TOO SMART FOR OUR OWN GOOD

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“Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have
lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

I no longer remember who wrote this but I often remind myself not to forget these lines for they lead me to think on yet another cliché/…”You can be too smart for your own good.”
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A New Series on PAIN AND PROBLEMS

began on this blog “Wyrick’s Writings”

 and will continue until finished.

Then a new Series on PRAYER will begin..

Click on the following URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/
****************************************************************

RUST ON MY SOUL (26th episode in series)

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

 

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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.

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Evening

Nancy announced at the dinner table tonight that she had found a job and would start work Monday. I was shocked. I knew she hadn’t given u the idea but I wasn’t sure she had been trying to find anything since Connie ran away.

She had a list of rational arguments; if something happened to me our finances would fold inward and self-destruct; she had too much time to think and worry about Connie; and it isn’t as if she’d spent that much more time away from home, just an exchange of club and committee obligations for job requirements.

“I need to be fulfilled,” she argued in conclusion.’

“I don’t want my wife working,” I said. I feel impotent. I am the sole breadwinner in this family. I know there are plenty of women who work these days, but that’s not the point. I try to burnish up the old proofs, but there never was much shine to them anyway. So it’s a waste of time.

It is an emotional tennis match. If I work at it long enough I guess I’ll be able to put side my male ego and come to grips with the situation. I really do see Nancy’s point o view.

I think that in the long run it’ll do her good to get away from the house and its painful memories. The problem is I’m afraid that once she’s out there in the business world she may really like it.

Now why should that threaten me? I’ve always known she was smart and been proud of it. I’ve always been pleased that she’d kept her figure and didn’t look her age. Why can’t I be proud of this accomplishment , too?

If she has other things to think about, maybe she won’t spend so much time nagging about our disintegrating marriage. That’s not fair. Her verbalizing is minimal but what I read in her eyes and posture is eloquent enough.

 

Isn’t it strange? I find it a positive attribute that I spend time and I thought poring over yesterday, today and tomorrow, but don’t really care for it in Nancy. Strange…

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TO BE CONTINUED (If You Missed the beginning on Tuesday April 13th
GO BACK AND CATCH UP

A New Series on PAIN AND PROBLEMS
began on this blog “Wyrick’s Writings”

the 2nd in series..........

and will continue until finished.

Then a new Series on PRAYER will begin..

********************************************************
To view an abundance of unusual stories by Neil Wyrick go to his other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

 

Click on the following URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

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PAIN AND PROBLEMS (4TH IN SERIES)

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Sometimes when I have sought to succeed where I was not sure I was right in the pursuit of a particular success I have prayed, “Lord, if I have made a bad choice…please let me fail.” And thank God, and that is a prayer, He has answered what I call “another one of my failure prayers.” And saved me from myself.

And then there are times when failure has come looking for me…the same that has happened to others…and a stumble became a fall that became a disaster that became a roaring success story.

Tragedy and triumph walked hand in hand to meet and greet Ludwig Van Beethoven.

As he conducted his famous Ninth Symphony, the audience stood and rocked the theater with their applause. This great musician, however, heard neither the music nor the applause, because by this time in his life…he was completely stone deaf.

His deafness first made him bitter but then heroic and it came through in his music. Many of his musician friends found a new depth and intensity “there is triumph in his music that never was there before” said one musical critic.

When three year old Louie Braille blinded himself while boring holes with an awl in his father’s harness shop, it seemed a senseless tragedy.

However, because Braille was blind; for over one hundred years the blind have been able to read.

Helen Keller was born deaf, dumb and blind and yet was able to say when finally she overcame the impossible “I thank God for my handicaps, for through them I have found myself, my work and my God.”

I am sure Beethoven, Braille and Helen Keller did not adapt to their pain and problems overnight. Nor did I when my arm remained paralyzed for far too long after a hang gliding accident in 1982.

It took time; sleepless nights and agonizing days. But new insights finally did come to call, and new understanding.

Spiritual victories come out of the cauldron of eternity, and into it are fed the will of our God and the desires of our days. And when they are in conflict; that is when we have to take a deep breath and pray a deeper prayer that sums it all up, “Thy will be done.”

We certainly don’t want to pray, “My way, God, or the highway.”

To view an abundance of unusual, motivating stories by Neil Wyrick go to his other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

Click on the following URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/
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This New Series on PAIN AND PROBLEMS
began on this blog “Wyrick’s Writings”

and will continue until finished.

Then a new Series on PRAYER will begin..
***************************************************************

MERCY IS GOOD MANNERS WITH A SMILE ON IT’S SOUL

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How often do you stop and consider that almost anyone you meet on the street is better than you at something; mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually (at least in one of these areas)…more of a scientific or mathematical bend, more kind, more patient, more intuitive in their dealing with people…they may have a personality so cold they could win a refrigeration contest but beneath that insecurity beats a heart that cares and may even propel them to do many unpublished good and kindly deeds.

In short, pray for each individual you meet and each individual you already know that their secret better qualities will every day be enhanced. It is not required that you ever find out what or who they really are…it is required that you pray these secret qualities will daily improve.

Whether they have pleased you or irritated you on this new day you owe it to them and yourself to think highly of them. Indeed, to be in constant critical mode is to be constantly depressed. This is just me talking but several psychological tests run recently.

And don’t claim difficulty…that is not the point…seek opportunity…even if it is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Mercy is good manners with a smile on one’s soul. It looks for a trace or an abundance of sunshine with equal vigor. It is as much a victim of criticizing as the person being criticized.

Benjamin Franklin went for the jugular vein when he said, “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.”

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Ephesians 4:29
“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

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To view an abundance of unusual stories

by Neil Wyrick go to his other blog

ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

Click on the following URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/


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RUST ON MY SOUL (25th episode in series)

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For Neil's "One a Day Your Spiritual Vitamins"

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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.

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(What matters is not what tomorrow brings but what you bring to tomorrow or as one philosopher put it, “Achievement is in the soul of man and not in his circumstances.”)********************************************
Late night

Never have so many people been categorized in so many ways by so many. Everything has been reduced to statistics.

How else would we know how to act? Between being told what we are doing and what we should do we are no longer free. We are a land of the enslaved reaching up and out from a valley of discontent.

Madison Avenue is not new as a tyrant, just more sophisticate. It has created a nation of lamenters afraid to make up their own minds.

“The Suburban Woman” is how Nancy refers to herself, and reads another book or another magazine article, or listens to yet another talk show so she will not fall behind in the ongoing description of her role in life.

Am I any better? How often do I give in? Flow with the tide? Read the statistics? Even when I paddle my own canoe, don’t I make sure my paddle is not one of the inferior brands?

Evening

I’m a businessman and the way I see it there is a spiritual currency called salvation, a human weakness called sin, and an eternal obligation that can only be paid by this medium of exchange.
There. The cover blurb for my spiritual prospectus. Cute? Clever? Concise?

Do I mean it? It’s probably true, but to me it’s still just words.
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Wordsworth wrote “We live by admiration.”
Maybe you never thought of admiring your Lord, but think about it.
Try admiring his strength on the cross, His wisdom while He taught, His patience while He lived and His depth of character which placed Him head, soul and shoulders above all other men.
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TO BE CONTINUED To view an abundance of unusual stories by Neil Wyrick go to his other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

Click on the following

URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com

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PAIN AND PROBLEMS (3rd in Series)

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God is love and…
Some people in pain just don’t …just won’t believe it.
They believe in God - but they just don’t believe He is good.
They’ve seen the good die and the bad prosper.

They’ve seen the strong devour the weak.

They’ve seen too much suffering and pain and they cry out into the night, “If God is love, then why must there be so much that is unlovely?”

Well, needless to say, I’m not going to solve the paradox of problem and pain all in one Sabbath notation. But I am going to talk to the paradox and categorically state that I personally believe in a loving God.

I believe He knows what He is doing and He does nothing without reason. After all, he sees a total picture and we only a pixel or two.

I believe that what confuses me, as a child of God, is understood with infinite wisdom by my eternal heavenly Father.

I believe these things not with a blind faith that will not ask questions, but with a strong faith that admits I will never have all the answers.

Let me tell you a story.
Once a man built a weather vane. He then set it up on top of his barn in full sight of any and all who traveled the well-worn road that weaved through his farm lands.

Then underneath the weather vane, he placed a plaque that read, GOD IS LOVE.
His neighbors, and even a few strangers, stopped by to comment, “Why did you put ‘God is love’ beneath your weather vane.”

“Ah, now” the farmer would always reply, “I just wanted to emphasize that God is love no matter which way the wind blows.”

How does that scripture go? “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8)

John Greenleaf Whittier, the famous American poet, put it this way:

I see the wrong that round me lies,
I feel the guilt within;
I hear with groan and travail-cries,
The world confess its sin.

Yet in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit slings;
I know that God is good!
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air.
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.

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To view an abundance of unusual stories by Neil Wyrick go to his other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

Click on the following URL http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/
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WHAT IS COMMITMENT?

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Commitment requires four definite steps; Confession, Contrition, Reparation and Amendment.

Confession says, “I have sinned.”

Contrition says, “I am sorry.”

Reparation says, “I will try to right the wrong.”

And Amendment says, “I will let yesterday’s sin teach me for a better tomorrow.”
Commitment says “What I am demands God as He is; nothing else will do.”

Alstair McLean wrote that if we could hold to God’s promises with one-fiftieth of the faith we profess, we would shout with a song of triumph, cry with the wind and march as one, shoulder to shoulder, and friend to friend.

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To view an abundance of unusual stories by Neil Wyrick go to his other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

Click on the following URL

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/

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