Consider this

            Steve Blass played major league baseball for 10 years as a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates.   In 1971 he won the World Series and in 1972 he was one of the league’s best players and was named a National League All-star.   Then, in 1973, everything fell apart.             Suddenly Steve Blass could not control his pitches.   No matter what he tried, his game went straight downhill.   Within 2 years, he was out of baseball and the phrase "Steve Blass disease" was coined.   Blass explained, “When it was gone, it was gone for good. I started thinking about all the things that could go wrong and suddenly they did”.             There is an old saying, “Whether you believe you can or you believe that you can’t, you are right either way” and that certainly was true of Steve Blass. ...

            Sometimes the way we think about things hurts us more than the actual events themselves.   Such is the case in Exodus chapter one.   It starts by sharing the thoughts of the new Egyptian Pharaoh who says, “The Israelites have become much too numerous for us.   Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country” (verse 10).             Do you see the problem?   The new Pharaoh is convinced that, as the leader, his job is to “control” things.   Unfortunately, that rarely works.               First of all, the motivation is wrong.   Control is almost always fear based and fear based reactions most often lead in the wrong direction.   The Pharaoh feared that ...