Pink talked about Karl Duncker’s candle problem and variations of his experiment that explored the science of motivation.  One experiment asked a group to solve this problem and explained that it would be timed to established norms. A second group was offered financial incentives. If you were in the top 20% of the fastest times, you would receive five dollars. If you were the fastest of everyone, you would receive twenty dollars.

The results were obvious, right? The second group, motivated by financial incentives, took on average 3.5 minutes longer. Yes, longer. Would this work in third world countries and developing economies? Yes. This study has been replicated over 40 years across numerous cultures.

What is basic knowledge in the social sciences should have been an epiphany in the corporate world, but this hasn’t occurred yet. Dan Pink went on to explain how extrinsic motivators, such as carrots and money, work for simple tasks, but not for complicated tasks.

He stated, “If you want engagement, self-direction works better.”

As long as the task involved only mechanical skill, bonuses worked as they would be expected: the higher the pay, the better the performance. But once the task called for “even rudimentary cognitive skill,” a larger reward “led to poorer performance.
— D. Adriely, U. Gneezy, G. Lowenstein, & N. Mazar, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Pink’s talk sent me back to my high school years where I recalled listening to the common sermon on storing up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6: 19-14) and being turned off. I remember thinking as a young believer, “Why would the idea of storing up riches in heaven motivate me at all? If accumulating wealth didn’t interest me as a non-believer, why would it interest me as a believer?”

Reflecting back on all those sermons, I don’t remember a pastor ever analyzing this and bringing out God’s wisdom that was as insightful as Dan Pink’s talk. Maybe these pastors should have read what Pink discovered. Of course, part of my lack of recall could have been due to my own ignorance since I incorrectly assumed these pastors were discussing a similar monetary system would be established in heaven as on earth. Heavenly dollars? Who cares about storing up treasures in heaven?

Now since I’m a bit older and a little more informed, I realized after listening to Pink’s talk that God already knew this about us.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Matthew 6:21

The treasure that motivates us in what’s in our hearts. Hopefully as believers it’s Christ and God’s words for us. It’s not a promise of material wealth that will motivate people to change and live a life to glorify God, but the relationship that God offers—the daily sanctuary, peace, joy, wisdom and love that he freely gives.

John MacArthur has a great story on this:

During the time of the Decian persecution in Rome, the Roman authorities broke into a certain church thinking they could loot their treasures. The Roman prefect who was in charge stepped up to one saint named Laurentius and said, “Show me your treasures at once.” Laurentius pointed to a group of widows and orphans who happened to be eating a meal and said, “There are the treasures of the church. We have invested all we have in them.” That is treasure in heaven. Beloved, remember that what we keep we lose, and what we invest with God we gain eternally.

So if pastors and Christian leaders would pierce into God’s wisdom on the question of what motivates people, how would this reflect on their sermons? Their actions?

As business executives and managers, how does this affect your approach in working with your colleagues? I assume, to understand people better, you would first have to learn more about them and try to see where their hearts lie. This sounds like a commitment of time to me. Some people are open books, but most take time to reveal their hearts. If you can’t find any widows and orphans, investing in the people around you is a good start to building up your treasures in heaven.

This presentation was at last week’s TEDGlobal conference held at Oxford, UK.

I think Alain’s reference to St. Augustine’s City of God is excellent because whether you believe in a God, gods or no gods, such thinking puts you in a certain perspective. I believe much of what we have achieved is by grace or what others would call luck. I am not disregarding personal and professional development, but I believe the starting point in life is a huge driving factor of “success” or comfort in life.

If I was not blessed to be born into a stable family with loving parents and a modest amount of wealth— if I was born instead into poverty—life would be very different today. I still remember the children from Alex Kotlowitz’s There Are No Children Here who never assumed adulthood was a given…

“If I grow up, I want to be a bus driver…”

It’s not just about wealth. It’s a blessing to grow up healthy without a major accident or disability. Or a difficult family situation. These are all factors into the development of relational success, financial success and professional success.

If you accept the premise of a supreme being or a force far greater than yourself, then your personal ego or idol of self becomes smaller and you accept the uncertainty of success, failure and everything in between.

An entrepreneur shows his true colors in a period of crisis, not in a period when everybody is having success. — Giorgio Armani on the opening of his new $40 million Manhattan store in the middle of the recession.

When I saw this quote in Fortune magazine a couple of weeks ago, I immediately thought of personal experiences seeing people for who they are under intense, competitive athletic contests, such as pickup basketball. The mild mannered guy in my dorm or the well-liked summer intern became complete morons on the basketball court. One of them was a raving lunatic who prompted me to say outloud, “Who are you?”

In some cases you can excuse rude and unsportsmanlike conduct due to ignorance, especially if the offender rarely played basketball. But for those who knew how to play, there was no excuse or cover from the clear lens that pickup basketball provided into the character of people. On the basketball court, tortoise shells disappear and your character is naked for people to see. If someone you knew was already labeled as a prick, playing a few pickup basketball games confirmed these truths and probably enhanced your perception of their character deficiencies. It’s like bad skin in HDTV, pockmarks look like craters and wrinkles like canyons.

The same goes for crisis situations in a company, especially if you’re an owner or executive. The more at risk you feel, the more your raw emotions and character comes out. Are you going to step up and execute or are you going to fade away from the challenge? Are you going to remain a supportive team member or are you going to succumb, pointing fingers and backstabbing your colleagues?

One company I was advising had an executive with a sterling reputation; The ultimate “nice guy” loved by everyone in his past firms. But he never encountered a downturn in his prior companies. When this company came under financial distress, his true colors were revealed. He became like a man in the desert for 40 days without water. Nothing mattered besides his own reputation and stake in the company. Some of the employees were wondering who Mr. Hyde was that was sitting in Dr. Jekyll’s corner office. He shifted his responsibilities to his colleagues as he looked for his next position, which created more distress on the company. The company needed him to step up instead of trying to step out. He left before the company survived and turned the corner from their crisis.

This reminded me of Peter’s denial of Jesus during the intense episode of his arrest. Peter denied his association with Jesus three times because he was fearful of also being arrested and possibly facing death. Peter denied his greatest responsibility and commitment during this time of crisis.

Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!”

Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.”
— Matthew 26: 74-75

Is your company going through a crisis in this downturn? How are you responding? Are you satisfied with your performance? What areas can you improve upon? Are these situations allowing for a period of self-reflection? Would your colleague say these times are bringing out the best in you…or the worst? How do you know that?

How do we stop this? What treatment can heal these deep wounds? Wide sweeping federal policy? Complete reform of our banking system? State and local initiatives?  Independent corporate reform through industry associations? Spiritual reformation?

There is also denial in the air. Last week in a board meeting of a nonprofit I am committed to the executive director stated that their umbrella association told them that even during downturns giving remains consistent. I silently shook my head but didn’t get a chance to remind them this isn’t just any downturn. When some of their wealthiest donors lose 50% of their wealth and 18% of overall American wealth disappears, it will affect their giving.

While contemplating on these larger scale issues, I narrowed my thinking to Christendom because I wanted to revisit a number that kept bothering me after reading Al Lunsford’s piece, Business is Our Mission.  Al referred to research that indicated a global cost of $347,000 per baptism. What??  I had to do a double take. Of course you cannot put a price on a soul, and no one knows what the Spirit of God is doing or how long that work will take in a person’s life (or how long it has gone on already), but that’s not what this is about. When Nike states their customer acquisition costs are $100 per person against a lifetime customer value of x, are they placing a value on human life? Of course not. They are using financial tools to pursue efficiency and improve their understanding and intelligently utilize resources. And that, we have to assume, is what that $347,000 per baptism number is all about as well.

As I’ve been thinking about this, it was interesting to learn from a friend that a large parachurch organization ran a similar analysis and found their cost of conversion to be approximately $300,000. Whether cost per baptism or cost per conversion, these financial exercises bring important questions to the forefront.

“$347,000” bothered me so much that I contacted the International Bulletin of Missionary Research who put together the insightful study that produced this number. I haven’t heard back after my initial inquiry, so I decided to do my own back-of-the-envelope calculations.

The International Bulletin of Missionary Research estimated $410 billion/year in giving to “Christian” causes worldwide over the recent years. This was broken down to $160 billion to churches and $250 billion to parachurch organizations every year. Let’s assume that $347,000 per baptism is simply the total giving of $410 billion divided by the number of baptisms tracked. If this simple method was used, then the cost per baptism is tremendously overstated since we would have to assume a large portion is allocated to the operations of those churches and parachurch organizations.

I am assuming the primary mission of these organizations has something to do with making followers of Christ. The question is how much is being spent on the core mission of these organizations and how effective are they? A comparable question in the business world is asking how much do we spend on marketing and how effective is our program? For many companies, the benchmark is approximately ten percent of budget. Ten percent of $410 billion is $41 billion, which would make the figure $34,700 per baptism.

I would assume though that a church and parachurch organizations should be more focused to their mission than a companies, and, one could argue, their core mission should be their only focus. If a church were a business, would it really only devote 10% of the budget to getting out their message? Eyeballing, 30% or higher seems more appropriate. If this really is the case, I think $104,000 per baptism—or higher—is flabbergasting. And I suppose if one went with the argument that the only mission of a church or parachurch is making new Christians—a premise I don’t think stands up to biblical scrutiny—then the simple arithmetic of total expenditures ÷ number of new converts = cost/baptism, more or less. $347,000.

$347,000, $104,000, even $34,700…all seem ridiculously high. It screams waste to me. How much is being spent on non-core programs or questionable activities? There are easy targets like some mega-church pastors who have private jets and chauffeur-driven limousines. I wonder if some of them have Ferris wheels in their backyards, rent out Disneyland for their children, or bought gold plated driveway gates with God’s money…

Most systemic problems are hidden and not so overt as that, so I don’t believe the bling bling pastors should carry the whole burden of waste. Over the past decades I’ve heard or read about pastors of small and medium size churches retaining secret slush funds or making questionable purchases for their families. But does this add up to billions in waste? Probably not.

I’m guessing most of these non-core expenditures are for ethical but non-essential purposes, so how do you make a judgment call on such things and who is held accountable? There is pressure to grow, to buy bigger buildings, build bigger parking lots, or to have a summer retreat lodge. Nowadays churches have to provide social services as much as delivering God’s word. Golf groups, open gym, counseling and so on. Nothing is wrong with these services but what do they have to do with extending the kingdom of God—especially if they pull followers of Christ out of the world to the supposed safety of Christian ghettos?

If churches were to model themselves after a business organization, I would say an ideal example is the advertising firm. Think Crispin Porter + Bogusky—a lean and mean organization with a team obsessed on their client’s ad campaign. Their creatives are up day and night sweating to develop the best methods of reaching into their client’s customer base. As in any great firm, they are conscience of their client’s dollar and how best to spend it.

Reality is different. Most churches wouldn’t be compared to an advertising firm. Maybe an auto manufacturer? Steel company? I’m thinking country club. High operational costs, high touch, and high service. Also they might be characterized as insular, having rigid semantic biases, and of course a snotty attitude towards non-members.

Maybe today’s financial crisis is a blessing for “Christian” organizations across the globe, but especially in the most developed nations. The larger scale issues point to systemic deficiencies across a our society that is crying for change. What are some of these changes?

Openness!
There needs to be a willingness to open up and reassess where these organizations stand. Leaders needs to ask hard questions and then to create change. This process takes wisdom, courage and humility. I was encouraged when I saw Bill Hybels’ 2008 leadership presentation on “the wake-up call of his life” when he and the Willow Creek Community Church staff discovered their programs were not effective in creating sustainable growth for believers. He asked the hard question: “Do you ever wonder if we’re using God’s money and God’s resources in ways that are really achieving the mission of our church?”  Every church and parachurch organization should ask this question every month.

Transparency!
There should be transparency of organizational budgets. Technology allows for this, so why not put up detailed budgets on Google docs or a wiki for everyone to see? This transparency creates accountability beyond the pastor or executive director and maybe a board made up of long-time friends.

Focus!
It’s time to rethink the assumption that, if we build it—church campuses, religious non-profits, alternative communities within communities—they will come. Does God dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands? Do we really expect religious professionals, who are outsiders in the places we work, to communicate the good news of the kingdom of God to our colleagues, while we—the insiders—stand passively by, wishing we could contribute more?

Action!
It’s easy to criticize organizations in their inefficiencies, but I believe at least half of the problem rests in the people who fill up pews and fellowship meetings. Believers have become old country club members who love to lounge on the greens and talk shop with their buddies. Maybe some of us have had too many manicures and hate to dirty our fingers. Believers need to step out of the comfort zone and engage the world —not be afraid, not separate from the world, not arrogantly defying, but engaging the world as it is, not as it is supposed to be.

The tail is wagging the dog. Proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor does not require a 501(C)(3) corporation. The kingdom of God is not infrastructure dependent. New converts shouldn’t cost a nickel as they have already been paid for. At $347,000 per baptism, maybe it’s time to rethink Church.

The influences of Confucian and Buddhist philosophies led to subtle differences between mainstream U.S. and Korean American churches. One amusing feature was that morning prayer time in Korean American churches was flooded once each year with mothers praying for their children’s SAT exams (the same phenomenon occurs in South Korea during the national college entrance exams). I don’t suppose it was amusing to those mothers, some of whom would pray for hours the same repetitive prayer (which seemed to me to confuse the notion of grace and work). This fervent style of praying might leave outsiders thinking all Koreans are Pentecostal, but this style was distributed across the board, even within more subdued denominations like Korean Lutherans or Methodists.

(Not that I’m anyone to talk. I’m a practical person and not very righteous, so when it comes to praying, I think it would be far more effective to ask one of my upright, godly friends to pray for me for a few minutes than for me to pray for 10 hours straight. But I digress.)

One influence of Confucianism in Korean culture was evident in the careers that first generation Korean American parents emphasized to their children. I call them the three P’s: physician, professor and pastor. The honored class in Confucianism is the “scholar” and all three P’s are generally considered scholarly. Physician was always number one and what parents obsessed about. Sandra Oh’s character in Grey’s Anatomy is not the only Korean American you’ll see at a hospital. I can think of at least 10 “Cristina Yangs” I know off the bat. The second tier of acceptable professions would be in academia and a reason why South Korea was typically number one or two in the number of PhDs per capita. The last of the top three was entering the ministry. While not universally welcomed by parents, it was an acceptable option in many families.

The Western influence — and the primary foundation of my thinking — expressed the ideals held by most Americans. One aspect of this is the foundational philosophy of dualism, which traces its roots to Plato through René Descartes. Without going into the complexities, a basic influence of dualism is the separation of the spiritual or mental substances and physical substances, with no relationship between the two. You could picture a higher plane of life containing the spiritual substances and a lower plane housing the physical.

Dualism enabled many of us to grow up compartmentalizing our lives. This eased us into the role of “Sunday believers” since there is a “natural” separation between church and the rest of the week. This may be a reason why some “Christian” businessmen can be the most unscrupulous professionals you’ve met, since they can subdivide their conscience employing the “this is business” rationale.

Outside the church, dualism became evident to me through my involvement in two post-graduate programs at the intersection of the public and private sectors: the Public Policy program at Columbia University and the Coro Fellowship. The Coro Fellowship, a leadership development program for those interested in public service, sent about two-thirds of participants into the government and nonprofit sectors and one-third into the for-profit world. I saw a similar distribution in the Public Policy program at Columbia: 2/3 to government and nonprofit, 1/3 to business. What surprised me in these two programs at the confluence of human ideals and professional development was finding a measure of disdain for those of us who entered private industry. As if our choice repudiated of what we’d just experienced together by choosing to work on the lower plane.

I am no longer surprised to find evidence of this dualism in the world of believers. There is separation of church and work; Sunday and the rest of the week; faith and execution. Ambition for work is bad and sacrificing work is good. What happened to the stewardship of ALL that God gives us? Did Joseph choose to leave his day job as second in command only to the Pharaoh of Egypt and look for a less demanding “9 to 5″ job so he could volunteer more at church?

Joseph took his work to heart and glorified God in the best manner possible. The difference lay in his worldview which did not separate between his spiritual and physical worlds. Each was connected and united with the other. Even the word lev — the Hebrew word for heart — encompasses not only the heart and emotion but our intellect and mind. This biblical perspective doesn’t compartmentalize our worlds; it creates a holistic understanding of our lives.

I will acknowledge that taking such an approach might make life more complex and highlights tensions between the various circles of ours lives. But isn’t life about tension? Doesn’t this make things more exciting? To think about actually implementing our faith in our business decisions and professional relationships? To actually be salt and light outside of the salt mines and sunlit mountaintops?

My grandfather managed his household affairs with similar strong discernment (though I would not call him cold-hearted). I primarily knew him and my grandmother as my caretakers for a few years during early childhood while my parents studied in the U.S. As he did on his industry, my grandfather also left a lasting imprint on me.

One of my father’s siblings — there were ten in all — failed at numerous stages of adulthood. So one day my grandfather made him a proposition.

“Since you haven’t done much with your life so far, I’ll give you a portion of your inheritance now. Let’s see what you will do with it.”

My grandfather bought him some property. After some time, my uncle revealed that he had done nothing but collect rent on the property, which he spent frivolously. So that was that. Years later, when my grandfather’s will was read, my uncle received nothing more than shock and confusion.

I’m almost certain my grandfather never read the Bible, but his wisdom in managing one of his sons reminds me of Christ’s Parable of the Talents:

“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money…

“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.” — Matthew 25: 14-18, 26-27

My grandfather believed in responsible stewardship, but I believe what drove his decisions was the importance of his legacy and how future generations — posterity — would reflect his values. Severing my uncle from his will was not only a financial act, but also a relational one.

The idea of posterity is prevalent in East Asian cultures. People think in terms of generations of families and peoples. Because he was a third-generation only son, my wife’s brother served in a lighter six-month program in the South Korean Army versus a standard two-year commitment. Some laws in China carry punishments that last for three generations, and the Chinese government creates 100-year plans for its nation’s development.

Posterity was a common ideal woven into the fabric of America’s founding that seems to have unraveled. Maybe it started with the dissolute Me Decade that straddled the 60s and 70s? Maybe the Greatest Generation’s weakness lay in its inability or unwillingness to raise a generation of equally disciplined, self-sacrificing, public-spirited citizens? Perhaps it was lost in the gold rush… There are other places to go for that analysis. What seems clear is, it’s missing now.

It’s interesting to note that the U.S.household savings rate has been in rapid decline since the 1990s. The Bureau of Economic Analysis calculates the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) personal saving rate was approximately 10% during the 1970s, 8% in the 1980s, and dropped to less than 1% by 2006. What happened? Did the wisdom of planning for retirement and the possibility of doing good beyond our lifetime become passé in 1990?. Spend your money on the here and now. Hopefully our 401(k) is enough! And social security will be on its last leg, but we should get ours!

The Biblical perspective upholds posterity. God provides promises not only to Abram, but his future generations:

Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” — Genesis 15: 13-16

David declares both rich and poor have a legacy in the kingdom of God.

All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn—for he has done it. — Psalm 22: 29-31

This sort of long-term thinking has become foreign to many of us. As a new parent, these words force me to consider how my behavior and actions affect my children and their children. But, whether we have children or not, how can we take up our responsibility to influence future generations in the ongoing community of God’s people? If I am blessed with wealth, how I should manage it? Pass it on to my children? Donate it to a well managed church or nonprofit? Set up a foundation? Besides which, not everyone is blessed with wealth — and some gain wealth late in life, while others lose it — which makes David’s words in Psalm 22 all the more meaningful for their focus on the spiritual legacy we can pass to the next generation. This idea of posterity seems a bit burdensome, so maybe its loss from our cultural norms isn’t a surprise. So many questions and no simple answers. If it’s clear the idea of posterity is missing in this culture, it’s just as clear that we are the ones who must restore it.

Do you cringe at all this because you think you’re just a horrible example to follow — Genghis Khan is a better person than you? You can’t plan three months ahead, so how can you be expected to think about future generations? I know people who are better now than they once were, but I don’t know anyone who is prepared to be a perfect example for their children and future generations. So let’s just take simple steps. Take it one day at a time. One prayer at a time. One decision at a time. One verse at a time. One action at at time. One moment at a time.

“Peter, give me your hand,” his deep voice commanded.

“Uh… Why, Mr. Moon?” Peter’s hesitant voice hinted at fear and flashbacks of prior experiences.

My dad sternly repeated, “Peter, give. Me. Your. Hand.”

“Ok, Mr. Moon…”

Taking Peter’s outstretched hand my father slowed placed acupuncture burn pads across his palm and every finger. These were metal discs, less than a centimeter wide, with a piece of incense on top of each. 

My father lit the discs one at a time and Peter began to feel the burn. If you ever held your hand a few inches above a cigarette lighter, imagine that intense heat multiplied by eight. Dad had a firm grip on Peter’s wrist to arrest any sudden movements or second thoughts about going through this exercise that supposedly improves the blood circulation and something else I can’t remember.

“Mr. Moon, my hand is getting hotter… It’s really hot!”

Some charring might have occurred at this stage. Silence from my dad. Just a firm grip on Peter’s wrist to stifle any movement.

“Ahhhh!”

“It’s okay, Peter, this is good for you.”

Soon the incense burnt out and the pain went away. I know Peter wasn’t sure if the result was beneficial for him, but I think he took some pride in knowing he persevered. Maybe, in that way at least, my father’s little endurance test was good for Peter. As for improved blood circulation, I remain agnostic. 

Overcoming pain is oddly satisfying. But does an exercise like this really build character? Is pain, in and of itself, good for us? Imagine, for example, that Peter was of a mind to believe it was God’s divine intervention that led my father to burn his hand in order to strengthen his character. Foolish if you ask me.

Silly analogy, but not all situations of pain and suffering are invested with inherent purpose. Not every twist and turn in life has some divine meaning.  I believe God is able to make something useful out of any circumstance, but that doesn’t mean “everything happens for a reason” and it doesn’t mean God sets out to cause people pain “for their own good.” I believe God is foreknowing but not fore-causing. God grants us free will and does not limit us to a hapless deterministic world. This free will allows for variety and makes life interesting. God is not like a micro-managing CEO or the sadistic controller who made you ride coach on a third-tier airline from San Francisco to Johannesburg.

I’m hearing the word perseverance a lot lately, as apprehension about this horrible economic downturn — possibly a seven year recession — grows. People are bracing themselves for the worst. Common counsel will advise us to persevere during difficult times, but this isn’t a pleasant thought because the word and feeling that always precedes perseverance is pain. Pain sucks. Just ask my old friend Peter.

Remember running those endless sprints in youth soccer? Two-a-days in the summer heat if you played football (I never played football). Basic training if you were in the military? Enduring your first heartbreak? Twenty years of marital strife? Climbing out of a financial black hole? Working with the worst boss for several years?

“Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”  — Romans 5:3-4

Life throws so many curves at people. So many headaches. So many trials. It turns out life is a marathon, which calls for discernment about  which races are worth running or battles worth fighting. It turns out, contrary to popular opinion, not every situation is a blessing (or a curse) from above. So you can choose to persevere or walk away; you don’t always have to push through…sometimes you can go around.

When these situations arise, I’m asking for wisdom and guidance. I’m praying and thinking about the choices, especially the difficult ones. I’m learning to welcome the uncertainty and the pain, but still asking for mercy.

Perseverance does build character and hope, and I’m convinced it’s worth it to seek out opportunities to stretch your limits and grow. Maybe be brave and ask God to challenge you. To strengthen your weaknesses. But remember this doesn’t mean looking for opportunities to be a martyr. If you want to be a martyr, I can introduce you to my dad.