Hello, welcome to the Excel Stillmore podcast.

I am your host, Chris Emerson, and we are here to talk about tips and strategies that you can employ to deepen your faith, improve your relationships, and just get the most out of your life.

Thank you for joining. Let's get started.

I want to talk to you today about my favorite sermon illustration. It's called the Wicker

basket, and while I don't remember where I heard heard it and I'm not sure how many times I've

used it, I still remember it. There is a principle at play in this short story that has helped me

through a lot of things and more specifically this year as I'm going on this ESM journey and

documenting things in the morning and trying to make the most out of

every day and really tangibly looking to get better, this simple principle has helped me

to understand the value of the journey, even more than the destination. It is short and it is to

the point. And yet this principle may be more valuable to you as you excel still more than anything we've studied so far.

It's about a grandpa sitting on his front porch, reading his Bible. Every day, he sits there and he reads the scripture.

One day his grandson comes up to him and says,

Grandpa, why do you read the Bible every day?

And Grandpa says, because it's important and it makes me better and I love it.

And the kid says, you know, I've read my Bible before.

We read our Bibles at church, but it doesn't do any good.

It's not like I'm learning anything or it's making a difference.

I don't even remember what we read last Sunday. So why do you keep doing it? So grandpa says,

look, I want you to do something for me. See that dirty wicker basket sitting here on the porch?

I want you to take it down the hill to the pond, fill it up with water, and bring it back.

So the boy doesn't understand, but he is obedient and respectful, so he goes down the hill and he fills it up with water, and he walks back to Grandpa.

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