Just sharing.

[beensetfree]

A Shameful Rage


I have never understood what happened to me that fall day many, many years ago when I was an adolescent child.

Down the street there lived a girl of my same age. I felt like I was superior to her because my parents were respectable and her parents did something unthinkable among my relatives; they drank. Not only that, they often fought with each other loudly and yelled at their two daughters almost constantly.

Yet the little girl who was my age was universally liked. She was always pleasant and was a strong leader on the playground. I was jealous of her and in that way I felt inferior to her. This made a powerful combination of feelings for me; but we got on tolerably well.

When it came to brain power, I was the stronger one and she often had me help with her home work and asked me advice about the many problems she had with her parents. I often tried to keep her out of trouble with them. Therefore I was usually in the dominant position in our friendship and that suited me fine.

Then one day, I did something so bad I have never told another soul about it until now. I cannot recall the full circumstances but I guess she made me mad. I went back to my house and found that no one else was home. Alone in the house, I phoned her and said many mean things to her. I think I stabbed her with the fact that her mother was a drunk. I know I said unfamiliar cuss words that tumbled out of my mouth unrelated to any thought process whatever. Even before I hung up the phone, I was embarrassed and ashamed.

That pleasant little girl had been verbally abused all of her life. That may be why she never seemed to hold it against me that I had said such horrible things to her and said them in a frenzy of rage. She didn’t treat me any differently afterwards than she had before.

Like I said, I have no idea what came over me. It was the only time in my life I have said such words and I said them with such hate. I have been ashamed all the many years since, but this—like everything else in life has influenced me. Life is in many ways a mystery. If I don’t even know the source of my own actions it is easy to understand that I, like that sweet little neighbor girl of so many years ago, must be willing to forgive the actions of others.

 

[beensetfree]

How to get ahead

A goal ahead, a hope, a plan–

Always thinking that you can,

A lot of work, a lot of prayer

And help from God will get you there

 

[beensetfree]

Most of us are really great at being miserable and noticing it. Our backs ache, our feet hurt, someone was cross with us and put us in a bad mood—there are many, many levels of knowing you’re not very pleased with life. What most of us are not good at is noticing—and rejoicing at—those moments when all is well.

Little kids in Sunday school often sing, “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.” They all clap their hands and sing with unbounded enthusiasm. Isn’t it great that their genuine happiness can be expressed so freely?

Years ago there was a period of time when I was miserable. It was not a long period of time and I no longer know what I thought was so terrible in my life; but I remember sitting in my rocking chair rocking my little boy and being depressed. Then for some reason I found myself analyzing how I felt and comparing it to how I felt a few days before. I have never forgotten the illumination that dawned on me. I realized I had gone through a relatively long period when I was basically happy and content but I hadn’t even thought about that wonderful state and I hadn’t really even enjoyed it. I vowed if I ever felt happy again I would make the most of it. A couple of days later the tides of time did return me to happiness and I did remember to realize it.

I was young back then and now I’m old but I still make a fool out of myself enjoying my happy days. I smile, I chatter, I hum, sing and whistle and most of all, I’m happy and I know it.

 

[beensetfree]

A Sympathetic Friend


That you don’t know how to feel,

Think about their troubles

That could be very real.

You may think someone so crotchety

Delights in being mean,

But the hardship that provokes them

May be something that’s unseen.

If you answer crossness mildly

And demonstrate you care,

You may soon learn they are suffering

Something you, yourself, could never bear;

For some keep sorrow hidden

Though their mood is turned to gloom

As they ponder in their hearts

Some unhappiness that looms;

But if you can look beyond

Their cranky attitude,

You may find yourself relieving

The worst of their bad mood;

For then you can be something

Whose value has no end—

Something that they do not have—

A sympathetic friend.

 

[beensetfree]

Carpe Diem

"Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses."1

Have you ever noticed that, "Opportunity comes to pass—not to pause?"

When God told Joshua and the ancient Israelites that he had given them the Promised Land, he certainly didn't hand it to them on a silver platter. To claim God's promise, they had to battle every inch of the way. They still had to go, conquer, and possess it.

The reality is, however, that had God not given it to them, they never would have been able to conquer and possess it. And might I add, they wouldn't still be there today!

God has a work for you and me to do too. He will give us the opportunities every day to serve him, but it's up to us to take advantage of these as they come to pass—not to pause! True, God feeds the sparrows, but he doesn't throw the food into their nests. They have to go out and get it. Whatever God has for us to do, he doesn't do it for us. He will guide us. He will direct us. He will give us wisdom, but he won't do it for us. We, too, have to arise, go, and possess the opportunities and promises God has for us.

With God's help, let us carpe diem, "seize the day," to take advantage of every opportunity God gives to us, and claim every promise He has for us.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please help me to be ready and willing to "seize" every opportunity You give to me to serve You, trust in You to help me to do it, and to claim every promise You have for me. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus's name. Amen.

 

[beensetfree]

Commitment to Marriage

Back in the earlier years of our country, around the time of the civil war, I would imagine that marriages did not involve a whole lot of courtship. There may have been some couples who knew each other from childhood and ended up together because they had always assumed that is what would happen.

For young women who did not have a school mate beau, I would imagine that when they met a suitable young man, after they were of marriageable age, things moved along rather quickly. If papa let the young fellow come calling, there was a pretty good bet that he already approved of the marriage; and when the young folks got passionate, the marriage would happen accordingly.

My uncle was married in the late 1800’s. He was sixteen years old when he married a thirteen year old girl. They had run away and gotten married and so the families involved accepted the situation and that couple remained married for about seventy years. Today, there’s no way for youngsters like that to marry without parental approval, so when first love blossoms, it is likely to wither away while the couple waits to grow up.

The irony is that today young people mature physically at a younger age than they did in those days gone by, yet they are expected to wait much longer to marry. That contributes to the fact that many people today have a lot of experience with love affairs before marrying—in my mind, NOT a good thing. In the days when people got married young in the first flush of their first love the tendency was to believe that the marriage of those who fell in love was ordained and unbreakable. Today, after developing a habit of being in and out of relationships prior to marriage, many young couples do not feel any compulsion to remain committed to a marriage contract after they enter in to it.

One couple I know just broke up after a little over a year of marriage when they hit the first serious bump in the road. The husband did something that was wrong but would not have been a fatal blow in most other marriages. (This did not involve infidelity.)

The husband wanted to work on the marriage. The righteous wife was determined to exit—not surprisingly as she had previously been in one other marriage, another relationship that produced a child and other less serious involvements over a period of more than twenty years, relationships that at least in the case of the marriage and the relationship that produced the child were ended at her own volition.

Unlike how it was in years past when marriage was entered into with a mindset that it was forever, this woman’s heart had apparently never been set on living with her spouse through thick and thin; and she probably knew in her heart that the man she married was not the man of her dreams. Her life was complicated and when she entered into the marriage, it was a convenient solution to her temporary problems. This is not a good reason to get married.

In many unstable relationships, most notably among immature persons, the parties involved seem to find it impossible to live without some kind of love affair in their lives. They just can’t fathom being “alone”. When things go sour in their marriages, these people not only walk out, they walk right into the arms of someone else, usually for another relationship destined to be short.

I have a novel idea for young people of today who are considering marriage, particularly second or third marriages. I think these people should cease being involved with other people in living arrangements and learn how to live on their own as mature, responsible adults. When they meet another mature, responsible adult, also living on their own, these two could date—not sleep together the first night they meet—until they are well acquainted.

If and when they decide to marry, it should be because even though they can live alone as totally functioning adults, they realize they will be happier living together as a pair. This happy couple should then make up their minds that marriage is a good thing, something to be preserved—that it’s worth walking over a few hurdles for.

Only by being willing to “stick it out” does any couple ever remain married long enough to grow old together; and truthfully, when you have grown old and the very words “husband” and “wife” remind you of your lifelong mate, that is when your marriage is the dearest it could ever be.

 

[beensetfree]

The Cold Within



Six humans trapped by happenstance
In dark and bitter cold
Each one possessed a stick of wood
Or so the story’s told

Their dying fire in need of logs
The first woman held hers back.
For of the faces around the flame
She noticed one was black

The second mann looking all about
Saw no one of his church
And couldn’t bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch

The rich man sat and thought
Of all the wealth he had in store
Why should his stick be used to warm
The lazy, shiftless poor?

The poor man sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch
No way would he let his stick be used
By the greedy selfish rich

The black man bitter and full of rage
Held his oak branch tight
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white

The last man of this forlorn group
Did nothing except for gain
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game

The branches held in fate’s cruel hands
Was proof of human sin
They didn’t die from the cold without
The died from THE COLD WITHIN.

 

[beensetfree]

On Sunday morning I sit in church

Surrounded by God’s peace

In never-ending wonder

At a love that does not cease.

My soul expands with glory,

Bathed in unbounded love

That wraps me like a cloak

That descends from up above.

I’m fortified to start anew—

The Lord once more my crutch—

So no matter what may come this week,

It will not seem too much.

I’m renewed to start once more

The grueling task of living,

To face the trials of a new week

Being patient and forgiving.

 

[beensetfree]

Where is God’s perfection?


In Brooklyn, New York, Chush is a school that caters to learning-disabled children. Some children remain in Chush for their entire school career, while others can be main-streamed into conventional schools.

At a Chush fund-raising dinner, the father of a Chush child delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended.

After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he cried out, “Where is the perfection in my son Shaya? Everything God does is done with perfection. But my child cannot understand things as other children do. My child cannot remember facts and figures as other children do. Where is God’s perfection?”

The audience was shocked by the question, pained by the father’s anguish and stilled by the piercing query. “I believe,” the father answered,”that when God brings a child like this into the world, the perfection that He seeks is in the way people react to this child.”

He then told the following story about his son Shaya:

One afternoon Shaya and his father walked past a park where some boys Shaya knew were playing baseball. Shaya asked, “Do you think they will let me play?” Shaya’s father knew that his son was not at all athletic and that most boys would not want him on their team. But Shaya’s father understood that if his son was chosen to play it would give him a comfortable sense of belonging.

Shaya’s father approached one of the boys in the field and asked if Shaya could play. The boy looked around for guidance from his team-mates.

Getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said, “We are losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him up to bat in the ninth inning.”

Shaya’s father was ecstatic as Shaya smiled broadly. Shaya was told to put on a glove and go out to play short center field.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shaya’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shaya’s team scored again and now with two outs and the bases loaded with the potential winning run on base, Shaya was scheduled to be up. Would the team actually let Shaya bat at this juncture and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shaya was given the bat. Everyone knew that it was all but impossible because Shaya didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly,let alone hit with it. However, as Shaya stepped up to the plate, the pitcher moved a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shaya should at least be able to make contact. The first pitch came in and Shaya swung clumsily and missed. One of Shaya’s team-mates came up to Shaya and together they held the bat and faced the pitcher waiting for the next pitch. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly toward Shaya.

As the pitch came in, Shaya and his team-mate swung the bat and together they hit a slow ground ball to the pitcher. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could easily have thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shaya would have been out and that would have ended the game. Instead, the pitcher took the ball and threw it on a high arc to right field, far beyond reach of the first baseman.

Everyone started yelling, “Shaya, run to first. Run to first!” Never in his life had Shaya run to first. He scampered down the baseline wide eyed and startled. By the time he reached first base, the right fielder had the ball. He could have thrown the ball to the second baseman who would tag out Shaya, who was still running. But the right fielder understood what the pitcher’s intentions were, so he threw the ball high and far over the third baseman’s head.

Everyone yelled, “Run to second, run to second.” Shaya ran towards second base as the runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases towards home. As Shaya reached second base, the opposing short stop ran to him, turned him in the direction of third base and shouted, “Run to third.” As Shaya rounded third, the boys from both teams ran behind him screaming,”Shaya run home!” Shaya ran home, stepped on home plate and all 18 boys lifted him on their shoulders and made him the hero, as he had just hit a “grand slam” and won the game for his team.

That day,” said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, “those 18 boys reached their level of God’s perfection.”

 

[beensetfree]

Let others cheer the winning man, There's one I hold worth while;
'Tis he who does the best he can, Then loses with a smile.

Beaten he is, but not to stay Down with the rank and file,
That man will win some other day, who loses with a smile.

 

[beensetfree]

My on-the-Job Prayer


Lord, it’s easy to be bitter
And to think your pay’s too low
Or you’re never given credit
For the many things you know;

But Lord, I know that’s out of line;
It’s an attitude that’s wrong—
We should be very thankful
And not griping all day long.

We take our jobs for granted
And forget that we’re a team—
That being worthy of our hire
Is the way to earn esteem.

So please Dear Lord, remind me
To be worthy of my pay
And by my actions demonstrate
That I walk the Christian way.

 

[beensetfree]

Heard His Still, Small Voice?

And your ears shall hear a word behind you,
saying, “This is the way, walk in it”—Isaiah 30:21

Still, small voice—the words come from the First Book of Kings. The Prophet Elijah emerged from a cave on the mountain called Horeb:

“ . . a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire . . .” (1 Kings 19:11-12).

After the fire, Elijah heard a “still, small voice.” God’s voice. God taught Elijah something that day. He taught us. He demonstrated, in dramatic manner, a preferred method of communication.

So, what is the “still, small voice”? Well, it’s more about our thoughts than about an audible voice. So, thoughts . . . they can be crystallized in many ways: in words—sort of an inner voice—or perhaps as pictures, feelings, or impulses.

Originating them in the mind of another is neither complicated, nor difficult. We do it every day. Engaging in conversation with someone, we direct their thinking and they ours. There are limits, of course. We need some combination of physical media—ink on paper, pixels on screens, ones and zeros flowing over wires, vibrations of vocal cords, waves of electromagnetic radiation.

Does God need physical media to originate thoughts in our minds? No, of course not. If we follow the King, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is there already—he dwells within us (Romans 8:9-11).
Okay, so what do we do?

Could’ve God already been at work in your mind, originating thoughts? I’ll bet. Could it be that you didn’t notice, didn’t recognize it? Begin today, brother, to sift. Begin to note which thoughts are likely yours alone, which were clearly originated by others . . . and which just might’ve been originated by God.

 

[beensetfree]

Love Thyself as thy Neighbor


Jesus said, “Love thy neighbor as Thyself”,

Not love your neighbor instead;

To better deliver the message of Him,

We must by His blessings be fed.

Let yourself be happy

And rejoice in good things

Our wonderful God

In his love for you brings.

It’s not a sin for you

to be blessed by God’s hand;

If you enjoy life as given

He will not reprimand;

And besides there’s no better

Message to share

With neighbors you know

And about whom you care

Than the massage that Jesus

Give us blessings so many

That we can share with a neighbor

Without losing any.

 

[beensetfree]

Aging

After we turn twenty-nine,
The years just fly away;
Even though we try our best
To hang on to each day.

Thirty-five and forty come
And go with lightning speed
As time keeps up the steady march
Which nothing can impede.

We cannot stop at fifty,
And fifty-five won’t stay;
And even when we’re sixty,
We’re soon sixty and a day.

Age is like a ladder
And we have to climb each rung.
Leaving youth behind us
To be wasted on the young.

But, we’re all in this together,
So why dwell in the past?
Instead, let’s keep on living
And see how long we last!

 

[beensetfree]

A Valuable Service


Once there was a man who traveled all his life; and as he traveled, he served a valuable purpose in the world.

The man was very poor. He had no land; he had no money; he didn’t even have shoes. All he had was a pair of tattered trousers and the contents of their pockets, a ragged shirt and an old cloak. The cloak was his coat and his blanket; on warm days when he needed neither coat nor blanket, it was his pillow when he lay down to sleep.

On his bare feet, he walked over meadows and cobblestones, through streams and over hills. He walked when the cobblestones were so hot they blistered the soles of his feet and when the weather was so cold it turned his toes blue and he had to stop along the way and build a fire. Then he would wrap himself in his cloak and sleep alongside the fire until it burned low and the cold woke him up once more.

You may be wondering how this man, who owned nothing at all, did not starve to death. He was not a beggar. He never asked for a thing. While he was willing to work, it was not often that he was offered a job to do. And yet he ate at least one full meal a day and sometimes as many as three.

The secret was in the man’s demeanor. When he came upon anyone else on the roads he traveled, he always said a cheerful “Hello,” smiled broadly and tipped an imaginary hat. When the fellow traveler smiled, he would smile once more and say cheerfully, “I must be on my way to find my supper.”

Invariably, the passerby would say, “Where do you plan to dine?” And the man would reply cheerfully, “I will dine in a castle on the provender of a king.”

Fully intrigued, the travelers he met nearly always stopped in their tracks to survey this strange, poverty stricken, cheerful individual. Of course, they had to ask, “Where is this castle where you will dine?”

The man would look around and survey the world around him. He would point out the wild flowers surrounding them, the clouds in the sky and the way the sun lit up the roadway and cast shadows from the trees. “Sir, (or Ma’am)” he would say, “God has given me this veritable castle. I spend my days in nature’s beautiful castle, I dine here and I sleep here. There is no grander castle.”

Of course the scoffing stranger would say, “But what will you eat?”

Whereupon the man would say, “The birds do not sow or reap and yet our heavenly Father feeds them. I am sure he will also provide my feast. Yonder is a tree where I can gather nuts. And there is a stream nearby where I dare say I can catch a fish or two.”

At this, he would turn the pocket of his trousers inside out and produce a single fish hook wrapped carefully in a long string, which served dual purposes to prevent the fish hook from puncturing his leg and to be used as a fishing line when necessary. However, it was seldom necessary, because by now the stranger he had encountered was drawing his own lunch from his basket or coins from his pocket. After he had pressed these upon the poor traveler, he went on his way, shaking his head and feeling very good about himself.

Making other people feel good about themselves was the service the poor man provided and he did it very well.

 

[beensetfree]

Unused Medicine

Maureen stared at the shelves of medicines in awe. Why, Sarah’s medicine cabinet rivaled any pharmacy’s…as did her knowledge of the different medications.

“What does this one do?” Maureen asked, holding up a bottle of pink pills.

“Oh, that’s an antibiotic for infections. It—” Sarah’s voice cut off in a cough that caused her to double over in pain.

“Are you okay?” Maureen asked, concerned.

After the coughing finally finished, Sarah replied in a shaky voice, “I’m fine. I just have a bad infection. But no worries.”

“What’s this cream for?” Maureen asked, pointing to a cream on the shelf.

“Oh, that helps skin infections,” came the quick reply.

Maureen glanced at her friend in confusion. She knew her friend had often complained about her skin infections. In fact, Sarah was constantly sick. “I don’t get it,” she confessed. “If you have all of these medicines, why are you always so sick?”

Sarah hardly looked up from the letter she was attempting to write. “I don’t know. I’ve had the medicines for years, but I guess I’m just doomed to sickness.”

Maureen turned from the medicine cabinet and sat next to her friend. What could be the problem? “Do you take the medicine like it’s prescribed?”

Sarah blushed. “Well, now that you mention it, no, I guess I don’t.”

“So let me get this straight. You have all of these medications, and know all about them, but you don’t take them?”

Sarah nodded, blushing more. “I guess that’s about right.”

Maureen shook her head in disbelief. “I guess we both know now why they’re not working. Sarah, you have to act on what you know.”

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” James 1:22-25 (KJV)

 

[beensetfree]

Why Jesus Says He Is The Only One Way To Heaven

Jesus Himself said that He is the One and only way to the Father, so why do so many object to this?

God Cannot Lie

I don’t’ think it’s ever been “politically correct” to say that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven, but it is correct nonetheless. Jesus Himself said it, and the Bible teaches that there is only one way, only through one Person, that any of us can be saved (Acts 16:30-31).

And since Jesus is God, and God cannot lie, our hope in Jesus Christ, and His many promises are yes and amen (John 6:37-39, 10:27-29). It is in Him who we place our trust and have our “hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began” (Titus 1:2), so “it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us” (Heb 6:18).

When God promises eternal life to all who believe (John 3:16-17; Rom 10:9-13), it’s not a hope-so faith but a know-so faith. Since it says so in the Word God, we believe it, and we know that “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it” (Num 23:19)?

Only One Way

Just before Jesus went to the cross to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45) and to eventually return to the Father in heaven, told His disciples, don’t’ be troubled, because “if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

And you know the way to where I am going” (John 14:3-4), but Thomas had doubts and said, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way” (John 14:5), so Jesus says to Thomas, and to all of us, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Jesus never said He is one of many ways or one of many truths and one of many ways to eternal life but rather, as Peter said, “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). There is no wiggle room to this at all.

It is 100% conclusive that Jesus is the one and only way to the Father or into the kingdom and not one of several other ways. God cares not that humans think it’s a narrow-minded way of thinking or that it doesn’t seem fair. I am just glad that God has provided a way.
Jesus.

There is a Way

Many who believe that Jesus Christ is the One and only way into the kingdom are sometimes told that it’s being narrow-minded but they don’t stop to think about it. They criticize believers who say that Jesus is the one and only way to the Father, but these are not their own words.

This is Jesus Himself speaking, so either Jesus is lying or He is spot on and there is absolutely no other way to heaven than through Him, so it is only “through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph 2:18). The door that leads to eternal life must necessarily lead through Jesus Christ, Who said, “I am the door.

If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:9), so whoever “does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber” (John 10:1), so it’s impossible for them to enter the kingdom without Christ.

They, like everyone else, must repent and believe the gospel, so says Christ (Mark 1:14-15). How many can come to the Father outside of Christ? Zero, as Jesus says “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44).

No one can come to Him unless the Father draws them to Christ. No one, no matter what anyone says or any other religion claims, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (John 6:65). Again, no one can to Christ unless the Father draws them, and no one can enter the kingdom without trust in Christ, so no person ever born (save for Christ) or as yet to be born can enter the kingdom without trusting in Christ.

Conclusion

If you do not believe what Jesus said, that He is the one and only way to the Father (John 6:44), and there is no other way possible to be saved (Acts 4:12), and that Jesus alone is the truth, the life, and the way (John 14:6), then you presently have the wrath of God abiding on you (John 3:36b), but if you believe this, Jesus reminds us, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

Do you believe this” (John 11:25-26)? Rejecting Jesus is rejecting the only hope you have and it’s not that you cannot choose to believe…you will not (Rom 1:18-20), as Christ told the self-righteous Jews that the Scriptures “bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39b-40).

 

[beensetfree]

Stardust in your Crown

Though I never met the woman

Who was called suddenly by our Lord,

I think from what I knew of her,

She journeyed heavenward.

A short while back, she phoned me

About something on her wall;

It was something I had written

And it prompted her to call

To tell me she enjoyed it

And it brought back memories,

And she wanted me to know that

Because she thought I would be pleased.

That was a special moment

For a poet such as I—

Someone whose work is simple

And usually written on the fly.

I was heartened by the thoughtful way

She called to let me know,

And now I think there’s stardust

In her crown where she now goes.

I’m writing this to tell you

You should never hesitate

To say something kind to others

That they’ll appreciate;

Because a thoughtful little moment

Taken from your busy days

May also add some stardust

To your crown of heavenly praise

 

[beensetfree]

Heard God Through Others?

The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me;
his word is on my tongue—2 Samuel 23:2

God speaks through his people. He empowers us as agents to carry his messages—as Ananias did to Saul, as Cornelius did to Peter (and Peter did back to Cornelius). This method, human agency, is the second of God’s two preferred methods of communicating with us. Examples of it abound in Scripture. And, of course, Scripture itself is an example: the Biblical authors were his agents in communicating his precious words to us.

How does it work? Well, while God uses his still, small voice to reach us directly, speaking into our minds, originating thoughts there instantly, he uses that very same voice to also reach us indirectly—that is, by speaking directly into the minds of others, directing a few of their thoughts, and then allowing them to use their spoken or written words to take his messages the rest of the way, to us.

It may be that one of us, one in need of hearing from God, isn’t used to hearing from him, or doesn’t recognize his voice or just isn’t listening . . . or maybe doesn’t want to listen. Whatever the reason, it’s clear that God uses people who are listening and do want to hear to reach others who need to hear.

It could be the inspired words of a pastor in the pulpit or the encouraging words of a friend at a coffee shop or the challenging words of brothers in a men’s group . . . or any one of many, many other possibilities.


Do you want to hear God’s voice? Does your busy calendar allow for it? Have you committed yourself to a group of men who are willing to speak his truth into your life? Think about these questions, brother—and commit today to figuring out how to begin to answer them affirmatively.

 

[beensetfree]

I’m Mad and I’m Sad


Feelings can suffocate you. Like many another person, I have had occasions when I have felt like one huge raw hurt and don’t know how to deal with myself or relate to others while I’m in that state. Recently, my granddaughter said something that helped to tame some monster emotion I was feeling. She said, “I’m mad and I’m sad.”

It took a four-year old to verbalize the grief and helplessness we were all feeling at that time because someone we loved had reached the end stage of cancer and we knew she would be with us only a few days more.

Many times in my life I have been mad and sad without being able to put my nebulous feelings into words. Years ago I coined another phrase which will help you understand what it means to me to succinctly label that frustrating feeling when things are all wrong and I can do nothing: “A problem defined is a problem half solved.” Bearing this in mind, whenever in the future I realize that I am mad and sad, I can remind myself that being mad won’t help and the sadness will eventually lessen.

Then, even though I may remain mad and sad, I will have that small ray of light we call “hope”. I will hope for a better future even as I accept that I’m mad and sad and can’t do anything about it. Labeled, categorized and with their limitation delineated, my overwhelming feelings will be easier to bear.