Thursday, December 24, 2015

LEISURE, A BLESSING OR A CURSE (Continuation)

Starting on my other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS on Nov 1...a 3 day series on HOW TO LESSEN ANXIETY.
 
                    click on the link below

 
A different sermon is begun on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. 

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       The sermons found on this blog are selected sermons preached by Rev. Wyrick during a ministry of over 50 years.  This syndicated columnist/minister thanks you for visiting.

TO GO TO NEIL’S OTHER BLOG ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS and read inspiring stories and comments to set you thinking. CLICK ON URL BELOW


        
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Mark 8:36 

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forget his soul?

       It is not a casual problem, this making the clock your dictator to the point you cannot rest.  This refusing to let the Lord be your Shepherd because you must always be in charge. 

       If you refuse to take time out for the Lord, such a choice will make you lie down not in green pastures but in brown, exhausted pastures.  Such a decision will drop you off into a valley of depression. 

       Business, for the sake of business, will drive you and those around you crazy.  Rushing from one deadline to the next you will find yourself in the valley of dead and dried up souls.  

Does the path you have chosen in life seem to only go around in circles? 

If you are not careful, it will be too late to change and you will fear, oh yes, you will fear yourself for where you have let your ambitions take you. 

Your Lord is willing to lead you in the paths of righteousness, but not if other paths have all or most of your attention.  His rod and His staff will comfort you, but not if you use them to beat yourself to death with overwork.

 He will prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies, but not if you daily make new enemies because you are so tired and hard to get along with. 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life, but not if you are racing along life’s highway so fast they can never catch up with you.  

When Larry Walters was thirteen he read that the local Army & Navy Store had some 7-foot weather balloons for sale.  As he read about them he had the thought that it would be a wonderful idea to fill them with helium and go flying off into the sky. 

He didn’t have the money so it was just a dream.  But twenty years later he had the money and he still had the dream, so he went out and bought forty-two used weather balloons and filled them with helium. 

He put on a parachute, attached himself to a Sears lawn chair and prepared for flight.  He carried with him proper nourishment and a proper method for descent- a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a can of coke, and a BB gun.

It is not that he had not planned for what came next.  It was just that he was infinitely more successful than he had imagined he would be. 

He shot into the air with such great speed that in no time he was 16,000 feet in the air and into part of the flight path of the Los Angeles airport.  Soon a TWA pilot reported he had just passed a man floating in a lawn chair beneath a massive collection of balloons.  The airport sent up a helicopter to check it out.

Not wanting to go any higher, Walters shot down 10 balloons before he accidentally dropped his gun.  All air traffic was shut down until finally two hours later he gently touched back on mother earth.

Reporters on the scene bombarded him with questions. 

“Were you scared?”  “Yes.” 

“Would you do it again?”  “No.” 

“Why did you do it?”  “Because,” he said, “you can’t just sit around doing nothing.”

It is this attitude which demands we must be busy, busy, busy that creates a climate in which lots of really crazy things are done.

 Or not done.  What is crazier than not taking time as a family to sit down and eat dinner together? 

Common sense says this isn’t wasting time, that it is really a productive kind of leisure, but well…one can’t just sit around doing nothing. 

What is crazier than people spending themselves into bankruptcy because if they are not filling every moment with expensive activity they feel they are not living? 

But after all one can’t just sit around doing nothing.  What is crazier than someone trying to exist on four to six hours of sleep with the explanation, “I’ve got too much to do to waste it sleeping?  Can’t just sit and lie around doing nothing.”  If we are obsessed with filling every moment with activity, we don’t just fill it, we bloat it. 

            I don’t imagine anyone here would suggest that our leisure time should be spent aimlessly or frivolously.  Of course, what I may call “frivolous” may be to you great joy. 

       What you call “aimless” may be my lost-in-thought time.  But how many people do you know who would say on their deathbed, “I sure do wish I had spent more time down at the office.” 

So what is a proper balance between work and leisure, and what we do with our leisure time?  There is no one answer that fits all, but there is a question that fits all.   “Who am I, Lord?”

 And can we ever begin to find the answer if we do not stop and listen to the angels sings?  Can we ever know who we are, and why we are if we do not sometimes court silence so we can hear whatever message heaven is trying to send.

       Leisure, is it a blessing to you or a curse?  Actually, whatever is your answer, the answer needs to be filtered through the mighty threesome of religion, work and leisure.   Religion to feed our inner being.  Work to give us a sense of destiny.  And leisure to stop long enough to appreciate it all.  Man does not live by bread alone.  He lives also by putting his eye to the beauty of the world on which he stands, the sky above, his own inner world…and all at the same time never forgetting the maker of all these worlds.

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CLICK ON  www.go60.us   IT WILL TAKE YOU A NEW WEBSITE FOR SENIORS....click on "Voice" on the home page and then on the list of authors click on Neil Wyrick 

Recent articles Rev. Wyrick has written for this web site are:  


·         Here Comes Summer (July 2012)

·         Spring (May 2012)

·         Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow (April 2012)

·         Wayward and Windy (April 2012)

       GO TO AMAZON.COM TO PURCHASE Neil's best selling book"THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN" that is still receiving rave reviews 8 years after it's publication.

       "Positive, powerful utterances...skillfully enhancing our understaning and appreciation of Lincoln...(Lt. Colonel C.A.Olsen (Ret.) Asbury College (Professor Ret.)

       "Wyrick has authored a wonderful examination of the spirituality of one of American history's most devoutly religious leaders...a pleasant and readable book that has a rich depth of information.  (Maynard Pittendreigh, Presbyterian Minister)

       "THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN is an extremely well written book...it is both scholarly and very readable.  I came away impressed at Mr. Wyrick's portrayal of that President with an altered and enlarged vision of the man. (William Hoffman, Award winning fiction writer, author of Blood and Guile, and Wild Thorn.) 
                       
GO TO SPEAKER.NEIL TO SEE NEIL'S ONE MAN AWARD WINNING DRAMATIZATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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       V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at

MAGNUS PRESS

       AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM’S Kindle


     

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