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Must reads:

PRAISE THE PRESERVING LORD

My Pulpit Message: Praise the Preserving Lord

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King’s Inspiration: Are You Guarding Your Thoughts?

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Desiring God: What Can God Make From a Shattered Life ?

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CONTENTS

My Pulpit Message notes | Praise the Preserving Lord | 3-4

My Devotional: Weights and Baggage | 6 King’s Inspiration: Are You Guarding Your Thoughts? |7

Desiring God: What Can God Make From a Shattered Life ?

My Entrepreneur: How to become a more compassionate leader | 10

My Health: Personality and life satisfaction: People with ‘Big Five’ traits are happier, study finds | 11-12

My Kitchen: Seriously healthy chocolate beetroot cake | 13

My Sports: BARRETTO: Is Sergio Perez a genuine World Championship contender this year? |14

My Pulpit Message Notes

PRAISE THE PRESERVING LORD

24 To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— 25 to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

I remember in the year 1980, it had rained so much and my father and I went out and I held my father’s hand and he held it. And as we were walking sliding was real and on a number of occasions I almost fell, but I was holding my father. But do you think my holding was so helpful? It is my father’s holding that kept me going without falling.

When we talk about praise the preserving God, it is that moment our Father holding us. So we may slide, but we are secure in His hands.

Three points:

1. Preservation of God | Jude :24

2. Presentation of God | Jude :24

3. Person of God | Jude | :25

Preservation of God | Jude :24

“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling”. Jude is talking about keeping for the first time. When you move back to verse 1, he says these words, “Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, To those who have been called, beloved in God the Father and kept for[a] Jesus Christ:

When we come to this God it is important to know that He is the One who preserves us. Yes, we contend for the faith. Yes, we are aware of the false teachers. Yes, we are persevering, or enduring in His love. But when all is said and done, He preserves. He keeps us. He holds us to Himself. He keeps us from falling into temptation, from sinking into the temptations of Satan and from being devoured by the evil one and from falling into sin. He keeps us from being devoured and destroyed eternally.

If this was the first time we are talking about this, then we would be introducing a very controversial subject of only God playing His part and not us. But I am aware that last week and days gone by, we have talked about us playing our part, contending for the faith, building ourselves in the most holy faith. But having done our part, we must get to a point of saying, we are limited, we can only focus on Him Who is limitless, to keep us from falling into dominable heresies, and from unbelief and total apostasy. He is able to keep us.

So I do not walk around in fear of losing my faith. I know there are challenges, struggles, temptations. I know the devil is there, I know the battle is real, but my heart shall be at peace, because He keeps us. And one day, the old Paul writing to Timothy, and most likely Timothy was so much worried about Paul and he reminds him of God’s ability to deliver him from evil and to bring him safely at home.

2 Timothy 4:18 “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

This is not just for Paul, but for everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord. The

Lord will keep us, deliver us, and bring us to His heavenly home.

We are safe in spite of challenges that we face, but in the Lord we are safe. He secures us. That does not underestimate the challenge and brave face. Jesus Christ speaking to His disciples in John 6:37-39 “All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.”

God preserves. We do not walk in fear, but in faith, because we are secure in the hands of God. He preserves us.

Presentation of God | Verse 24

“and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory and with exceeding joy.”

This word “without fault, faultless” it is an acquittal term which not only talks about being acquitted, but lack of charge. You are not going to be prosecuted because there is no charge against you. And God is treating us as if we have never sinned before. That is how He presents us to Himself.

Though we have sinned in Adam, though we have walked in sin, a number of times we have fallen, we are prone to backsliding and guilty of so many things after conversion, and though a point of sin and death is started by us to the grave, yet we would be presented by Christ in perfect ordinance, in complete righteousness and in shining robes of immortality and glory when that Day comes.

The critical part is not waiting and being sure that we are going to be perfect, because we will not get there, but we begin our journey with the Lord and as we continue in this journey, God will justify us and He sanctifies us and then He will glorify us. And that is the day we are talking of, the day of presentation. The He will present us not to someone else, but to Himself. A people without fault/ blemish/spot/wrinkle.

O the imperfect me, when that Day of presentation shall come, I shall be perfected and I shall see Him face to face, and ill be translated, i’ll be changed, i’ll be glorified and i’ll be like Him. He’ll present you and I to Himself, a righteous, holy, perfect people.

To know He will present us, remember in the book of Leviticus - talking about this lamb that is to be sacrificed. It should be a lamb without deformity, without blemish, a lamb that is not lame and limping. The lamb that was to be presented was to be presented to the Lord.

My Pulpit Message Notes are transcribed from the sermon preached at the Nairobi Baptist Church (NBC) Ngong Road on Sunday, 26th March, 2023. Preacher - Reverend Evans Mutamba, Pastor at NBC . Scripture: Jude : 24-25. Topic: Praise the Preserving LORD.

My Pulpit Message Notes

One day John points his disciples to Jesus and he says, ‘this is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world’. And in the book of Revelation we find the Lamb of God that was slain before the foundation of the earth and sealing the seven seals. We shall be like Him.

This aspect of, ‘without blemish’ and I remember when I was in college and taking my undergraduate studies and we had this controversial discussion, if the lamb was to be without blemish and so those who were to serve were to be straight and upright not only morally, but also physically.

And Paul talks about the failing hand that he had and at one point he talks of; if these people had the power to pluck their eyes and be inserted in his eye socket so that he could see. And sometimes we struggle with our health, and we are at that place of despairing and we wonder how long shall we struggle with health?

And I do not necessarily have good news for you that God is going to heal you tomorrow or today. You may just have to live with this challenge, but a day of presentation is coming when we shall put away the body of limitation, sickness and ailing and the body of deformities and we shall put on a glorified body where we shall be with the Lord. There shall be no sickness, no ailment, no struggle when we shall be presented to the Lord.

You never know how precious life is until you are unwell. And you can never come to a place sometimes of appreciating perfect health until you have been crashed to a certain level in life and you feel worn out. And Paul encourages these people. And Jude talks about presentation before the presence of His glory.

And the manner in which we shall be presented is with exceeding joy, because we have been freed from sin, sorrow, from the enemy and from everything that works against us. We will have been freed eternally and we will have entered into the glory and happiness of God, not for one year, or two years, or a season, but eternally. We shall enjoy perfect health. I wait for the day of glorification, the day when I shall be presented to the LORD. I long for that day.

I love the song, ‘Soon and very soon we are going to see the King’. We shall be presented before the King. This world is not our home and soon and very soon we shall get there.

When I was young and would look at people in the 50s, 60s and 70s, they were very old! Now I’m there. My daughter keeps reminding me I am an old man and that reminds me that I am leaving this world. I am on the way home, I closer than I ever started. And my heart rejoices every single day as I count one more year, one more day, because I am drawing closer to my salvation than ever before. And the Day of presentation is drawing close.

I don’t look at old age with nostalgia, with fear. I celebrate. I love that grey hair because it tells me that I am no longer that baby boy and I love it.

The Person of God | Jude : 25

“To the only wise God, our Saviour…”

In this context, Jude is not just talking about the holy trinity in general, nor God the Father in particular. But he is talking about the Lord Jesus Christ who is truly God, though not to the exclusion of God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit. And He is the wisdom of God and the author of all wisdom. Natural and spiritual wisdom and He is the only Saviour of us. We have no other Saviour other than Jesus Christ.

He is the Saviour. He is the One Who laid down His life for our sake. He is the One Who was hanged on that tree. The One Who died for us. He is our Saviour. The One Who died in my place. He is my Saviour. We have no one else to save us, but Jesus Christ.

You remove the person of Jesus Christ from the Bible and the Bible falls apart. It

cannot stand. The doctrine of the advention falls apart. It cannot stand. I am not insinuating that we can remove the person of God the Father, nor God the Holy Spirit they have their role, but now i’m talking about the person of God - Jesus Christ. He is wise and bears all the wisdom both spiritual in natural.

And because of what He has done, because of His person we ascribe to Him and Jude tells us, ascribe to Him glory. In other words splendour, beauty and magnificence because of His deity, His Sonship, work of mediation and salvation. We ascribe to Him glory.

We ascribe to Him majesty, dignity and opulence which belongs to Him as God and which He has in His human nature being crowned with glory and honour and enthroned and seated down the right hand of God the Father. He is dignified. He is majestic. He is seated at the right hand of the Father. He is in charge. And when he talks about dominion, it is about the rulership of Christ, the reign in His kingdom which is not only the earthly, but the heavenly kingdom. He reigns over all the kingdoms. And this gives me comfort.

As a nation we know how we struggle. We don’t know whether to go to work on Mondays, or not. We don’t know how safe we are, we don’t know whether to use Ngong Road, or to work from home, we don’t know. And it can inflict fear and pessimism. But we have One who reigns over all kingdoms and Kenya belongs Jesus Christ. And I do not lose hope and so I lift this nation before Him, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, would you reign in this land.’ We are not alone. We are not left on our own. We have the One who has dominion. He rules.

I love what Jude says finally, what we need to ascribe to Him, and he says, ‘power’. And here he is talking about the omnipotence of our Saviour. He is talking about Him not only having the ability, but also the capacity of doing all things. In other words, there is nothing that is impossible with our Lord. Nothing!

So the other day coming to the house, and I told my wife of something bad that had happened and my wife got so disturbed. And I told her, ‘My dear wife, relax. There is nothing much you can do now. The Lord will sort it out.’

Sometimes we get to a place feeling like, I must move, and shake myself. But moments come when we realise that we serve an All Powerful God. The One Who has power and authority and can cause things to happen. And He doesn’t need the help of humanity. He doesn’t need my help.

So my wife looks at me, she sits back and continues with what she was doing. And at the end of her engagement she comes and tells me, ‘Daddy’, that’s how she calls me sometimes, ‘you have saved me. You have just calmed my emotions.’ The thing hasn’t been sorted as I speak right now? Not yet, but we are at peace. We are okay because we serve an all powerful God.

As we close, I will remind us of what our elder, apostle as he was taken to heaven what he saw in the book of Revelation 5:11-14

“ Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. 12 In a loud voice they were saying:

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!”

13 Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever!”

14 The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

My Life

How to get saved and spend eternity with God

His Love

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.

John 3:16 (NASB)

My response

that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

Romans 10:9-10 (NASB)

My prayer

Lord God Almighty, thank You for Your love for me. Thank You that You sent Your Son Jesus Christ to die for my sins. Please forgive me for all the sins I have committed against You. I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and that He died on the cross and You raised Him from the dead on the third day. Please write my name in the Lamb’s book of life. Help me to live a life that is holy and pleasing unto You. In Jesus’ Name I pray and believe. Amen

https://sportsspectrum.com/

My Devotional

Weights and Baggage

By Travis Wilson

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” — Hebrews 12:1 (NLT)

In order for athletes to play at peak levels in their respective sports, they must eat healthy foods, work on the skill sets that relate to the sport they play, and condition their bodies to ensure they have the cardio endurance to perform at a high level. Most importantly, athletes must weight train to build muscle and to have the strength necessary to endure throughout a long season.

Just like a sports season, life will have ups and downs. It’s important that you let go of your past baggage, especially as it pertains to previous relationships, friendships, jobs, etc. If you don’t let go of the past, you will not be able to properly move forward into everything God has for you. Our enemy, the devil, wants to deter as many people as possible from pursuing a relationship with God. First Peter 5:8 reminds us to “be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

Don’t allow the enemy to play tug of war with your mind — it’s the first thing the enemy attacks. If you are not careful, negative thoughts lead to negative desires of the heart, which will ultimately lead to sinful actions. Guard your heart, be strong in the Lord, and do the opposite of what the enemy is enticing you to do. When Jesus was tempted by the devil in Matthew 4:1-11, He counteracted Sa-

tan’s attack with scripture. We must follow Jesus’ example and train up by memorizing scripture so that we will not be ignorant to Satan’s devices (2 Corinthians 2:11, NKJV). We can’t do this without regularly reading and studying the Bible for ourselves.

There are times when God will help you reconcile a past relationship or opportunity. Other times, God will remove people and situations from your life. Either way, God is in control and nothing can occur without His authorization. We should always remember that God doesn’t make mistakes and He has a plan for all of our lives. Trust His plan and know that everything will work out in His timing. Give your past and the worries that weigh you down to God so that you can ultimately be free to be the person He desires you to be.

— Travis Wilson (Today’s devotional was submitted by the author from “Let’s Go! Weekly Devotions for Godly Competition in the Game of Life”)

King’s Inspiration

By william King |

Have you ever notice how subtly a wrong thought can develop into a bad attitude if you are not guarding your mind? For instance, let’s say your friend has a habit of doing something you do not like. At first it is no big deal but the more you think about it, the more it irritates you.

You are getting dressed and thinking, “She knows it frustrates me.” You are eating lunch and thinking, “She does not care that it bugs me.” Then she does it again. This time you are upset and start to build a critical attitude toward her. It’s not just that thing she does.

That initial irritating thought has sunk into your heart and become a critical attitude that can grow and harden. You’ll start to measure everything she does through this critical filter and it will damage your relationship. The writer of Proverbs says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

That tells us that our life is going to go in the direction of our most dominant thoughts. Proverbs 4:23 does not say that “some” things flow from your heart, no. It says, “everything.” If you allow the wrong thoughts to linger in your mind, such as an offense, or a fear they will drop down into your heart.

Life is hard enough without being handicapped by your negative thoughts and attitudes. Many of the difficulties that come against you will overwhelm you if you have negative attitudes and the wrong perspective. If you are going to become everything God wants you to be, you have to take captive the thoughts that are playing in your mind.

That is the key. You cannot control what anyone else does, says, or thinks and you cannot control everything that happens to you, but you can control what you think, attitude. Let me encourage you today. If your life is not going in the direction you want, push your thoughts in the direction you want.

WHAT CAN GOD MAKE FROM A SHATTERED LIFE?

Some sorrows run so deep, and last so long, that those who bear them may despair of ever finding solace, at least in this life. No matter how large a frame they put around their pain, the darkness seems to bleed all the way to the edges.

Perhaps you are among those saints whose lot seems to lie in the land of sorrow. You have not taken the bitter counsel of Job’s wife — “Curse God and die” (Job 2:9) — and by God’s grace, you will not. Yours is not a fair-weather faith. You know that God has treated you with everlasting kindness in Christ. You cannot curse him.

But still, with Job, you stare at the fallen house of your life, where so many dear desires lie dead. And even with faith larger than a mustard seed, the brokenness seems unfixable in this world. The wound incurable. The grief inconsolable. The darkness defies the largest frames we could build.

Which is why, when God speaks to such saints in Romans 8, he does not bid them to merely look harder here below, squinting for a silver lining. Instead, he gives them a frame far larger than this life.

Groaning Bodies, Groaning Earth

When we think of Romans 8, we may remember only the series of triumphant trumpet blasts sounding through the chapter: “No condemnation.” “Abba! Father!” “All things work together for good.” “Who can be against us?” “More than conquerors.” But even as Paul takes us to the heights of Christian joy, he also leads us through the depths of Christian sorrow. For the mountaintop glory of Romans 8 rises from the valley of deep and desperate groaning.

“The whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now,” Paul writes. “And not only the creation, but we ourselves . . . groan in-

wardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:22–23). This earth, for all its beauty, lies like a mother on her back, miserable and aching for the cry of new life. And God’s people, for all our blessings in Christ, stumble through this world like children far from home, waiting for our Father. And as we wait, “we . . . groan.”

We groan because we, sons of the Second Adam, still suffer and die like sons of the first — ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We groan because legs and lungs fail, because eyes grow dim, because paralysis lames and Alzheimer’s erases the face of dearest loves. We groan because the tribulation and distress of this age sometimes feel like nightmares brought to life (Romans 8:35), like burdens beyond the strength of our frail shoulders. We groan because hope deferred makes the heart sick, and the sickness sometimes feels terminal (Romans 8:24–25). We groan because “the sufferings of this present time” can veil the Christ we love (Romans 8:18).

We should beware of papering over such groanings with platitudes (however well-intended). The saints may find themselves, at times, so perplexed, so oppressed, so utterly weak that our mouth, opened for prayer, forms no words. “We do not know what to pray for as we ought” (Romans 8:26). And so we gaze speechlessly ahead, the horizon of this life shrouded in one incoherent groan.

At the same time, however, we should beware of allowing “this present time,” these seventy or eighty years, to set the boundaries of our hope, our joy. “For,” Paul tells us, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). Into this world of deep groaning, glory is coming.

Glory Will Come

We do not groan, then, as those who have no hope. For these pains, though they last all our life long, are “the pains of childbirth” (Romans 8:22), not the pains of death. “The sufferings of this present time” end in glory, not a grave. And the glory to come will be big enough, incomparable enough to answer the double groaning of this age: the groaning of these broken bodies, and the groaning of this broken earth.

RENEWED BODIES

For now, your identity as God’s beloved child lies veiled beneath a weak body and a pain-ridden life. Your body breaks like every other body. Your life trips and bleeds on this world’s thorns like every other life. In fact, just as onlookers esteemed Jesus “stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted” (Isaiah 53:4), so may you seem: like a sheep led to slaughter (Romans 8:36), you may appear, to the natural eye, Godforsaken. You may, at times, even appear so to yourself.

“Glory will be the balm you longed for but never found here, the cure that felt a world beyond reach.”

But not forever. One day soon, your true self, hidden for now in Christ (Colossians 3:3), will be seen. Then will come “the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19), “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21), our “adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). Your status as God’s child will become manifest not only to the eye of faith, but to the eye of sight, as you shed this death-bound body and, like a brilliant flower born from a dirty seed, rise up resplendent. Imperishable, powerful, glorious with Christ’s glory (1 Corinthians 15:42–43; Philippians 3:21), you finally will look like the child you are.

And finally you will see what glory can do with this life’s shattered pieces. Like the palm of our Lord Jesus upon the sick, glory will restore every part of you still broken and blind, still leprous and lame, healing all your unhealable places. Glory will be the balm you longed for but never found here, the cure that felt a world beyond reach. For Glory himself will touch you with his own hands, and his scars will banish ours forever (Revelation 21:4).

RENEWED EARTH

His scars will banish ours — and not only ours. The creation, too, waits for glory, its current brokenness a consequence and reminder of our own. “The creation was subjected to futility”; it lives “in bondage to corruption” (Romans 8:20–21). But oh how it yearns for freedom, waiting “with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19). The sea, even now, is ready to roar, the trees are poised to clap their hands, and the song of the hills hangs on inhaled breath (Psalm 98:7–8; Isaiah 55:12).

With us, creation too will descend into the grave, and rise again transfigured. It too, seed-like, will sprout into a beauty beyond imagining, its freedom and glory an echo of our own — and both an echo of Christ’s (Romans 8:21). Meanwhile, the creation groans for this transformation, aching to become the mirror of the children’s glory, the fitting frame for our own endless joy.

Creation looks to the day when its stones will run like streets of gold, when its trees will bear fruit for our healing, when every bird will sing the song and every flower waft the fragrance of God’s all-conquering love in Christ (Romans 8:37–39).

Glory Is Already Here

Glory, then, is rushing toward this world like a river from the throne of God, like light from the lamp of the Lamb, like the Spirit blown over Ezekiel’s valley, ready to come and dig a grave for all our griefs. And yet, even now, in this present age of groaning, the guarantee of that glory lives and dwells within us.

“Some wounds never heal fully in this world. Some hopes follow us, still deferred, into the grave. But glory is coming.”

If Christ is yours, then “the Spirit of God dwells in you” (Romans 8:9). The same Spirit who raised and glorified Jesus has made your heart his home (Romans 8:11), his presence a promise that your groans will turn to glory (Romans 8:23, 30) — and a promise, too, that glory can even now enter your groans.

Whenever you walk “according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:5), you feel the beat of glory’s undying heart. Whenever you put to death some deed of the body (Romans 8:13), or respond to heartache by crying, “Abba!” (Romans 8:15), or love Christ in the midst of deep loss (Romans 8:35–39), you hold, like Noah, an olive leaf of the coming glory, a little piece of the land beyond sorrow.

Some pain fills the whole frame of this life. Some wounds never heal fully in this world. Some hopes follow us, still deferred, into the grave. But glory is coming — and the Spirit of glory lives, even now, as our inseparable friend. And the sufferings of this present time, however high and wide and deep and long, are not worth comparing with him.

Scott Hubbard is an editor for Desiring God, a pastor at All Peoples Church, and a graduate of Bethlehem College & Seminary. He and his wife, Bethany, live with their two sons in Minneapolis.

Entrepreneur

How to become a more compassionate leader

As you work toward becoming a more compassionate leader, keep the following thoughts in mind. These actions will help you become what you want to be: a more caring leader.

Show appreciation on a regular basis:

The act of gratitude, or appreciation, changes a person. The more you show your people how much you appreciate them, the more compassionate you will become.

Tell your team members thank you, I appreciate you, or you did a great job when you see them do something you appreciated. They’ll get a boost of dopamine, and so will you.

Put yourself in others’ shoes:

It’s hard to feel for someone when you can’t relate to them. As you rise through the ranks of an organization, you get further and further away from those you lead.

The more money you make, the different office moves, and the heavier responsibilities can make you distant and forgetful of where you’ve come from.

Use role-playing and thinking to place yourself in the shoes of others. Think about what they’re experiencing, how they’re experiencing it, and why. You’ll discover their motivations and feelings will differ drastically from yours.

Take the time to listen:

I get it. Your days are filled with action items, to-do lists, and fires to put out. You don’t have the time to listen.

That’s where you’re wrong.

You have the time to listen. But you have to make it. When you make the time, you won’t regret it.

When you listen, you begin to understand others (remember the point above this of putting yourself in others’ shoes). People will talk your ear off if you let

them. What they contribute to the conversation will be keen insights into who they are.

You’ll be able to relate and understand more when you listen.

Practice what you preach:

If you’re a Christian leader, you must practice what you preach. You tell others that they have to forgive. Do you forgive? You tell others that it’s okay to make mistakes. Are you allowing yourself to make mistakes? You claim life isn’t about making money. Are you too focused on the next paycheck?

You get out of alignment when you don’t practice what you preach. You begin to lose your compassion because you’re holding others to standards you don’t hold yourself to.

Get rid of criticism:

Criticism is the killer of compassionate leaders. You no longer have the ability to sympathize and understand. Instead, you’re looking for faults and ways to express those faults.

Look for ways to rid yourself of criticizing words and actions. Instead, replace those with helpful, guiding words and actions.

This slight shift will help you help others.

You can be compassionate

You’ll slip up, mess up, and become frustrated as you work toward being a more compassionate leader. That’s okay. You’re not perfect.

While becoming a compassionate leader for your team, you’re going to learn that you also have to learn how to be compassionate toward yourself.

Work on the actions above. As you do, you’ll become a more compassionate leader. You’ll find yourself understanding, giving grace, and caring for others, and yourself, more.

That’s a perk of being more compassionate.

My Health

Personality and life satisfaction: People with ‘Big Five’ traits are happier, study finds

www.medicalnews.com

|

By

Robby

Berman on March 25, 2023 — Fact checked by Maria

Gifford

The links between personality types that are associated with higher life satisfaction persist throughout life, strengthening with age, according to a new study. The study is based on the Big Five personality model and life satisfaction data from people living in the Netherlands.

The personality type most strongly associated with life satisfaction is a high level of emotional stability.

Researchers have believed for some time that certain personality types are more closely associated with finding satisfaction in life than others.

A recent study explores for the first time whether these associations are linked to particular life phases or if they hold true at all ages. The study is based on the Big Five personality model some psychologists employ to describe many human demeanors. Several personality traits are particularly linked to feeling satisfied with life.

The study finds that personality traits associated with being satisfied apply equally to all life phases and actually get stronger during later years. People who are emotionally stable — and non-neurotic in Big Five terms — are those most likely to feel generally satisfied with life.

Researchers also found that work satisfaction is closely tied to conscientiousness, while social satisfaction is closely linked to extraversion and agreeableness.

The study analyzes public, de-identified data collected for the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences panel survey from 2008 to 2019. The survey’s 9,110 participants were a nationally representative sample of people residing in the Netherlands aged 16 to 95.

The study is published in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The ‘Big Five’ personality traits

The Big Five are broad personality traits that characterize how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. Sequentially, their first letters spell “OCEAN.” Some psychologists use slightly different names for the traits, and it is important to note that no personality can be exclusively described by any one type, and most people have a combination. The traits are described by their most extreme expressions.

Openness — describes a person who is open to new experiences. With a high level of the trait, they may engage in “magical thinking” and may be eccentric. When someone has a lack of Openness, they are inflexible and closed-minded. Conscientiousness — describes a motivated, perfectionist workaholic with high conscientiousness and an irresponsible, distractible, or thoughtless person with too little of the trait.

Extraversion — described as a social person who may also be an excitementand attention seeker. With a shortage of extraversion, a person is withdrawn or may be cold to others.

Agreeableness — describes people who want to get along and maybe selfless in their attempts to do so. They may also be submissive and gullible. Low levels of agreeableness can result in being deceitful, manipulative, uncaring, or suspicious.

Neuroticism — describes people who are insecure, overly emotional, and perhaps depressive and helpless. Low levels of neuroticism are associated with fearlessness and shamelessness.

When a person is neither high-neurotic nor low-neurotic but is balanced between them, emotional stability — the key driver of life satisfaction, occurs.

My Health

Personality and satisfaction throughout life

“This study was the first one to tell us that certain personality traits are more linked with satisfaction across the lifespan,” said clinical psychologist Dr. Alisa Ruby Bash, who was not involved in the study. “Although other studies have explored the connection between personality traits, and life satisfaction, this one looks at it long-term.”

The study examines the interaction between two things that change as people move through different life phases: the environment in which they function and their personalities.

For example, an extroverted person may enjoy their life during their young adult years as they continually meet new people and expand their social horizons. What was less clear before this study is how they feel later in life when their relationships have largely been established and activity patterns set. There is likely to be less social interaction available.

“But if we are extroverted, easy to get along with, reliable, dependable, and make an effort, people will want to be around us and include us more in social activities, and appreciate our presence,” Dr. Bash explained.

How changing personalities play a role

Our personalities are not fixed, although heredity likely plays a role, and perhaps a large one.

According to psychologist Dr. Adam Feltz, who was not involved in the study:

“Right now, the best estimates are about 50%. There is a lot of controversy around these estimates because it is very difficult to identify how much of the variation in personality is a result of shared environments versus shared genes.”

Dr. Feltz added that data suggests personality is relatively stable in early childhood, tends to undergo significant change through adolescence, and then stabilizes again in adulthood.

Even so, said Dr. Feltz, “people on average tend to become more agreeable with age.”

“Through working on organizational skills, being more open, more friendly and outgoing, we can increase our happiness in different areas of our life over time,” said Dr. Bash.

Indeed, one of the study’s findings was that the relationship between personality traits and satisfaction grows somewhat stronger.

“It has to do with the saying, ‘what you put out, you get back,’” said Dr. Bash. “When we are uplifting and positive, people want to be around us, and give us more love and appreciation.”

Benefits of emotional stability

Dr. Feltz cautioned that finding causal links between emotional stability and satisfaction is difficult.

Still, he noted:

“There is some evidence that those who are low in emotional stability earn less money over their life, which may contribute to low subjective well-being.”

Dr. Feltz added that low emotional stability might also predict lower mental health in adulthood and a more challenging over-reactiveness to stressors. This can also affect satisfaction levels.

On the other hand, Dr. Bash said there are clear benefits to emotional stability — a lack of drama, worry, and emotional suffering — being non-neurotic “impacts all areas of our lives.”

“If we are able to be reliable, predictable, have a good attitude when challenges arise,” she said, “and not lose time when we are in a crisis, then, obviously, we can be more productive, and this affects our careers, our personal relationships, our friendships, our family relationships, and more.”

My Kitchen

Seriously healthy chocolate beetroot cake

https://www.delicious.com.au/

INGREDIENTS

2 (about 350g) beetroots, scrubbed

200g dark chocolate, melted, plus extra shaved to serve

3 eggs, separated

3cm piece of ginger, finely grated

2/3 cup (240g) honey

2/3 cup (165ml) olive oil

1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped

Finely grated zest and juice of 1 orange

1 cup (150g) plain flour

100g polenta

2 tbs cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp each ground allspice and cinnamon

DARK CHOCOLATE ICING

250g unsalted butter, softened

11/4 cup (270g) pure icing sugar

175g dark chocolate, melted DRIZZLE

200g dark chocolate

200ml double cream

1/3 cup (115g) golden syrup

METHOD

1.Cook the beetroot in a large saucepan of boiling water for 40 minutes or until tender. Drain and cool slightly, then wearing gloves, peel skin from beetroot.

2.Place beetroot in a food processor and whiz until smooth. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside to cool slightly.

3.Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 22cm x 10cm (1.5L capacity) loaf pan with baking paper.

4.Add the chocolate, egg yolks, ginger, honey, oil, va-

nilla seeds and orange zest and juice to the cooled beetroot, and whisk to combine. Fold in flour, polenta, cocoa, baking powder, allspice, cinnamon and 1 tsp salt flakes.

5.Whisk the eggwhites in a separate bowl until soft peaks form, then fold into the beetroot mixture until just combined. Pour batter into pan and bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

6.For the icing, using a stand mixer, beat butter until pale, scraping down sides with a spatula. Sift in icing sugar and beat for 1 minute or until combined. Add chocolate and beat for 2 minutes or until glossy.

7.For drizzle, simmer all ingredients in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until thick and glossy. Cool slightly.

8.Use a palette knife to spread icing over the cake. Spoon over the drizzle allowing it to run down sides of cake, then scatter over extra shaved chocolate to serve.

My Sports

BARRETTO: Is Sergio Perez a genuine World Championship contender this year?

Sergio Perez sits just one point behind Red Bull team mate Max Verstappen in the drivers’ standings after arguably the most impressive of his five Grand Prix victories at last weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. But is the Mexican, a veteran of 237 Grand Prix starts, now a genuine title contender?

Perez was as relaxed as I’ve ever seen him last year when we chatted on the sofas in a corner of Red Bull’s floating motorhome. He had scored three second places in six races and was just 25 points adrift of Verstappen in the standings. That became 15 after a brilliant win in Monaco. It was a strong start to the season and the closest he’s been to a title contender.

Thereafter, though, his season started to unravel. And by the time of his next win in Singapore, 10 races later, he was 106 away and out of contention. Having increasingly struggled with the RB18, as it developed away from his driving style with each upgrade, Perez’s shoulders dropped. It wasn’t until the final five races that he found some answers and ended the year with three podiums.

This season, he’s made the most of a car that is the class of the field and some mechanical misfortune for his team mate Verstappen (the Dutchman qualified 15th after a driveshaft issue in qualifying, having dominated every practice up until then) to win in Saudi Arabia, adding to his second-place in the season opener behind Verstappen in Bahrain. He’s got that extra spring in his step again.

His performance on Sunday in Jeddah was heralded as his “greatest” by boss Christian Horner. The Mexican did everything right. He kept a calm head when beaten into Turn 1 by Fernando Alonso to reclaim the lead and steadily build a lead.

When that was wiped out by the Safety Car, bringing Verstappen into play for the win, Perez handled it with aplomb.

The team allowed them to race – and Verstappen naturally didn’t waste the opportunity and started to push, even when told to keep a target lap time by the team. He couldn’t catch the Mexican, his progress was slightly hampered by a concern about the drivetrain, and Perez took victory.

It was a very complete performance, the likes of which he’s always looked capable of doing but just not quite ever done.

This was the first time Perez has won a race with Verstappen in second so it’s a big statement. When things went awry for the world champion, Perez was there to seize the advantage. He will need to do that consistently this year if he is to have any chance of fighting for the world championship.

He’ll also need to improve his consistency generally. There are a handful of tracks where Perez always turns up to and gets straight on it. Jeddah is one. Bahrain and Baku are others. But there are others where he is strangely off the pace – and it is here where he will need to improve.

His qualifying speed has been better so far this year – and as his Red Bull is so much quicker than the rest, it means that even if he is a few tenths off Verstappen he will still likely be inside the top three starters courtesy of that cushion.

Previously, such a deficit would drop him to the third row and make life significantly harder for himself on Sunday afternoon.

But it is Sundays where Perez has always – and continues – to come alive. Tyre management is one of his greatest strengths. His technique of being able to consistently lap quickly while minimising rear tyre slip courtesy of his great feel is rivalled only by the likes of Verstappen and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.

But Verstappen is a formidable competitor with few weaknesses, so Perez will need to do what he can to build pressure. He’s good around Melbourne’s Albert Park – and very good on the streets of Baku, which hosts round four. He needs to gather some momentum across those two races to give himself a chance.

We’ve seen how tough it is to go up against a driver of Verstappen’s calibre. The Dutchman has dispatched previous team mates Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon with ease.

He got the better of Carlos Sainz, too, and beat Daniel Ricciardo in the last of their three years together. He’s an even stronger proposition now.

That challenge increases when you have an intra-team rivalry fighting for the world championship, as evidenced at Mercedes. It took so much of a toll on Nico Rosberg that when he beat team mate Hamilton to the title in 2016, he immediately retired.

The mental strain was evident with Valtteri Bottas, too. The Finn put so much work in over each winter to build his mental resolve but it only paid off in patches at best, with Bottas ultimately leaving the team without a title.

Perez has shown he has strong mental resolve from the way he dealt with Force India going into administration, fought to save his F1 career and rescued it with a late signing at Red Bull, and battled relentlessly in the midfield for a decade.

But fighting for a title is a more potent kind of pressure – and we’ve yet to see whether he’s got what it takes to handle it across a season.

He’s made a good start, though, and can take plenty of confidence from the opening two races. Red Bull did not enforce team orders in Saudi Arabia, instead letting them race and thus giving Perez the opportunity to prove he can fight for it.

Verstappen was riled by Red Bull’s unreliability. Perez must capitalise on that. And he knows he’s good on the next two events and thus must deliver. Do that and at least he’s giving himself a shot at making a fight of it in this campaign.

F1 Correspondent & Presenter Lawrence Barretto