Percentage of Americans who say they would act immorally—including lying or backstabbing—to keep their jobs: 28

A few years ago, ChristianityToday.com asked readers to share how much their mothers and grandmothers meant to them. In response, Bill Fix, of Taylor, Michigan, shared a moving testimony about his mother's faithful witness:

[Mom] grew up around the coal mines where her daddy worked, deep in the mountainous regions of Virginia. She came from a large, poverty-stricken family, so she learned how to be ...

For almost 10 years, Adam Bruckner, [assistant coach for the Philadelphia Kixx indoor soccer team], has made it his personal mission to help the homeless. Actually, "help" would be an understatement for what he does. Although he earns a modest income, he gives away practically everything. And when he decided that wasn't enough, he whittled his living expenses down to two items: gas for his car and ...

A nation-wide Harris Poll of 1,010 U.S. adults indicates most people feel jobs that are heroic, helpful, or both, hold the most prestige. The occupations at the top of the list are:

• Firefighter (57 percent)
• Scientist (56 percent)
• Doctor (53 percent)
• Nurse (52 percent)
• Teacher (52 percent)

• Banker (15 percent)
• Accountant (15 percent)
• Actor (15 percent)

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

"I was lucky I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz (Steve Wozniak) and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We had just released our finest creation—the Macintosh—a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How ...

I was sitting on a bench on a beach boardwalk late one afternoon, resting after an hour walk. I had passed a woman in a green uniform pushing a broom several times. She came toward my bench doing her meticulous sweeping of the sidewalk. Suddenly she stopped, wiped her forehead, and rested on her broom. I called out to her: "You do a great job."

"Thank you," she replied. Then she added something that ...

Isaiah Williams needed money—fast. Only 19, and about to become a father, he wanted to provide his child with everything he could. Williams heard about the Entrenuity Summer Business Camp, a faith-based program in the Chicago area created to teach African American and Latino high school students skills to operate their own businesses. …

Across the country in California, Opal Dillard was ...

He who labors ought to perform his task not for the purpose of ministering to his own needs but that he may accomplish the Lord's command, 'I was hungry and you gave me [something] to eat,' and so on…Everyone, therefore, in doing his work, should place before himself the aim of service to the needy and not his own satisfaction.

—Basil the Great, Greek theologian, one of the Cappadocian ...

A 2007 survey conducted by researchers at Florida State University discovered that employees who endure abuse from their bosses retaliate with poor performance. Abusive behaviors included the silent treatment (general avoidance and ignoring e-mail and other correspondence), personal put-downs, broken promises, and managers blaming their mistakes on employees to save face. Employees with difficult ...