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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.
GO
TO NEIL’S OTHER BLOG ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS and read the following
brain teasers. CLICK ON URL BELOW
(A
contiinuation)
How
often have you said or heard, “Why can’t we just get along
with each other?”
And
it was a sigh, or it was a cry, and sometimes it was truly an agony.
Is the answer PRIDE?
All
the people in the world who have dedicated their lives to being important
....who
one day will be terribly disappointed to wake up and realize they really
are not the center of the Universe.
You’ve met
this kind of individual, and God willing you are not one of them. The kind of person who truly believes they are the greatest
and wisest on any subject, anywhere and anytime.
The kind of
person one philosopher wrote about when he penned, “People wrapped up in themselves make very small packages.”
Do you remember the last time you had a
first class conflict was it because, with all
your wisdom, you were trying to control someone else and they just didn’t want
to be controlled?
Or was it
perhaps when someone tried to let you know you had just made a mistake and that
it was going to get you in serious
trouble if you didn't correct it? How
dare them?
Hm! Think on this:
If you correct a wise man, he will be wiser.
Correct a fool and he will only
get mad.
WHY CAN’T WE GET ALONG?
Because sometimes we just don’t know how to
accomplish this seeming impossibility. Or we really don’t want to learn
how.
I have a suggestion – If there is bad blood
between you and another individual, ask the object of your conflict emotions to
become a prayer partner.
Now that may indeed seem an extreme course of action. It may well be difficult to achieve…but if you have someone you are
always having conflicts with and ask them to be your prayer partner there’s no
way to go but up!
That’s right…it’s hard to have an ongoing conflict with someone who is praying for you
while you are praying for them.
Well now, have you ever sat at a meeting table or at a
family dining table and sent a frown of disapproval at someone who just dared
to disagree with you?
It happens elsewhere
and everywhere…at the hearthstone…in
the workplace…it happens at meetings in churches…and
definitely in the halls of government.
It happens anywhere there are two or more people who are
disagreeing.
Talking and
seldom listening.
Back in my younger piano
playing days I used to play duets.
It was fun
and really quite beautiful…two people playing at the same time but dedicated to
blending..
blending because we were listening carefully to each other.
If one of us, with our ego showing, had decided we wanted to be
heard above the other, all we would have had to do was start
playing in a completely different key
or tempo or crescendo. Anything that just didn’t harmonize
with what the other person was playing and
thereby create a musical conflict.
Immediately we would
have switched from beautiful music to just discordant
noise.
But that’s what we do
all the time…work at cross purposes…and mess up our lives with a
lot of emotional, discordant noise.
WHY CAN’T WE GET ALONG?
Because not enough
people communicate but rather become dramatists acting as if they are paying
attention.
In the comic strip PEANUTS, Lucy walks into a room and demands
that Linus change TV channels and threatens him with her fist if he doesn’t.
“What makes you think you can walk right in here and take
over?” asks
Linus.
“These five fingers,” says Lucy.
“Individually they’re nothing but when I curl them
together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to
behold.”
“Which channel do you want?” asks
Linus.
Turning away, he looks at his fingers and says, “Why can’t you guys
get organized like that?”
But so often we do organize as a fist rather than an extended
hand of fellowship and friendship…
and we do not often enough offer the gift of reconciliation… and the
rough edges of anger take over.
And Jesus, speaking
to the crowd on that Sermon on the Mount mountain, sent out a message of
patient peace…a message of anti-conflict . “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at
the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave
your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23)
+++++++++
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Recent
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·
Here Comes Summer (July 2012)
·
Spring
(May 2012)
·
Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow (April 2012)
·
Wayward and Windy (April 2012)
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