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.
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TO NEIL’S OTHER BLOG ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS and read inspiring
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BELOW
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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·
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