We all want to arrive with a huge splash, right? Like a comet impacting a planet.

Each personal interaction is an opportunity to extend the respect God extends to you.

If you're not being criticized, you're probably not pushing the envelope.

It's the judgment you have, that's been tempered and developed over long years, and in many different situations, that becomes of real value.

An ancient storyteller named Aesop told a fable about the north wind and the sun. It opens with a challenge about a traveler's cloak. The north wind bets the sun that he can get that cloak off the traveler.

I think there is this whole other dynamic going on where the work in and of itself—the interactions and the recognition and acknowledgment of the spirits of the people that we're working with—this is building God's Kingdom day in and day out.

David Magallanez collects trash. And he loves his job.

So I think after we've been doing our work for awhile, we can easily get kind of complacent . . . especially if we do a good job. But I think we always need to be stretching forward in what we're doing and asking, "How am I growing in what I'm doing? How is my work contributing to the growth of the people that I work with and the field that I work in?"

"I don't know any creative endeavor where you don't fail before you succeed."

We may discover something about ourselves that we never really knew by diving into just what happens to be in front of us today. That, to me, is the unraveling of a fulfilling career path that is completely integrated with God's purposes for your life.