Our church is finishing our annual staff evaluations. In that light, a friend recently sent me some actual quotes taken from Federal Government employee performance evaluations. These should make us all feel better:

Since my last report, this employee has reached rock-bottom and has started to dig.
I would not allow this employee to breed.
Gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't coming.
He's got two brain cells--one is lost and the other is out looking for it.
If you see two people talking and one looks bored, he's the other one.
This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.

Evaluations are stressors for us all, because there is something innate to the human condition which wants to succeed, to advance, to be promoted and praised. But this all-too-human desire can have its down sides.

Perhaps you saw the recent Time cover story on ambition. The article surveys high school students more pressured to succeed than ever before, and the rising levels of stress and physical symptoms which result.

Heart attacks, ulcers, and depression are at epidemic levels in our country. Yet we praise ambition and self-driven motivation as the keys to success. Does God?