Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 9 – No. 0907 March 03, 2007
Thought for the week: "What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight—it's the size of the fight in the dog." – Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to keep." – Scott Adams
"If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude." – Colin Powell, statesman
"Courage means to keep working on a relationship, to continue seeking solutions to difficult problems, and to stay focused during stressful periods." – Denis Waitley
"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit." – Albert Schweitzer
"Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell." – Author Unknown
"God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer." – Mother Teresa
"There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence transform a yellow spot into the sun." – Pablo Picasso
For years my husband denied he was an aggressive driver. That changed one day when we were out for a ride with our three-year-old, Matthew. Seeing a teaching opportunity, I began quizzing Matthew about traffic lights.
"What does a red light mean?" I asked.
"Stop."
"How about green?"
"Go."
"And yellow?"
In his best impression of Daddy, Matthew bellowed, "Hang on!"
For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge you never walk alone.
We leave you a tradition of the future. The tender loving care of human beings will never become obsolete.
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, redeemed and redeemed and redeemed. Never throw anyone away.
Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.
As you grow older, you'll discover that you have two hands: One for helping yourself, the second for helping others.
You have great days still ahead of you. May there be many of them.1
In the early days of World War II, Winston Churchill called Britain's coal miners together...
A great crisis had arisen. The miners were not getting out enough coal to fuel the factories that produced the planes, ships, etc., so desperately needed.
When the Prime Minister arose he said, "I want to give it to you straight—nothing! Two hundred guns, no more! Twenty tanks, that's all! I heard he (Hitler) was coming with a million men, and I said to myself, 'The British Navy will put five hundred thousand of them to the bottom of the channel, but what will we do with half a million of them ashore?'"
For an hour and forty minutes he outlined the desperate situation confronting Britain. Then in stirring language he said, "When at last it is all over, we'll parade these streets again and as you go by people will call out, 'And where were you?' Someone will answer, 'I marched with the Eighth Army,' and someone else will say,' I was in the skies over Britain.' Another will reply, 'I was in the Merchant Marines pushing the ships through the sea up to Archangel.' Then I shall be standing there and I will call out, 'Where were you?' I will hear you answer, 'We were down in the black pits right up against the face of the coal." Then, thousands of coal miners arose and with tears streaming down their faces, cheered the Prime Minister, and the coal came out! They had caught a fresh vision of the importance of their work.1
Thought: When at last it is all over for us, we will parade the streets of Heaven. And it may be that someone will call out, "And where were you?" Many impressive answers may be given, but none more satisfying than to say, "I was in ______ teaching the Gospel of Christ."
C.S. Lewis, in his book, Mere Christianity, makes the following statement about Jesus: "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg—or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us."
An old joke tells of a construction worker who looked at the sandwich in his lunch box and complained, "Baloney again. I hate baloney!"
Trying to be helpful, a coworker suggested, "If you hate it so much, why don't you ask your wife to make you something else?"
The man replied, "My wife didn't make it. I did."
The sandwich is a metaphor for the things we repetitively do to ourselves that undermine, rather than enrich, our lives. People who make themselves baloney sandwiches and then act like victims when it's time to eat them are like the fellow who killed his parents and then asked the court for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.
When Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, he could have been thinking of all the people who disable their good sense, abandon their values and high standards and ignore their experience by getting involved in baloney-sandwich relationships.
For some, it's the injured bird they want to heal or the bad seed they think they can reform. Others are irresistibly attracted to people who are unavailable, either because they're married or constitutionally unwilling to make commitments. Still others are attracted to manipulative, unkind, even violent mates.
Whether the driving force is low self-esteem ("This is the best I can get"), loneliness ("A bad relationship is better than no relationship"), physical attraction ("At least the sex is good") or an ill-fated rescue mentality ("I can change him/her"), the pattern of choice is self-defeating.
The solution is to take control of your life. Stay away from toxic and dysfunctional people and find those who help you feel proud, content and worthy. Settle for nothing less.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?"1
"You probably read about Paddy who was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place.
"Looking up to heaven he said, 'Lord take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of me life and give up me Irish Whiskey.
"Miraculously, a parking place appeared.
"Paddy looked up again and said, 'Never mind, I found one.'"2
While we make jokes about such things, I wonder how often I pray, God answers, and I forget to say thank you ... or fail to even see that God has answered my prayer because it wasn't in the way that I wanted or expected it to be.
The fact is, when my prayer is sincere from the heart, God always hears and answers it. Sometimes the answer is "Yes," sometimes it is "No," and sometimes it is "Wait a while." And sometimes it is in a way that is totally different from what I expected.
The important thing is that we always thank God for hearing and answering our prayers regardless of the way in which they are answered because God always knows what is best for us. Let's not be like the ten lepers whom Jesus healed and only one came back to acknowledge and thank Jesus for healing him.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you that you always hear and answer my prayers in one way or another. May I always have a grateful heart and learn to thank you regardless of the way in which you answer my prayer. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name, amen."
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Books:
Books by Dick Innes, Editor of Weekend Encounter You Can't Fly With a Broken Wing How to Mend a Broken Heart I Hate Witnessing—A Handbook for Effective Christian
Communications
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