(New thoughts are added twice a week)
Success can become a reality if you follow the rules.
Don't believe in the count of ten. Everyone gets knocked down but everyone doesn't lie there and allow themselves to be counted out. Don't settle for stagnation. Refuse to have a love affair with the status quo. Creativity can be dangerous. Indeed it makes some people nervous. But if you settle for worshiping at the altar of Sag you will only reap the rewards of hopelessness and helplessness.
Don't become a futurist until you conquer the present. Plan for tomorrow, but not if in the process you ignore today. To lavish all your attention, enthusiasm and knowledge on what is to come is the stuff New Year's resolutions are made of. And worth just about as much.
If you can't build a castle then shine up your cottage. Building the Empire State Building required engineering skills and building materials that just a century earlier didn't exist. It would have been foolish for even that grand old man of inventiveness, Ben Franklin, to have attempted such a project.
So yes, dream your dreams bigger but also think them through and beyond. Take care less you build dream castles so unrealistic it is a guarantee they will collapse. When I ran track I competed against myself. I could not beat one of my teammates who broke records that had stood for years, but I could beat what I did yesterday.
Read the right books and in the process remember that the best way to tune out trash is to tune in something better.
Touch other human beings with acts of kindness and patience so many times it becomes a habit. It will make you a better human being and better human beings have a way of finding success where rude and thoughtless individuals never do.
What is success? It is realizing with all your mind, heart and soul that quitting must never be allowed to be an option. An anonymous philosopher once penned the following.
. "When things go wrong as they sometimes will When the road you're trudging seems all up hill. When funds are low and the debts are high. And you want to smile, but you have to sigh. When care is pressing you down quite a bit. Rest, if you must, but don't you dare give up and quit. Life is strange with its twists and turns. As everyone of us sometimes learns. And many a failure turns about When he might have won had he stuck it out:Don't give up though the pace seems slow - You may succeed with another blow. Success is failure turned inside out - The silver tint of the clouds of doubt. And you never can tell how close you are. It may be near when it seems so far: So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit It's when things seem worst that you must not QUIT.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
WHY PRAY? WHY BOTHER
(These thoughts are added to twice each week)
Read Isaiah 55:6
“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:” Isaiah 55:6
********************
I pray because I am like the company I keep and because I daily need a conversation with my God.
I pray because it takes me to a place where things are better and sometimes I just want to sit quietly and bask in my heavenly Father’s magnificent presence.
I pray for the same reason you pray; because when we pray our souls open wide and when we don’t they shrivel shut.
I pray in multiples and not just an occasional. I know that God wants my prayer when I am enthusiastic with the idea and when I am not.
I know he wants my prayer to be something more than what I do but also a cove I build for my immortal soul.
How often should I pray? Well, if I cannot remember the exact date and almost the exact time
I last prayed I must not be praying enough.
Read Isaiah 55:6
“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:” Isaiah 55:6
********************
I pray because I am like the company I keep and because I daily need a conversation with my God.
I pray because it takes me to a place where things are better and sometimes I just want to sit quietly and bask in my heavenly Father’s magnificent presence.
I pray for the same reason you pray; because when we pray our souls open wide and when we don’t they shrivel shut.
I pray in multiples and not just an occasional. I know that God wants my prayer when I am enthusiastic with the idea and when I am not.
I know he wants my prayer to be something more than what I do but also a cove I build for my immortal soul.
How often should I pray? Well, if I cannot remember the exact date and almost the exact time
I last prayed I must not be praying enough.
Friday, February 20, 2009
CONQUER GRIEF OR BE CONQUERED BY IT
(These thoughts are changed twice a week)
James Barrie put it this way, “God gave us memories that we (might) have roses in December,”
Do you concentrate upon the roses or are you impaled upon the thorns?
Do you grieve because you have lost your health? Then let me tell you of a man who weekly conducted a radio program that brought solace and good cheer to many listeners. Few knew that for 14 years he had been bedridden and was blind. Few knew that in his later years his body stiffened and finally froze to such a degree he could not move. All those who listened only knew that they heard messages of hope, words of wisdom, the voice of a radiant spirit that glowed with the eloquence of strength and caring.
Would you find healing or advise someone else how to find healing? Sup then on those things that feed and soothe your soul. Walk outside and breathe in the spirit of God speaking to you from the existence of millions of blinking stars. Look up at the universe and feel the eternal extension of it. Walk quietly where there is the roar of an ocean shouting its power against the shore, or the rippling of a stream playing its musical notes against the stones, or the hint of a new day blushing the horizon. Plant a seed. Hold a leaf in your hand. Henry David Thoreau in his little house by Walden Pond once wrote, “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush (is) aflame with God.”
Do not succumb to thoughts that are tattletale gray. When tears are falling, the first thing you need to do is paint the dull, dead landscape of your thinking with colorful thoughts and a colorful faith. Things are not going well so you are not thinking bright yellow or bold red? It is understandable.
Should you attend a funeral service in pulsing pink? Probably not, but permanent black for an incessant forever isn’t a good idea either. You want to be alone when your world has come apart at the seams? Quite likely. But this is why you shouldn’t give in to giving up. Rather unclench your fist and reach for heaven's radiance. Let loose the vigor of God on the lethargy of your sorrow.
“Grief,” said Disraeli, “is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief is the blunder of a lifetime.”
James Barrie put it this way, “God gave us memories that we (might) have roses in December,”
Do you concentrate upon the roses or are you impaled upon the thorns?
Do you grieve because you have lost your health? Then let me tell you of a man who weekly conducted a radio program that brought solace and good cheer to many listeners. Few knew that for 14 years he had been bedridden and was blind. Few knew that in his later years his body stiffened and finally froze to such a degree he could not move. All those who listened only knew that they heard messages of hope, words of wisdom, the voice of a radiant spirit that glowed with the eloquence of strength and caring.
Would you find healing or advise someone else how to find healing? Sup then on those things that feed and soothe your soul. Walk outside and breathe in the spirit of God speaking to you from the existence of millions of blinking stars. Look up at the universe and feel the eternal extension of it. Walk quietly where there is the roar of an ocean shouting its power against the shore, or the rippling of a stream playing its musical notes against the stones, or the hint of a new day blushing the horizon. Plant a seed. Hold a leaf in your hand. Henry David Thoreau in his little house by Walden Pond once wrote, “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush (is) aflame with God.”
Do not succumb to thoughts that are tattletale gray. When tears are falling, the first thing you need to do is paint the dull, dead landscape of your thinking with colorful thoughts and a colorful faith. Things are not going well so you are not thinking bright yellow or bold red? It is understandable.
Should you attend a funeral service in pulsing pink? Probably not, but permanent black for an incessant forever isn’t a good idea either. You want to be alone when your world has come apart at the seams? Quite likely. But this is why you shouldn’t give in to giving up. Rather unclench your fist and reach for heaven's radiance. Let loose the vigor of God on the lethargy of your sorrow.
“Grief,” said Disraeli, “is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief is the blunder of a lifetime.”
Sunday, February 15, 2009
LITTLE KNOWN FACTS ABOUT PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND HIS LIFE
(These Thoughts are added to twice a week)
1,500,000 moved by the casket of Abraham Lincoln before he was laid to rest. From that time on many who had seen his patience as a weakness began to truly see the great man they had had for a President.
With him as President our nation was finally one and those who had before called themselves Virginians or Pennsylvanians slowly began, more and more, to call themselves Americans. They began to realize what had almost been lost.
Four million slaves were free. Europe had a new respect for America. Washington was venerated. Lincoln would come to be loved.
He almost didn’t live long enough to be President. He was kicked by a horse and so severely injured for a time no one was sure he would survive. He almost drowned. He was attacked by pirates who were set out to kill him as he guided a flat boat down the Mississippi.
His ability to survive comes not completely as a surprise. He was amazingly strong; having once lifted a 1000 pound parcel and able to hold a fifty pound ax straight out in front of him without wavering.
When he was in his mid-twenties he was postmaster for his area which stretched for 125 miles from end to end. For such exertions he was paid an annual salary of $35.
As a surveyor he was so poor he could not afford a metal chain and used instead a grapevine. For traveling he sometimes walked and at other times rode on a $50 rented horse.
His early life was a series of successes and failures; his largest success coming when finally he was elected President with 180 electoral votes and a popular vote of 1,866,452. Stephen Douglas received lesser electoral and popular votes.
When he arrived in Washington its population was 40,000 and its only paved street was Pennsylvania Avenue. When he went for a walk he had to share space with both pigs and cows.
On the day he was inaugurated it had rained 10 inches of rain and looked as if it wasn’t going to stop. Not long before time for this event it stopped raining and as he began to speak the sun broke forth.
When the Civil War began there were 18 free states and 15 slave states and to this problem Lincoln made his famous biblical based comment “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
In the early days of the war if Lincoln had tried to abolish slavery he would have lost not only the vital Border States (Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Kansas and Missouri) but also a significant portion of his Northern support. Most Northern radicals failed or refused to acknowledge this and gave him a hard time for not coming down harder on the issue of slavery.
Gettysburg was the turning point in the war and his Gettysburg address of 272 words summed it all up in a manner that even those who were present could not immediately understand. There were 25,000 to 50,000 people present who had sat for four hours before Lincoln rose to speak. There had been a marathon wait for Edward Everett the speaker, a marathon prayer and Everett’s two hour speech. What he had to say was well worth the wait.
The war took the lives of 623,000 soldiers and based on the 30 million Americans at that time as against our present 300,000 million population…to lose the same percentage today would equal (by comparison) a loss of 6.2 million.
When President Lincoln was elected for a second time it was the first time in 32 years.
At 7:22 Am April 15th. Lincoln died. A scant fifteen years earlier President Taylor had walked the streets of Washington safe and unguarded. More assassinations of Presidents would continue.
As his breathing came to an end, it is said that Edwin Stanton, his Secretary of War, commented; “Now he belongs to the ages.” Peace that he had not known for quite some time finally came.
After it happened, lawlessness wore a general’s hat and was in complete control. Washington, D.C. was engulfed in riots. A soldier shot a man for saying of the assassination, “It served him right.”
Lincoln had seen a house of cards about to fall and realized how it could establish a precedent that would truly destroy what the Founding Fathers had created. If our nation was divided by two, it might well have become a division of three. The Northeast, once not sure if it even wanted to be part of the original thirteen colonies, might then have pulled out. A few years down the road, some state in the Confederacy, unhappy with the new uniting, might have done the same. Bad habits come easily and are slow to leave.
The Confederacy, this government of eleven states, had almost brought down a nation.
Now that the war was over there was no shortage of solutions. Many conservative Democrats and Republicans simply wanted to revert back to the status quo with slavery still a viable option. It made little sense to have sacrificed over 600,000 lives and end up with the old Southern ruling class in power, but it was seriously proposed. It was just as seriously rejected.
It is a wonder things turned out as well as they did. It was obvious some miracles needed to take place. The Confederate States infrastructures were totally destroyed. The economy was in shamble. Schools and churches lay empty or demolished. Black and white poverty was rampant. The work force and style of living could never be the same.
It is little wonder that once the war was over, wretched memories fed anger loud and long. Neither side could be proud of some things that happened during the war or at their many prison camps. The meanness in some men had multiplied. They felt their uniforms allowed it.
If Lincoln had not died he would have given the South back its pride as soon as possible. Remember, this was the man who said “With malice toward none. With charity toward all.”
The United States has endured to celebrate its bicentennial anniversary and move into a third century of democratic survival. The memory of Lincoln has survived equally as well. There should be little doubt his belief-driven attitudes, words and actions were monumental in their impact, even after his assassination.
1,500,000 moved by the casket of Abraham Lincoln before he was laid to rest. From that time on many who had seen his patience as a weakness began to truly see the great man they had had for a President.
With him as President our nation was finally one and those who had before called themselves Virginians or Pennsylvanians slowly began, more and more, to call themselves Americans. They began to realize what had almost been lost.
Four million slaves were free. Europe had a new respect for America. Washington was venerated. Lincoln would come to be loved.
He almost didn’t live long enough to be President. He was kicked by a horse and so severely injured for a time no one was sure he would survive. He almost drowned. He was attacked by pirates who were set out to kill him as he guided a flat boat down the Mississippi.
His ability to survive comes not completely as a surprise. He was amazingly strong; having once lifted a 1000 pound parcel and able to hold a fifty pound ax straight out in front of him without wavering.
When he was in his mid-twenties he was postmaster for his area which stretched for 125 miles from end to end. For such exertions he was paid an annual salary of $35.
As a surveyor he was so poor he could not afford a metal chain and used instead a grapevine. For traveling he sometimes walked and at other times rode on a $50 rented horse.
His early life was a series of successes and failures; his largest success coming when finally he was elected President with 180 electoral votes and a popular vote of 1,866,452. Stephen Douglas received lesser electoral and popular votes.
When he arrived in Washington its population was 40,000 and its only paved street was Pennsylvania Avenue. When he went for a walk he had to share space with both pigs and cows.
On the day he was inaugurated it had rained 10 inches of rain and looked as if it wasn’t going to stop. Not long before time for this event it stopped raining and as he began to speak the sun broke forth.
When the Civil War began there were 18 free states and 15 slave states and to this problem Lincoln made his famous biblical based comment “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
In the early days of the war if Lincoln had tried to abolish slavery he would have lost not only the vital Border States (Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Kansas and Missouri) but also a significant portion of his Northern support. Most Northern radicals failed or refused to acknowledge this and gave him a hard time for not coming down harder on the issue of slavery.
Gettysburg was the turning point in the war and his Gettysburg address of 272 words summed it all up in a manner that even those who were present could not immediately understand. There were 25,000 to 50,000 people present who had sat for four hours before Lincoln rose to speak. There had been a marathon wait for Edward Everett the speaker, a marathon prayer and Everett’s two hour speech. What he had to say was well worth the wait.
The war took the lives of 623,000 soldiers and based on the 30 million Americans at that time as against our present 300,000 million population…to lose the same percentage today would equal (by comparison) a loss of 6.2 million.
When President Lincoln was elected for a second time it was the first time in 32 years.
At 7:22 Am April 15th. Lincoln died. A scant fifteen years earlier President Taylor had walked the streets of Washington safe and unguarded. More assassinations of Presidents would continue.
As his breathing came to an end, it is said that Edwin Stanton, his Secretary of War, commented; “Now he belongs to the ages.” Peace that he had not known for quite some time finally came.
After it happened, lawlessness wore a general’s hat and was in complete control. Washington, D.C. was engulfed in riots. A soldier shot a man for saying of the assassination, “It served him right.”
Lincoln had seen a house of cards about to fall and realized how it could establish a precedent that would truly destroy what the Founding Fathers had created. If our nation was divided by two, it might well have become a division of three. The Northeast, once not sure if it even wanted to be part of the original thirteen colonies, might then have pulled out. A few years down the road, some state in the Confederacy, unhappy with the new uniting, might have done the same. Bad habits come easily and are slow to leave.
The Confederacy, this government of eleven states, had almost brought down a nation.
Now that the war was over there was no shortage of solutions. Many conservative Democrats and Republicans simply wanted to revert back to the status quo with slavery still a viable option. It made little sense to have sacrificed over 600,000 lives and end up with the old Southern ruling class in power, but it was seriously proposed. It was just as seriously rejected.
It is a wonder things turned out as well as they did. It was obvious some miracles needed to take place. The Confederate States infrastructures were totally destroyed. The economy was in shamble. Schools and churches lay empty or demolished. Black and white poverty was rampant. The work force and style of living could never be the same.
It is little wonder that once the war was over, wretched memories fed anger loud and long. Neither side could be proud of some things that happened during the war or at their many prison camps. The meanness in some men had multiplied. They felt their uniforms allowed it.
If Lincoln had not died he would have given the South back its pride as soon as possible. Remember, this was the man who said “With malice toward none. With charity toward all.”
The United States has endured to celebrate its bicentennial anniversary and move into a third century of democratic survival. The memory of Lincoln has survived equally as well. There should be little doubt his belief-driven attitudes, words and actions were monumental in their impact, even after his assassination.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
SOME WAYS TO HANDLE GRIEF rather than letting it handle you
(First in a new series)
(Thoughts added to each Monday and Thursday)
Grief is a wall that blocks out the sunshine, a weight that makes us weigh a thousand pounds. Someone we love dies or gives out the words "I want a divorce" and at that moment singes the air. One day there is health and the next day sickness and frustrated, in denial, angry we wonder how and if we can survive.
And what is God’s special solace? “It is the gift of being that allows us to laugh in the face of time and bow in awe at the opening of Eternity.” (anonymous) And we read the words and all is not instantly well but we have taken the first step of a trip that can "yes" sometimes be a trip of a thousand miles. But we have taken a step forward...and that is what counts.
And as we journey, carrying our emotional burden, we can help ourselves so very much by reaching out to help others, even offering to help someone carry theirs. To give when it is the last thing we are in the mood to do. We who are seeking understanding giving it as well. To search out another anguished soul and say "If I can do something please let me know" and then following through with the offer.
In other words, move from the polite to the practical. Study the Sermon on the Mount and start building your own little hill of concern. And now we are still climbing the hill and not easily done but we are no longer climbing it alone.
More than once I have placed my hand on the shoulder of another human being bent low with hurting and said, “Weep…cry…. Slowly siphon it out of your system. Then turn and begin to walk away from your wounding. Otherwise, you but nurture a ghost that will haunt you the rest of your days.” In short, when pain and problem come, pray deeply and then deeper still, do all you can and then get on with living.
He sat before me – a forty-year-old who looked sixty. He began to share, “I’ve been downsized. I was a top salesman and now I can’t sell a dollar bill for 50 cents. I’ve never been so miserable in my whole life.” And as we talked, I found out his father had died when he was only seven. I learned how a loving mother had shielded him the rest of his childhood and adolescent years from all pain and hardship. He told me that he had never been allowed to play any violent sport - “Mother was afraid I’d get hurt.” And as we talked he began to understand why he was filled with such grief and self-pity. He began to realize he had spent a lifetime expecting to be cared for - by his mother, by his family and later by his business. Even expecting to being taken care of totally, completely by his God, without ever doing very much to help himself.
Before he left my office we read together Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
This scripture that he had heard many times now shouted at his senses and he got the message. Daily he now repeats it and he always pauses over the first five words - I can do all things…. He has finally learned that having first knelt in prayer, he must also stand on his own two feet.
(Thoughts added to each Monday and Thursday)
Grief is a wall that blocks out the sunshine, a weight that makes us weigh a thousand pounds. Someone we love dies or gives out the words "I want a divorce" and at that moment singes the air. One day there is health and the next day sickness and frustrated, in denial, angry we wonder how and if we can survive.
And what is God’s special solace? “It is the gift of being that allows us to laugh in the face of time and bow in awe at the opening of Eternity.” (anonymous) And we read the words and all is not instantly well but we have taken the first step of a trip that can "yes" sometimes be a trip of a thousand miles. But we have taken a step forward...and that is what counts.
And as we journey, carrying our emotional burden, we can help ourselves so very much by reaching out to help others, even offering to help someone carry theirs. To give when it is the last thing we are in the mood to do. We who are seeking understanding giving it as well. To search out another anguished soul and say "If I can do something please let me know" and then following through with the offer.
In other words, move from the polite to the practical. Study the Sermon on the Mount and start building your own little hill of concern. And now we are still climbing the hill and not easily done but we are no longer climbing it alone.
More than once I have placed my hand on the shoulder of another human being bent low with hurting and said, “Weep…cry…. Slowly siphon it out of your system. Then turn and begin to walk away from your wounding. Otherwise, you but nurture a ghost that will haunt you the rest of your days.” In short, when pain and problem come, pray deeply and then deeper still, do all you can and then get on with living.
He sat before me – a forty-year-old who looked sixty. He began to share, “I’ve been downsized. I was a top salesman and now I can’t sell a dollar bill for 50 cents. I’ve never been so miserable in my whole life.” And as we talked, I found out his father had died when he was only seven. I learned how a loving mother had shielded him the rest of his childhood and adolescent years from all pain and hardship. He told me that he had never been allowed to play any violent sport - “Mother was afraid I’d get hurt.” And as we talked he began to understand why he was filled with such grief and self-pity. He began to realize he had spent a lifetime expecting to be cared for - by his mother, by his family and later by his business. Even expecting to being taken care of totally, completely by his God, without ever doing very much to help himself.
Before he left my office we read together Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
This scripture that he had heard many times now shouted at his senses and he got the message. Daily he now repeats it and he always pauses over the first five words - I can do all things…. He has finally learned that having first knelt in prayer, he must also stand on his own two feet.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
A Tribute to THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN
(These thoughts are added to each Monday and Thursday)
The Bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln is now upon us. All during 2009 there will be many national celebrations. Many secular historians will ignore or mute the spiritual nature of this 16th President of the United States. Therefore, some emphasis needs to be made as to the moral absolutes that drove the man and the sense of humor and sense of God that under girded his days.
A Tribute to THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Who was Lincoln, the man? All the hours he spent in church listening to sermons certainly had their influence. There is no record of his first heavenly appeal, but it is well established that he believed prayer is a conduit that reaches the heart of heaven.
His Godly upbringing and constant quoting of the scriptures throughout his life gave ample and potent proof that this was a man comfortable with the Almighty. How else could he say and mean, “He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.” Or “It is the duty of nations as well as men, to owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God.”
When a president continues to think and speak this way, often commenting on sin and mercy more like a preacher than a politician, it is worth scrutinizing this element in his life. When Abe swore on the Bible to uphold the Constitution, the faith he brought with him helped him to honestly support the five reference to God found in the Declaration of Independence; supreme Lawmaker, Creator, Source of certain unalienable rights, world’s supreme Judge and Protector on whom we can rely. It is not that an atheist or agnostic could not pay lip service to these; it is just that an obvious lack of enthusiasm would make its mark.
It is not just that he mentioned prayers on such a regular basis, but how comfortable he was in doing it. “I invite the people of the United States…to invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit…” It is well to remember that the man behind this national proclamation also wrote that he had a solemn oath registered in heaven to finish his work. And why not? This, after all, was a man who at Gettysburg, with generals and other men of good counsel all around, still fell to his knees and thereby, found “sweet comfort” creeping into his soul.
As the Civil War continued he would say more than once, “My concern is not whether God is on our side. My great concern is to be on God’s side.” Was Lincoln, before he died, overly proud that he had so much to do with the preserving of the Union? It is more likely that he quoted once again words of one of his favorite poets, William Knox, “Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?”
This child of the wilderness had had no city lights to mute the stars or compete with moonlight. He had watched his own growing, side by side with all the other growing things in field and forest. It seemed natural to him to ponder that human life must be more of mind, and soul a reality.
Though six-foot four and weighing one hundred eighty-four pounds, Abraham Lincoln was never too big for his long legged britches. He was not overly impressed with himself, but always impressed by the works of the Almighty.
In his growing up he knew little of the thin two hundred square mile strip of civilization hugging the eastern coast. He would, of course, live and die there one day, this man who would travel so far from the wilderness to Washington. Would travel, but never alone, for his was a soul attuned to heaven.
The Bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln is now upon us. All during 2009 there will be many national celebrations. Many secular historians will ignore or mute the spiritual nature of this 16th President of the United States. Therefore, some emphasis needs to be made as to the moral absolutes that drove the man and the sense of humor and sense of God that under girded his days.
A Tribute to THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Who was Lincoln, the man? All the hours he spent in church listening to sermons certainly had their influence. There is no record of his first heavenly appeal, but it is well established that he believed prayer is a conduit that reaches the heart of heaven.
His Godly upbringing and constant quoting of the scriptures throughout his life gave ample and potent proof that this was a man comfortable with the Almighty. How else could he say and mean, “He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.” Or “It is the duty of nations as well as men, to owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God.”
When a president continues to think and speak this way, often commenting on sin and mercy more like a preacher than a politician, it is worth scrutinizing this element in his life. When Abe swore on the Bible to uphold the Constitution, the faith he brought with him helped him to honestly support the five reference to God found in the Declaration of Independence; supreme Lawmaker, Creator, Source of certain unalienable rights, world’s supreme Judge and Protector on whom we can rely. It is not that an atheist or agnostic could not pay lip service to these; it is just that an obvious lack of enthusiasm would make its mark.
It is not just that he mentioned prayers on such a regular basis, but how comfortable he was in doing it. “I invite the people of the United States…to invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit…” It is well to remember that the man behind this national proclamation also wrote that he had a solemn oath registered in heaven to finish his work. And why not? This, after all, was a man who at Gettysburg, with generals and other men of good counsel all around, still fell to his knees and thereby, found “sweet comfort” creeping into his soul.
As the Civil War continued he would say more than once, “My concern is not whether God is on our side. My great concern is to be on God’s side.” Was Lincoln, before he died, overly proud that he had so much to do with the preserving of the Union? It is more likely that he quoted once again words of one of his favorite poets, William Knox, “Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?”
This child of the wilderness had had no city lights to mute the stars or compete with moonlight. He had watched his own growing, side by side with all the other growing things in field and forest. It seemed natural to him to ponder that human life must be more of mind, and soul a reality.
Though six-foot four and weighing one hundred eighty-four pounds, Abraham Lincoln was never too big for his long legged britches. He was not overly impressed with himself, but always impressed by the works of the Almighty.
In his growing up he knew little of the thin two hundred square mile strip of civilization hugging the eastern coast. He would, of course, live and die there one day, this man who would travel so far from the wilderness to Washington. Would travel, but never alone, for his was a soul attuned to heaven.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
YOU OR A FRIEND JUST LOST YOUR JOB? WHAT TO DO!
(These thoughts are changed each Monday and Thursday)
First, remember you do now have a new job and that is looking for your new job.
Therefore, be on time for your new job just like you were for the job you just lost. One is prone to lay in bed half the morning giving into the blues but getting up and getting dressed certainly beats slumping in front of the TV in one’s bathrobe.
Once dressed up and ready to go…GO! Let the world know what they are missing. And on the way home stop by the library and pick up some good books on job hunting.
And, oh yes, memorize a new positive statement to start out each day with. Here a few for starters.
“Tonight when it is dark and maybe your thoughts are darker, look up at the sky and find a star…then note that all around it is darkness but it never notices…it is too busy making light.”
“Defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it.”
“Success is due less to ability than it is to zeal.”
First, remember you do now have a new job and that is looking for your new job.
Therefore, be on time for your new job just like you were for the job you just lost. One is prone to lay in bed half the morning giving into the blues but getting up and getting dressed certainly beats slumping in front of the TV in one’s bathrobe.
Once dressed up and ready to go…GO! Let the world know what they are missing. And on the way home stop by the library and pick up some good books on job hunting.
And, oh yes, memorize a new positive statement to start out each day with. Here a few for starters.
“Tonight when it is dark and maybe your thoughts are darker, look up at the sky and find a star…then note that all around it is darkness but it never notices…it is too busy making light.”
“Defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it.”
“Success is due less to ability than it is to zeal.”
Sunday, February 1, 2009
CONFUSION...GO AWAY! (6th in series)
(New additions are made each Monday and Thursday)
Are you the victim of other people’s bitterness or ignorance? Remember things could be worse – and your attitude could be one of them. Also, link on to this thought; a rich person is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least.
Do you want to be happy? Do you want God in your life? They really are the same question. I’m not saying that knowing God will get you everything you want, but it will help you to more appreciate everything you do have. I know that if you feed your mind with the truth of God, your heart with the love of God, and devote your will to the purpose of God you will find a peace that passeth understanding. And that will surpass anything you had before.
From the cradle to the grave is a long journey. Its beginning is a miracle. Its ending a mystery. It is also an education. It is also a challenge. Someone has said that, “Life is a grindstone. It either grinds a man or woman down or polishes him up. It depends on the stuff heor she is made of.” And I would add, seeks to be made of.
Part of a poem from the Sanskrit reads, “….today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.”
Your Christianity, and mine, is a lifestyle. It has in it the thrill of victory and the joy of over-coming defeats. It is a mindset that sets the thermostat of the soul to God control. It shouts with an overwhelming faith that God can improve the climate of our lives. If we have done our homework and know the gospel, it gives us beautiful visions that give us glory in return.
With a little imagination we can picture Galilee at the close of a day and see Jesus surrounded by the sick, the blind, the maimed and the weary. We can see and feel His heavenly wisdom. We can revel in His insights that guilt can weigh a thousand pounds without forgiveness. That grief can stain the brightest day with bitterness. That temptation sucks the goodness out of a man until he can sin without remorse.
If we quietly listen, we can hear our Jesus say, “Come unto me… come unto me….” And if we come unto Him, we know we are then more whole and well than we could otherwise ever be.
Then, like an old French saint we can sit quietly at the end of the day and in answer to a question “What are you doing?” reply, “I am just looking to the Lord and feel Him looking back at me.”
Let these words speak to you on days when you would stumble in confusion; broken down and not sure how to makes things well. And then…take the time to call in the Master Mechanic who knows what makes you tick and can improve the ticking.
Are you the victim of other people’s bitterness or ignorance? Remember things could be worse – and your attitude could be one of them. Also, link on to this thought; a rich person is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least.
Do you want to be happy? Do you want God in your life? They really are the same question. I’m not saying that knowing God will get you everything you want, but it will help you to more appreciate everything you do have. I know that if you feed your mind with the truth of God, your heart with the love of God, and devote your will to the purpose of God you will find a peace that passeth understanding. And that will surpass anything you had before.
From the cradle to the grave is a long journey. Its beginning is a miracle. Its ending a mystery. It is also an education. It is also a challenge. Someone has said that, “Life is a grindstone. It either grinds a man or woman down or polishes him up. It depends on the stuff heor she is made of.” And I would add, seeks to be made of.
Part of a poem from the Sanskrit reads, “….today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope.”
Your Christianity, and mine, is a lifestyle. It has in it the thrill of victory and the joy of over-coming defeats. It is a mindset that sets the thermostat of the soul to God control. It shouts with an overwhelming faith that God can improve the climate of our lives. If we have done our homework and know the gospel, it gives us beautiful visions that give us glory in return.
With a little imagination we can picture Galilee at the close of a day and see Jesus surrounded by the sick, the blind, the maimed and the weary. We can see and feel His heavenly wisdom. We can revel in His insights that guilt can weigh a thousand pounds without forgiveness. That grief can stain the brightest day with bitterness. That temptation sucks the goodness out of a man until he can sin without remorse.
If we quietly listen, we can hear our Jesus say, “Come unto me… come unto me….” And if we come unto Him, we know we are then more whole and well than we could otherwise ever be.
Then, like an old French saint we can sit quietly at the end of the day and in answer to a question “What are you doing?” reply, “I am just looking to the Lord and feel Him looking back at me.”
Let these words speak to you on days when you would stumble in confusion; broken down and not sure how to makes things well. And then…take the time to call in the Master Mechanic who knows what makes you tick and can improve the ticking.
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