Legacy Youth Ministry Resources

Illustration texts

It Takes Humility to Seek Feedback

It takes humility to seek feedback. It takes wisdom to understand it, analyze it, and appropriately act on it. --Stephen R. Covey First Things First

Humility is the Only True Wisdom

Humility is the only true wisdom by which we prepare our minds for all the possible changes of life. --George Arliss

Stars Humble Roosevelt

I heard that popular U.S. president Teddy Roosevelt would often take important diplomatic guests out to the back lawn of the White House at the day's end. He'd begin to stare at the sky until all gazed at the vast array of stars. After a long silence, Roosevelt would say, "Gentlemen, I believe we are small enough now. Let's go to bed." What do you do to keep your perspective on your smallness compared to God's greatness? (Source: E-mail from the Presidential Prayer Team, 6-21-02)

Gates Admits When Wrong

Admit When Wrong "I was impressed that Bill was able to admit he was wrong. If someone has a better way or a better technology, Bill's very open to that." (Julie Pitta, "Microsoft's Other Boy Genius," Forbes, August 2, 1993)

Buffett Was Born at the Right Time

Humility Buffett Was Born at the Right Time "Warren [successful investor Warren Buffett] says that if he'd been born a few thousand years ago, he'd probably have been some animal's lunch. But he was born into an age that has a stock market and rewards Warren for his unique understanding of the market." (Bill Gates, Column, New York Times Syndicate, March 12, 1997)

Einstein and Newton on Humility

Wisdom, Absolutes, Humility Some people get so smart that they think they can figure out life on their own. They think they can lean on their own understanding. But genius Albert Einstein knew better. In a personal letter to Queen Elizabeth, he wrote that we have ?just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is?.? (Sept., 1932 letter, from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, ed. By Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton Univ. Press, 1979) Wisdom seeking can become a pride trip, a competition. One student at Ohio State University was so brilliant that she set out to read every book in the school?s enormous library. But competition and pride were two of her motivators. In order to top another guy?s grade point average, she dated him and tried to keep him up late the night before important tests. (Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. As she was reading through the reference section of the library, she came to the Bibles, read one, and got saved!) (From a professor?s personal testimony) While some fools are deceived into thinking they know everything, the truly wise realize how little they really know. Some of us think that Sir Isaac Newton was just a guy who sat under a tree one day, felt an apple fall on his head, and decided to name the force gravity. But he was so much more. He has been called "one of the greatest names in the history of human thought." Amazingly, he made major contributions to Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy. This genius (and some of you will hate him for this) invented calculus, showed us how the universe is held together, and discovered the secrets of light and color. His book, Principia Mathematica, is considered one of the greatest single contributions in the history of science. Albert Einstein idolized him and said that his own work would have been impossible without Newton's discoveries. Now, if you had accomplished all that heady stuff, wouldn't it be pretty easy to get puffed up? But some of you may not know that Newton was also a devoted student of theology and the Bible. Perhaps because of this, rather than getting puffed up with pride, he saw his great intellectual accomplishments in perspective. This is what he said of himself shortly before his death: "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." (Isaac Newton, p. 308, World Book Encyclopedia, 1978)

Who Cleans Your School?

Who Cleans Your School? Humility, Relationships, Love In her second year of nursing school, Joann Jones took a test that she never forgot. The last question read, "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" She thought it was a joke. Although she'd seen the lady, she'd never bothered to find out her name. She asked the professor if the last question counted toward the grade. The prof replied, "Absolutely. In your careers you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello." She got the point, starting by learning that the cleaning lady was named Dorothy." (Guideposts)

Real Estate Investors Need Humility

Harvard Business School real estate professor William J. Poorvu warns us how real estate investors lose money: "The last pitfall is ego. Get a partner or advisor who is as much like Eeyore as possible ? gloomy, slow-moving, even dour. And listen to that person." (Poorvu, William J., The Real Estate Game ? The Intelligent Guide to Decision Making and Investment, The Free Press, NY, NY, 1999, p. 190)

Merton on Truth and Self-Centeredness

The truth never becomes clear as long as we assume that each one of us, individually is the center of the universe. (Thomas Merton, American writer of over 70 books.)

Barrymore on Perfection

"Nobody is perfect all the time, and if you?re trying to keep that act up, it?s exhausting." (Actress Drew Barrymore, CosmoGirl, Dec 2004/Jan 2005, p. 109.)

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