Happy, happy, happy weekend!
Do you sometimes feel at the end of your rope? Looking for a fresh start — or wishing for a do-over?
Let’s embrace something new together.
We’re adding a special touch to our weekly Multivitamins – think of them as Supplements for the Soul. In this space each week, we’ll delve into small yet impactful insights and mental models that embody perseverance, renewal, growth, and redemption. Together, we’ll learn and rejuvenate, preparing to meet the upcoming week with renewed hope and peace.
And that’s not all – we’re bringing you some real, down in the bones JOY to celebrate today! Links & stories this week 100% guaranteed to make you smile a mile wide & believe like crazy in a Good God redeeming everything — and that there’s love everywhere & for ((you))!
Serving up only the Good Stuff for you right here:
oh the joy of childlike wonder! come enjoy the simple beauty of red hearts and tiny hands ?
“I’ve always been your Valentine”
Mirrored Truths
In post-WWII Japan, a young car company – originally a weaving loom manufacturer – was on the brink of bankruptcy. The country was bombed out. They shaped car panels by beating sheet metal on wooden logs. The country was so destroyed, it was almost impossible to place a phone call, nevermind transact business.
At the same time, American car manufacturing ruled the world. General Motors and Ford retooled sprawling war machine factories to produce cars, resulting in behemoths exporting all over the world.
Things looked very grim for the little Japanese car company.
The story isn’t over though.
A little known American professor of statistical processes, W. Edwards Deming, was brought to Japan in 1947 by General Douglas MacArthur to help plan the 1950 census.
While there, he became an itinerant preacher of quality manufacturing, giving a series of lectures to Japanese engineers and scientists. Deming often began his lectures with a little skit.
He stated there was a company in the business of producing and selling white beads. Customers wanted white beads, and red beads were a massive problem.
He would then“hire” audience members and have them follow a “manufacturing process.” The process started with a bucket of white and red beads which was stirred, and then a scoop that could hold 50 beads was scooped out at random.
The “employees” were strongly encouraged that they must get white beads – a high level of red beads would be reason for termination, and a high level of white beads would be cause for promotion.
The results were predictable in their randomness: employees had no control of the quantity of the “defective” red beads they scooped.
Corporate Parables
From this amusing corporate parable, Deming illustrated a handful of principles:
Recognizing the Big Problem
Most problems exist because of how things are set up from the start. Trying to fix errors with strict rules and accompanying rewards or punishments doesn’t really work.
It Starts with Leadership
The leader needs to lead the culture and process changes. Workers can’t make changes on their own; they need the person in charge to step up, start making changes, and see the change through, or else it all pointless.
Fixing the Big Picture
To really get better at making things and doing our jobs, we need to change the process and belief system, not just try harder as individuals.
Always Getting Better
Lasting change means getting everyone to always look for ways to do things better, which is an outflow of the change in culture and belief.
The Results
Deming’s lectures on quality in manufacturing found fruitful soil, and a manufacturing revival swept Japan. The change was so great that ten years later, Deming was decorated by the Emperor of Japan, recognizing his impact on Japanese quality and productivity.
The little car company embraced Deming’s teachings wholeheartedly.
With the truth of Deming’s lectures part of its very DNA, that little car company would grow over the next 70 years to be the largest car company in the world, known particularly for its quality and reliability.
You probably know that once little car company as Toyota.
Why should we care?
So given most of us aren’t in manufacturing, what does this mean for us?
Well, all that is good, beautiful, and true is a reflection of the One who is perfect, who is the source of beauty, and who is Truth.
This would not have surprised Deming, because a very little known fact about Deming, even amongst avid readers of his work, was that he was a lifelong devoted Christian and avid writer of liturgical hymns. Upon Deming’s death at age 93, the sermon at his funeral ended:
The reward of eternal life was more important to W. Edwards Deming
than the rewards of this world.
The glories of God’s heavenly kingdom
outshone for him the glitter of earthly success.
He never forgot who he was and Whose he is.
Truth Mirroring
So how did the truth that Deming taught illustrate the Truth that he knew?
Recognizing Our Sin Nature
We must first understand that at the heart of our struggles lies our sin nature, inherited from the fall. No amount of human effort, rule-following, or behavioral modification can rectify this. It’s a spiritual problem that requires a spiritual solution.
Change Can Only Begin in Christ
True change begins with, and can only come through Christ. He is the leader who steps into our chaos, offering grace and redemption where any man-made righteousness fails. It’s through His sacrificial leadership that we find the path to genuine transformation.
Faith is the Only Fix – The Law Can’t Save Us
Our attempts to improve ourselves or trying to reward/punish our way to moral best practices cannot bring about real change. True renewal comes from faith in Christ—understanding that He fulfills the law on our behalf and reshapes us from the inside out.
Sanctification
The Christian life is marked by sanctification, an ongoing process of being made more like Christ. This isn’t merely self-improvement; it’s the result of the Holy Spirit’s work within us, prompting continuous growth and a deeper commitment to God’s ways.
God-incidence Addendum
In a providential little co-incidence, or as Piper calls them, “God-incidence,” Deming had a colleague named Peter Scholtes. Peter Scholtes, who was also a business management consultant, also wrote hymns, and in 1968 Peter Scholtes, mirroring the rest of 1 Corinthians 13 and John 13:35 wrote the well known hymn “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love.”
Deming would have agreed with Scholtes, and to put it all in perspective, “If I manufacture with the precision of Toyota, or with the technological prowess of Sony, but have not love, it profit me nothing.”
– written by Caleb Voskamp
Isn’t this just the sweetest?!
Round up of What’s HAppening aRound the Farm
In which Levi (mostly) finishes hauling garbage and starts working on vaulted ceilings…
And Aurora hides little nostalgic easter eggs in her painting…
And Caleb writes about how Valentines falls on Ash Wednesday (only three times a century)!
Check in next week to Keep following Along
On The Book Stack at The Farm
Read Martha Ackerman and Stephanie Logan Segel’s recent guest post:
What if the More you Shared, The Less it would Hurt?
Read Susie Larson’s recent guest post:
What you’ve got to Figure out: What to Accept, What to Reject
Read Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth’s recent guest post:
When You’re Looking for Love: How the Cross of Christ Forms a Family
Why We Don’t Dump Friends Who Disagree
Affection can keep us together, even if ideas don’t.
(Three students win $700k by using AI
to decipher ancient scrolls
that were carbonized in Pompeii by Vesuvius)
Is it easier to hide away in your heart when it’s this size?
But no less good!
What truly Matters
IS to Love One another
Because we all need a Brave Song:
The simplest of truths, told through the sweetest of songs, can change the world.
Which is exactly the refrain of our very first children’s book Your Brave Song!
We all need a hope song,
a courage song,
a song that assures that our our bravery doesn’t come from inside of us,
it comes from knowing you’re loved by the One who created love and is Love Himself.
Your Brave Song includes:
❤ A page to attach your child’s picture that makes this a uniquely personalized kids’ book
❤ Exquisite hand painted, acrylic artwork by illustrator Amy Grimes
❤ Inspirational prose about finding your security and identity in Christ
❤ A rhyming song that kids can memorize easily so that they can return to its truth every day
Have God’s Song ABOUT YOU
on Repeat in your heart.
😭😭😭
Shift your perspective — and things are different than they seem.
Grandma gotcha
Oh my goodness 😭
Isn’t this amazing!
We really have to do this someday…
Just so creative!
Amazing how these ideas took flight…
this one on repeat over here!
“I will carry you through your darkest nights
When you’re terrified
I will carry you
When the water’s rise
When your Hope runs dry
I will carry you“
[from our Facebook community – join us?]
Frankly? Fear is one brute of a conniving monster,
and fear tends to defend itself with the roaring mask of anger….
or fear disguises itself with a bloated, sauntering pride ….
or fear goes around relentlessly shaming,
thinking if it piles on enough shame,
it can flatten you till it reshapes you into being someone better.
But really?
Shaming those anxious, fearful parts of your souls —
fails to actually calm those parts down.
And this is what actually, gently, helps:
Instead of trying to beat parts of you into being braver, calmer, better …
give those parts of you the beats of a greater love song to dance to.
Because this is one of the very deepest truths in the whole of the universe:
When Love sits down
with fear —
so many things
calm down.
When Love puts its arm around fear — so many fears melt.
Only Love Himself is large enough to enfold fear.
What refreshes your life —is the fresh wind of His love.
When you know Love Himself holds you —
courage takes hold of you and you rise to meet the moment.
You can rise to braveness,
when you feel the depths of your belovedness.
That’s all for this weekend, friends.
Go slow. Be God-struck. Grant grace. Live Truth.
Give Thanks. Love well. Re – joy, re- joy, ‘re- joys’ again
Share Whatever Is Good.
