Wyrick's Writings/Life Is Not What It Is But What You Make It

Anxiety is a mildew on the mind. A fungus fed by negative thinking. An ability to think it is dark at high noon. A freeze framing of the worst life has to offer. No one lives without some of these dark blotches of despair. The skies cave in on both skinny and well fed souls. At an emotional weigh-in we all come up with unwanted pangs and pains.

However, we are most successful in handling our anxieties when We learn; when to conquer, when to cope, and when to cooperate. Our anxiety level is only heightened when we don't know which lifestyle to apply.

In attempting to conquer, you might consider two characters in the Chinese language that are used to describe a crisis. One means "disaster," the other "opportunity."

The best way to overcome a personal disaster is to consider it as an opportunity to go forward. Plan to

run a race, and you break a leg? That qualifies as a disaster. So, organize a wheel chair contest. That is making an opportunity. Take a shattered dream, pick up the pieces and make a mosaic.

In trying to cope, we may toss out psychological one liners such as the young man about to receive an artificial eye, "Hey, doc, when you put in my new eye, be sure you put one in with a twinkle in it." Or, we may use semi-comic descriptions such as, "My mind has been going 'round in circles wearing holes in my brain." A sense of humor is undoubtedly a friend.

. But then there are times when we can neither conquer or cope. When resignation needs to kick in. When we have to admit that we are creating more anxiety by trying too hard to vanquish that which cannot be vanquished. At such times it helps to try to cooperate with the inevitable.

“WHICH IS BETTER TO BE? A WINDOW OR A DOOR” ” “BE A RAINBOW SEARCHER AND FINDER” “IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION?

Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN HIS WORLD FAMOUS

ONE MAN DRAMATIZATIONS OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

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 Lincoln film takes 11 seconds to download but is worth the wait)

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING

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

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM’S Kindle

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

TWO JOLLY GREEN GIANTS (2nd in series)

If you would like to share this blog with a friend, go to the bottom and click on the TELL A FRIEND

We can find glory in the fact that there are thousands more stories like those I have told this morning…and there will be thousands more in the years to come…

Tiny but major moments of miracle dust filling the air and giving us hope, for life is about momentum …about how we can affect the world in such positive ways when we cease to act like petulant children and give our better selves a chance to shine.

We cannot change the whole world…but we can change our little piece of it.

It takes courage to love and forgive in a world that puts up so many barriers…in a world that still is willing to enslave politically and economically.

It takes courage to speak up with love and forgiveness when the status quo says we should hate another man or woman…and we are given the reasons we cannot do otherwise… if we are to be accepted ourselves.

Anger is everywhere and far too often, but if we are to truly claim Christ as our Savior, we must recognize it for what it is and do all we can to rid ourselves and the world of it.

Have you ever paid a visit to a home and even though the husband and wife were smiling and pleasant, you could feel an undertone of strife?

Or visited a home where the ambience was definitely loving and cheerful, and you were keenly aware of it?

Visit some churches and you can feel an undertone

of strife.

Visit others and you can feel an undertone of love.

Visit a church filled with pouting pettiness and you visit a church that is dying.

Visit a church where there are constant arguments - theological, political, whatever…and you can feel it and it is a church that is dying.

Visit a church where love abounds and you can feel it and that church is on the edge of a resurrection.

I’m not saying it is a piece of cake to achieve the kind of love and forgiveness I am talking about.

If were easy, if it was second nature to us all, Jesus would not have had to give us that radical Commandment – love thy neighbor as thyself.

Radical love

This learning to love people you don’t even particularly like.

We all like some people more than others. Call it chemistry. But on the love/like chart, they come out at an 11.

And then there are others who barely make it past 5.

Which simply means that, by the grace of God, we have to work harder at liking that person who keeps giving us so many reasons not to.

Radical Forgiveness.

The kind of forgiveness that looks at our human nature and gives it a good slap in the face when it isn’t paying proper attention to the kind of forgiveness.

Christ talked about in His sermon on the mount.

Blessed forgiveness. Forgiveness that goes the extra mile and then adds even more.

The kind of forgiveness Paul is talking about in his letter to the Colossians.

“Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Colossians. 3:12-14 NIV

GO TO NEIL’S OTHER BLOG ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS and read the following brain teasers. CLICK ON URL BELOW There are over 600 stories and commentaries on this blog. It is added to daily.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

RUST ON MY SOUL (66th in series)

GO TO NEIL’S OTHER BLOG ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS and read the following brain teasers. CLICK ON URL BELOW There are over 600 stories and commentaries on this blog. It is added to daily.

THUS IS THE last of the SERIALIZATION IF YOU STARTED READING IT LATE…it was posted each week and thereafter

If you would like to share this blog with a friend, go to the bottom and click on the TELL A FRIEND
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RUST ON MY SOUL (A Novel) (Published by Bridge Press in 1985 & Distributed Internationally)

INTRODUCTION (Repeated for those new to the series)

In an old loose leaf notebook, Thomas Kettering wrote when there was a cry from his heart. He wrote when his inner longing spilled over into the reality of his days. He did not write every day, only when he felt he must. How often he wrote or when is not important. The journey is what counts, for it is a diary about all of us, to all of us. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and even a stumble is a step.

Evening

I drove by the state prison this morning on my way to a new franchise we opened in Johnson City. I knew it was there, I'd just never been by it before.

A place of bars and chain fences and barbed wire.

I watched the inmates walk from nowhere to nowhere. Parole? For some no more than a short future away. And when the gates open, who will walk out? The same man who went in? Ifso, he will soon return, a prisoner never really free. A prisoner without hope.

I thought, "that was I." For so long, I was a prisoner without hope. Never really free. The walls of my ego fenced me in. The walls of my anger against God holding me back. The walls of peer pressure, even at my age, restricting freedom at every turn.

But not now. Free now to love God. Free to fall and be promptly lifted up, forgiven. Free to run before the winds of higher ethics with God shouting, "Go, my child. Give it your best. Give it your all."

Evening

The pitting is not gone. The critical etchings, a reminder of my yesterdays, will always be with me, but the corrosion that took the shine from my soul has all but disappeared.

This will be my last entry. My musings have served their purpose. I have cried, shouted, cursed, moaned. Here, in this journal, I found a place to stare at myself with intrepid honesty, to seek to rebuild without illusion.

I may pick up these pages-some day-should my wanderings need a road map again. I cannot say I now completely understand me, or God, or His world, or heaven above. But God understands, and that's enough for me.

To be continued

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“WHICH IS BETTER TO BE? A WINDOW OR A DOOR” ” “BE A RAINBOW SEARCHER AND FINDER” “IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION?

Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN HIS WORLD FAMOUS

ONE MAN DRAMATIZATIONS OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING

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

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM’S Kindle

Thursday, July 24, 2014

60 PLUS AND NOT HOLDING (The Anxiety of Being Human)

GO TO NEIL’S OTHER BLOG ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS and read the following brain teasers. CLICK ON URL BELOW There are over 600 stories and commentaries on this blog. It is added to daily.

ANXIETY

A condition of apprehension in varying degrees, resulting from imaging the worst

" ........ Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" Matthew 6:27 (NIV)

THE ANXIETY OF BEING HUMAN

We will call him Tom Renick. He was sixty years old when he first came for counseling. Retired, but not a planned retirement. He looked eighty, and a weary eighty at that. "I don't know what to do," were his first words. "I no longer have a job. 1 was doing well, very well, and then in a business reoganization 1 was fired. 1 haven't been any good since. 1 was a top salesman, and now ... 1 couldn't sell a dollar bill for fifty cents."

He told me of his father dying when he was only eight, and of a loving mother who shielded him the rest of his childhood and adolescent years from all pain and hardships.

"I never climbed trees, or learned to swim. 1 never played any sports," he said. "Mother was always afraid." He went on to explain that whenever problems arose, his mother was there to solve them.

As he talked, because he was not a stupid man, he began to see how he had spent a lifetime expecting to be cared for. First by his mother, later by friends, family, then his business associates and finally by God.

While it is healthy to expect love, compassion, and concern from others,it is even more helpful if we can be standing on our own two feet when we accept them.

Was yesterday a success? Good. Be thankful! Was it a failure? Unfortunate. Learn from it! Will next week be busy, too busy, and you are worn out just thinking about it? Then don't think about it. Save your energy for doing, don't waste it by worrying.

I will not tell you I never worry. I may plan right down to the finest point and still feel concern, but I will tell you this; every ounce of worry, once I have done all I can, is a pound of foolishness.

It is not easy to turn anxieties from liabilities into assets. They have a tendency to compound themselves into nervousness and neurosis. There is a thin line between those who have conquered life or been conquered by it.

What then to do? Practical, pointed and for the sake of review.

1. Have a good physical each year. Don't fight imaginary diseases. Do fight them when they are real. The number of people who refuse to go to a doctor for fear of finding out the truth is as great as the hypochondriacs who camp on their doorsteps.

2. Take a good spiritual inventory. What you believe. What you doubt. What you do to feed your soul. What you do to make it sick.

3. Get a good purpose in life. Without it you spend your life heating but never cooking anything. And it lets you see beyond a momentary pain, making you able to bear a burden even if you know it is now yours for life.

4. When you have done all you can in every way you know to solve a problem or a pain, don't beat your head bloody and your soul ragged continuing after the impossible.

5. Believe that when one door is closed it does not mean all doors are closed. All of us have moments we thought were our worst, and they turned out to be our best. Problems can give us understanding. Problems can give us insights.

6. See life through, whether it is good or bad. Let your mantra be, "Things may get rough sometimes, but I never quit."

7. Make many friends and forgive enemies.

8. A suggestion. When concern about yourself overwhelms you, start being concerned about someone else. Your mind is not capable of worrying about two or more people at once. Therefore, if you forget yourself while caring about someone else you will automatically feel better.

9. Be a person who can say, "My goal is what counts. Obstacles may slow me down, but only death will stop me. And then I am fulfilled because I did not quit." So live well, die brave.

Old age does not automatically bring maturity, sainthood and sweetness. The anxiety of being human is that from which no one entirely escapes.

WISDOM WANDERINGS

There are people who live on as bland a diet of existence as they can conceive.

They do not visit friends in hospitals because it unnerves them. They do not argue for any cause because it upsets them.

They do not run because they believe it might give them heart trouble and they do not walk because it makes them tired. They live only to get what they want with as little trouble as possible, and purposely miss what they abhor. But running away from life is a race no one should want to enter, let alone win.

Never try to chop saw dust. Chop sawdust? Ah, yes. If there is a problem tree, chop it down. But don't chop it to death.

Otherwise, you simply waste your time chopping sawdust. Which is what some people do all the time. Chopping away at the same old problems over and over. The same old saw dust. All that can be done has been done, but they go on driving themselves and everyone around them crazy.

Rather than worry yourself to death about getting older, key in on those who have aged with the glint of victory in their eyes. Emmanuel Kant at 74 wrote his finest philosophical works. John Glenn at 77 years old flew into outer space. Verdi at 80 produced Falstafff and at 85 Ave Maria. Billy Graham pushing 80 with Parkinsons disease continues to preach. Goethe at 80 completed Faust. Nelson Mandela at 79 finally retired as President of South Africa. Tennyson at 80 wrote Crossing the Bar. Micheangelo completed some of his greatest work at

87. Titian at the age of 98 painted the historic picture, Battle of Lepanto. The mind is a powerful thing .

“WHICH IS BETTER TO BE? A WINDOW OR A DOOR” ” “BE A RAINBOW SEARCHER AND FINDER” “IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION?

Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN HIS WORLD FAMOUS

ONE MAN DRAMATIZATIONS OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING

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

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM’S Kindle

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

TWO JOLLY GREEN GIANTS; LOVE AND FORGIVENESS 2nd in series

GO TO NEIL’S OTHER BLOG ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS and read the following brain teasers. CLICK ON URL BELOW There are over 600 stories and commentaries on this blog. It is added to daily.

We can find glory in the fact that there are thousands more stories like those I have told this morning…and there will be thousands more in the years to come…Tiny but major moments of miracle dust filling the air and giving us hope, for life is about momentum …about how we can affect the world in such positive ways when we cease to act like petulant children and give our better selves a chance to shine.

We cannot change the whole world…but we can change our little piece of it.

It takes courage to love and forgive in a world that puts up so many barriers…in a world that still is willing to enslave politically and economically.

Anger is everywhere and far too often, but if we are to truly claim Christ as our Savior, we must recognize it for what it is and do all we can to rid ourselves and the world of it.

Have you ever paid a visit to a home and even though the husband and wife were smiling and pleasant, you could feel an undertone of strife?

Or visited a home where the ambience was definitely loving and cheerful, and you were keenly aware of it?

Visit some churches and you can feel an undertone of strife.

Visit others and you can feel an undertone of love.

Visit a church filled with pouting pettiness and you visit a church that is dying.

Visit a church where there are constant arguments - theological, political, whatever…and you can feel it and it is a church that is dying.

Visit a church where love abounds and you can feel it and that church is on the edge of a resurrection.

I’m not saying it is a piece of cake to achieve the kind of love and forgiveness I am talking about.

If were easy, if it was second nature to us all, Jesus would not have had to give us that radical Commandment – love thy neighbor as thyself.

Radical Love!

This learning to love people you don’t even particularly like.

We all like some people more than others. Call it chemistry. But on the love/like chart, they come out at an 11.

And then there are others who barely make it past 5. Which simply means that, by the grace of God, we have to work harder at liking that person who keeps giving us so many reasons not to.

Radical Forgiveness.

The kind of forgiveness that looks at our human nature and gives it a good slap in the face when it isn’t paying proper attention to the kind of forgiveness Christ talked about in His sermon on the mount.

Blessed forgiveness. Forgiveness that goes the extra mile and then adds even more.

The kind of forgiveness Paul is talking about in his letter to the Colossians.

“Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Colossians. 3:12-14 NIV

Pure and simple, as Christians we must clothe ourselves with compassion…not with the rags of what is considered normal human behavior.

Humility rather than arrogance, gentleness rather than aggression, patience rather than being an impatient bore.

And don’t just talk about the virtues of love…but put it on…like armor…armor that glows.

Why? because that is the road to unity and anything less is the road to discord.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

“WHICH IS BETTER TO BE? A WINDOW OR A DOOR” ” “BE A RAINBOW SEARCHER AND FINDER” “IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION?

Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN HIS WORLD FAMOUS

ONE MAN DRAMATIZATIONS OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

TO WATCH NEIL WYRICK IN HIS ONE MAN DRAMAS (Presented to millions all around the world) (Ben Franklin, Martin Luther, Charles Wesley and Abraham Lincoln (this Lincoln film takes 11 seconds to download but is worth the wait)

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING

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

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM’S Kindle

Sunday, July 20, 2014

RUST ON MY SOUL (65th in series)

If you would like to share this blog with a friend, go to the bottom and click on the TELL A FRIEND

The Serialization of RUST ON MY SOUL is added to each WEEK.

RUST ON MY SOUL (A Novel) (Published by Bridge Press in 1985 & Distributed Internationally)

INTRODUCTION (Repeated for those new to the series)

In an old loose leaf notebook, Thomas Kettering wrote when there was a cry from his heart. He wrote when his inner longing spilled over into the reality of his days. He did not write every day, only when he felt he must. How often he wrote or when is not important. The journey is what counts, for it is a diary about all of us, to all of us. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and even a stumble is a step.

Afternoon

Like everyone else I have always been a creature of habit. Since I always will be I'm busy changing the habits. Many of them die hard because they've lived long. I keep walking them along the hallway of the King and at each corner they pick up more golden dust of improvement. I pause for prayer and my habits are touched by these moments of praise. I gather gospel truths and my habits are not unaware. I stop often at a treasure chest filled with God's promises:

But my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches (Phillipians 4: 19).

The Holy Spirit is given to those that obey (Acts 5:32).

So also the Lord can rescue you and me from the temptations that surround us (2 Peter 2:9).

I can't believe all this is happening to me. I'm frightened and elated by the change. Born again. Birth is such a raging miracle all bursting with wonder. Always new and challenging and filled with such exultation that all the billions of births before still cannot dull.

And rebirth. God's rebirth that touches the human soul with such great simplicity. All my words pile up, stumbling against each other as I try to make them say just how it is I feel.

Evening

"These Greyhound buses are much nicer since they put wings on them." My fellow passenger had a sense of humor. The hours in flight passed quickly as we discussed jobs, politics, and the state of the world community. We traded problems and he remarked, "I feel like a walking soap opera." His tired eyes wrinkled above a wry smile.

And we found we shared God as a common bulwark. We Christians are not a dying breed.

And what set me off this time in this explosion of introspective thoughts? The using up of my week's quota of "damn's" when I dropped my briefcase on my foot? I'm working at eliminating curses from my vocabulary and finding it a habit that sets too easily on the tip of my tongue.

Oh, Lord, please have more patience with me than I have with myself.

To be continued

GO TO NEIL’S OTHER BLOG ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS and read the following brain teasers. CLICK ON URL BELOW There are over 600 stories and commentaries on this blog. It is added to daily.

“WHICH IS BETTER TO BE? A WINDOW OR A DOOR” ” “BE A RAINBOW SEARCHER AND FINDER” “IS YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION?

Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN HIS WORLD FAMOUS

ONE MAN DRAMATIZATIONS OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING

ALREADY STARTED 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 OF THE SUGGESTIONS IN THIS BOOK ARE GOOD FOR IMPROVING ONE’S LIFE AT 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

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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Below is a quote from Wyrick’s writings blog entitled ANGER VS. PATIENCE
“After the old man had departed, God called out to Abraham and asked where the stranger was. Abraham replied, “I sent him on his way because he did not worship you.”

God answered “I have suffered him all his eighty years although he dishonors me. Could you not endure for just one night?”

God suffers us, endures us! And forgives us and loves us and sets such a perfect example for us.”

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BELOW IS A QUOTE FROM THE SERIES “A HEAVENLY CONSTRUCTION PROGRAM” …(1st in series) (on this Wyrick’s Writing blog)

“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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BELOW IS A QUOTE FROM A SERIES “Depression…the Alien Within” on this Wyrick’s Writings …each WEEK

”Sometimes the best thing do, if depression descends on you, is for a little while to try to wipe clean the slate of your worried mind. To give such thoughts some muted silence. Seek an emotional whiteout. Just let the soft breeze of nothingness blow for a while. And then, read John 14:27 and hear Jesus saying, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

“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.”

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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