Sam Walton was partial to Moon Pies. This morning's Wall Street Journal reports that he did something about his snack preference--he made them his personal VPI. In Wal-Mart Speak, that means Value Producing Item.

The VPI program encourages each of Wal-Mart's 1.8 million employees around the globe to choose a product as his or her own marketing project for the year. High-ranking executives push their VPIs to lower-level employees who display them in stores. The designation guarantees that a product will get special treatment at the world's largest retailer. Workers whose VPIs lead in sales can reap cash prizes of up to $500 and trips to the annual Wal-Mart meeting in Arkansas.

Investors continue to make the stock market their VPIs while Americans overall are more pessimistic about the health of the economy. A new poll of adults in the U.S. shows that 31 percent expect the economy to get worse in the next year, double the proportion who thought that in January. By contrast, 46 percent of Americans with stock-market investments over $5,000 believe that the market will move higher next year. Just 16 percent expect it to fall; one-third expect the market to remain the same.

In life, involvement breeds commitment. Leaders see it all the time--the more people are involved in the activities of an organization, the more committed to its success they become. Asking for commitment before involvement is typically a waste of everyone's time. We all have our VPIs, those people and projects which have captured our interest. The more involved we become, the more committed we grow.

God has his personal VPIs as well. If your computer screen were a mirror, you'd be looking at one right now. Your Father loves you and likes you. You are "his beloved," to use Henri Nouwen's phrase. David saw himself before God as the "apple of your eye" (Psalm 17:8), the pupil of divine omniscience.

Even in the hardest places of life, God's love for us remains. Today's reading from Oswald Chambers' My Utmost For His Highest quotes Romans 8:37: "in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." Chambers comments: "We are more than conquerors through Him in all these things, not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. The saint never knows the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it." When tough things happen today, God will still love you. Then you'll know that you are his beloved, come what may. Why not thank him, right now?

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