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Have you ever wondered how any intelligent individual could behave in such a manner that actually drives away the very people he or she wants and needs? How can anyone smart sometimes act so dumb?
Well, actually it is surprisingly simple. Psychologists tell us that intelligence isn’t everything we think it’s cracked up to be. It actually influences only 20% of our decisions. The rest of our actions fall heir to our emotional responses.
Or, let’s put it this way; when we allow a gut-feeling to take over when a God-commandment would be better, we are only asking for trouble.
The young man we saw on television a few years ago or read about in the news, sentenced to jail for 30 years for killing his grandparents, was angry.
I don’t know how smart he is but his emotions were certainly off the scale.
His lawyer argued that he was not to blame, his actions were affected by his medicine.
But whichever side of the courtroom discussion you agree with, we all know that the commandment, Thou shalt not kill certainly wasn’t shouting at him.
Certainly didn’t have his attention. Intellectually he more than likely could understand the words, but emotionally they meant absolutely nothing.
Do you hold a grudge for days or weeks or years?
Do you require that everyone in your family dislike everyone you dislike, and the list is long?
Does everyone feel they have to walk on eggshells when they are in your presence? Are you an individual who cannot manage your emotions, and part of the reason is because it is just you by yourself trying to manage them?
I’m not suggesting that you should work at being dead in the water emotionally. You want to be able to get excited and dance and sing, but you also don’t want to become permanently hyper and out of control.
Psychiatrists say that anger is the hardest emotion to master.
Few of us need a doctor to tell us that.
Several years ago, some people were advocating that we should let it all hang out. It was called “Scream Therapy” - that if you didn’t scream on a regular basis you would perpetually steam. In other words, gain control by losing control.
The theory, thank goodness, didn’t last.
Certainly there is a better way of doing it, infinitely better than having screaming sessions.
It is called “reframing” or “reinterpreting” what has just happened in a more positive light. I’ve been doing this for years, I just didn’t have a name for it. It made sense to me that if someone gave me a hard time, it was because they had just finished having a hard time, or the night before, or were just having a bad day.
I figured it was a waste of time and common sense to take aggressive words or actions personally.
Yes, some people really are nasty and mean on a regular basis, and they do not like you, along with a host of other people they do not like.
But they are in the minority and if you run across someone like that, pray that you don’t emulate them.
And there is no doubt that some people are too smart for their own good. They take arrogance to new heights, and figure because they have reached great heights of success, anyone below them deserves any rudeness they receive.
Unfortunately, none of us can always be nice anymore than I could always get a hit when I played baseball or score a touchdown every time I ran the ball.
Nevertheless, if I simply stood tall, dumb and inactive it was a guarantee I would never find success. So it is a given that in the world of niceness vs. nastiness, you won’t get any better if you allow yourself to be satisfied with worse.
I can’t imagine there is anyone who wants to be described as someone difficult to get along with.
No one should want that reputation.
But then again, there are some people who are proud of being jerks. Or, as one man put it, “If I wasn’t a jackass I’d have no personality at all.”
Oh, being a jerk or a jackass, or both, seems to come easy for some. 2nd Timothy doesn’t exactly use these terms, but he really spells it out.
It reads, “…mark this: there will be terrible times in the last days.
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”
Remember the poem in the beginning of these thoughts?
Well, wherever you see yourself in Timothy’s descriptive phrasing…that is the sermon you are preaching to the world.
By your daily actions does the sermonizer called you show the world that Christians are different?
Or do your daily actions show that you are but one more Christian who talks a great game but spends the whole game seated on the bench? People are neither deaf, dumb nor blind, and if what they see is that as a Christian, you really aren’t any different… ….well?...
One of the things I like about most Christians is that they are like Avis - they try harder.
And the Apostle Paul tells us that this is exactly what we have to do.
In his letter to the Ephesians he says, “You were taught, in regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on a new self…”
What we are talking about is a personality upgrade.
A faith-lift might be another way of putting it. Allowing the Lord, who knows and always has known your potential, to let you find it and do something about it.
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STARTED SUNDAY MARCH 5, 2011. Serialization of another book SIXTY PLUS AND NOT HOLDING
This book, SIXTY PLUS AND NOT HOLDING, is about dealing positively with the challenges of getting older and fosters the belief that “If we would have new knowledge, we must get a world of new questions.” (Susanne K. Langer)
MANY SUGGESTIONS IN THIS BOOK FOR IMPROVING THE ART OF LIVING ARE GOOD FOR ANY AGE.
“I am come that they (you) may have life and have it to the full. (John 10:10)
Anyone who lives long enough gets older. There are no other options. How we handle the adventure is filled with options.
Keep both eyes on life, and not on the calendar. Admit your age, but don’t admit to the fallacy that you have to act like it. Saying, “I’m 39 and holding,” is more tragic than humorous because it argues that age has no attributes.
V. Neil Wyrick
Below a quote from it…
“Be like the farmer who, when asked what he was building, replied, “if I can rent it, it’s a rustic cottage. If I can’t, it’s a cow shed.”
It’s called attitude and it can make us prematurely old or longer young. For truly, things aren’t just what they are, but rather how we choose to see them.”
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To access his other book’s; BOUNDARIES UNLIMITED, RUST ON MY SOUL, POOR RICHARD’S ALMANAC, I AM SIXTY PLUS AND NOT HOLDING, THE ABC’S OF PARENTING AND GRANDPARENTING, LETTERS TO AMERICA…go to Amazon.com (books) and type in Neil Wyrick.
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A HEAVENLY CONSTRUCTION PROGRAM(1st in series) (on this WyrIck’s Writing blog)
It began Sunday Dec 26, 2010
“I have always been intrigued by a question God put to Adam, “Where are you?” Why did He ask that? What is the meaning behind this? It wasn’t a geographical question, for certainly God knew the answer to that one.
It began Sunday Dec 26, 2010
“I have always been intrigued by a question God put to Adam, “Where are you?” Why did He ask that? What is the meaning behind this? It wasn’t a geographical question, for certainly God knew the answer to that one.
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To view an abundance of unusual stories and comments by Neil Wyrick go to Neil’s other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS
Click on the following URL
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BELOW IS A QUOTE FROM the SERIES on this Wyrick’s Writings site entitled ANGER IS A KILLER. It began Thursday January 6, 2010.
“Do you enjoy visiting friends? More than likely you’re thinking, Preacher, of course, I do.
Now let me ask the other side of the coin - Do you enjoy visiting enemies? No?
Well, I know you must enjoy visiting at least one enemy because, like myself, you probably visit this one quite often. Unfortunately, we all …visit this enemy…whose name is anger.
Some visit anger seldom. Some on a regular basis. And during those visits, some spew and others stew. ”
“Do you enjoy visiting friends? More than likely you’re thinking, Preacher, of course, I do
Now let me ask the other side of the coin - Do you enjoy visiting enemies? No?
Well, I know you must enjoy visiting at least one enemy because, like myself, you probably visit this one quite often
Some visit anger seldom
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TO WATCH NEIL WYRICK IN HIS ONE MAN DRAMAS (Presented to millions all around the world) (Ben Franiklin, Martin Luther, Charles Wesley and Abraham Lincoln (this
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING
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V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at
MAGNUS PRESS
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