into multiplication and harvest, it is the result of planting our seed.

I)   Need—The Test of Sufficiency
The Macedonians were poor: And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 3For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own (2 Corinthians 8:1-3). However, they did not let poverty affect their generosity. They were cheerful and rich in giving. The best time to develop the quality of cheerfulness and joy in giving to others often comes when you are in need.
The Macedonians gave “not only what they could afford, but far more” (8:3, NLT).
They begged Paul for the opportunity to send finances to the impoverished believers in Jerusalem. Their hearts were generous and touched by God for the benefit of others. Finally, “they first gave themselves to the Lord… (8:5 NKJV).” When you are the first level of sacrifice, it becomes easier to give material things. God’s promise is for:
•    “All grace”: You will have all grace overflowing constantly.
•    “Always”: The promise is yours for all times and seasons.
•    “All sufficiency”: You will never experience a permanent shortfall.
•    “All things”: This does not say most things, but all things!
Three examples: A DAM; A BANNER; A SKITTLE
Imagine, if you will, an enormous dam, a majestic concrete structure cutting across a great river, the water backing up behind it. The sluice gates are opened, and out of the front of the dam there are gushing torrents of water being released. The water churns through the generators, sending power to distant areas, and rushes down to fill the area below. Like a flash flood, the water surges forth along the riverbed, clearing debris where it has accumulated, and later on, the water will flow more smoothly in the river, eventually depositing into a lake where people will gather for refreshing. How many of you want a flood of blessing to be released into your lives? Malachi let’s us in on the secret of abundant blessing: it comes by following the safety rules.
Factory Safety Banners: Have you noticed how many factories today have a big white banner prominently displaying how many days they have gone without any injuries? The reason for this is because any injury makes everyone pay a price. When you count the cost of treating the injury, replacing the worker, loss of productivity, higher workman’s comp rates, and higher health liability insurance rates you can see why getting employees to follow the safety rules is so important. Too bad we don’t count the number of people keeping God’s rules in the church. When God’s people keep the rules then everyone benefits just as when only one breaks the rules, everyone inevitably pays a price.
Tithing is one of God’s rules. Tithing is not a test to see how much money the church can raise, tithing is a test of faith to help us grow in our relationship with Christ. Also, there is nothing that tests a person’s true view of the invisible realm more than taking ten percent of your income and laying it on the altar before God. It is illogical to give it away, but it is an act of faith that declares, “I believe in the Living God, and I sow my faith into His promise.” He doesn’t say you have to do it to go to heaven, to be loved by God, or in order to know the kindness of His mercies along the way of your life. But He says that if you would like to see a harvest of overflow, of spiritual blessing, and provision from heaven’s sources into your earthly setting, then He’s calling you to make this sowing into the realm of the Spirit. Then you make up your mind whether you’ll do it.
Tithing is not an Old or New Testament principle, it’s a life principle. When you come to the life principle and respond, something opens.
It’s like Ed Young’s’ example of Skittles. Watching her eat the Skittles, I said, “Landra, can I have some Skittles?”  She said, “No.”  I said, “Landra, just give me a couple.”  [She said,] “They’re mine.” My little daughter didn’t understand several things.  Number one, she didn’t understand the fact that I was the one who bought the Skittles for her.  Number two, she didn’t realize my strength.  Number three, she didn’t understand the fact that I could have gone to the concession stand, put 300 packages of Skittles on a credit card, come back to her and given her so many Skittles; I could have rained so many Skittles on her that she couldn’t have eaten them all in a year.  I could have done that.  Like Landra, we don’t understand several things.  Number one, God is the one who gave them to us.  They’re His Skittles.  He bought them.  If God wanted to—because after all, God is omnipotent, all powerful—He could take all the Skittles from you and me like that!
II) Greed—The Test of Abundance
Need is when you are tested to trust God as your sufficiency. Greed is when you are tested by abundance. It is the temptation to build bigger barns to hold greater wealth, as Jesus taught in the parable in Luke 12:16–18. The promise is for “abundance for every good work.” The purpose of that abundance is to scatter your seed abroad and to give to that which advances the Kingdom.

Greed is the enemy of generosity. Waste or Worship? Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jarof expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. . . . But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages.It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.” Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money, he often stole some for himself (John 12:3, 5, NLT). This is a tale of two hearts: the generous heart and the selfish heart. Mary gave the equivalent of a year’s salary, but Judas despised her generosity and said it was impractical and wasteful. These two people illustrate the conflict within us between generosity and selfishness.
Judas felt Mary’s gift was a waste. He used a religious pretext to mask his selfishness: “It should have been given to the poor.” He represents the world that thinks anything given to Jesus is a waste. Nothing the world does, however, is seen as wasteful, but is lauded as necessary. Selfishness promotes, protects, and provides for self. It begins when we are children and builds itself as a fortress in our hearts. Judas acted as if loving the poor motivated him. In fact, he was upset that the money was not put into the “support box” where he could steal it!
What do you do when you receive finances above your needs? Do you think only of spending it? Do you pay off debt? Do you consider that it may be for others? At times, God will test you with unexpected income. He wants to see what your heart really desired all along: to expand His kingdom or yours?
II)     Seed—the Test of Multiplication
The highest use for finances is as seed sown in God’s kingdom, not just to meet need or satisfy greed. The test of seed is in sowing bountifully. God can supply your needs in various ways. Elijah received meat from ravens and water from the brook. He also received cake from angels.
“Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness” (2 Corinthians 9:10, NKJV). “God will supply you with all the seed you need” (v. 10, GNT). “God will increase your store of seed” (v. 10, NIV). God supplies seed to the sower, not to the keeper.
There are three fundamental principles of seed:
You reap what you sow Like begets like, and exactly what you sow (time, love, finances, etc.) is what you will reap.
You reap after you sow You can’t reap before you sow, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.”  (Genesis 8:22). Start where you are; don’t wait on a harvest before you sow
You reap more than you sow Multiplication may be sown through tears, Those who sow in tears Shall reap in joy (Psalm 126:5), but it will always be far greater than the seed. Two corn seeds produce a plant with multiple ears, and each ear has 400 new seeds.
There is a place that we could call the place of “extravagance of generosity.” Generosity never does what is normal or expected. It always exceeds it. Mary gave the equivalent of 300 denarii, one year’s salary.
There are principles that govern our ability to exhibit generosity. Let me give you some practical advice:
•    Make the lifestyle adjustments that will enable you to have something to give.
•    Pray about every significant financial decision, and wait overnight to act upon it. This will help curb impulse buying (80 percent of purchases are made on impulse).
•    Make up to people what they feel you owe them. God will bless you back with it, even though you may be in the right.
•    Never manipulate others. Don’t drop hints to people who are in a position to help you.
•    Don’t look at people as your source Give as God leads you to give.
Tithes: This is the first level of the ladder of giving, and it opens the windows of heaven.
Offerings: This is seed you plant that results in the multiplication of finances.

Extravagant offerings: David gave what some say was the equivalent of $21 billion to the temple, and Solomon sacrificed 1,000 bulls. The widow gave extravagantly even with her two mites, and with Jesus, God gave the “unspeakable gift” (Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift! 2 Corinthians 9:15 NKJV). There is purpose for every gift. “She has come beforehand to anoint my body for burial” (Mark 14:8, NKJV). The woman who anointed Jesus was the Mary whose brother Lazarus was raised from the dead (John 11). She unknowingly anointed Jesus’ body for burial, because He was crucified before the Sabbath and would not have been able to be anointed until the day after the Sabbath. However, by that time He was already raised!
CONCLUSION The story is told of a lady who shared the joy she experienced when one of her children gave her a bouquet of dandelions. The dandelions were available, they were abundant, and they were actually hers, since they came from her yard. What made the bouquet so special was that it was a declaration of love from her child. That is what your giving is: a declaration of your love for God.

The little boy in the Bible gave his five loaves and two fish. Jesus took them, blessed them, and fed five thousand men, plus women and children. He put Himself in the offering. Similarly, give yourself to God and everything else becomes easy!

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