Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol.19 â€" No. 1517 April 14, 2017
Thought for the week: "When you're committed to what
you do, it shows in the results." â€" Anonymous
An Australian pastor writes: "I returned recently from a trip to New Zealand and heard there of a pastor who'd just discovered the wonders of Windows 'Find and Replace.'
"So he copied the Order of Service he had already done for the funeral of a 'Mary.' The following week all he had to do was find all the Mary's and replace them with "Edna."
"But when Edna's mourners got to the Apostle's Creed and read 'Born of the virgin Edna,' they all cracked upâ€"and the pastor lost them for the rest of the service!"
Prophets, myth makers and storytellers all advise us to be more childlike. Who inherits the kingdom of heaven? Who sees the truth about the emperor's new clothes? Who lives a timeless life?
As a parent and a physician, I have learned that when you lose the ability to be childlike you put your life and your health in danger. Children, sick or well, can teach us about honesty and feelings. They can show us how to be loving in the face of adversity and even death. I have seen many children beat cancerâ€"some by getting well and others by living fully despite the cancer that ended their young lives early. Many children with cancer have written books telling what they learned from being sick, and those letters and books are some of the wisest writings I've ever read.
An article in Bits & Pieces tells how Arturo Toscanini was one of those people who turned a handicap into a blessing. He was nearsighted and, at 19, was playing cello in a small European orchestra. He couldn't see the music on the stand in front of him, so he had to memorize it.
One day the orchestra leader became ill and young Toscanini was the only member of the orchestra who knew the score. That evening, he conducted the entire program without referring to the music. His performance was flawless. The audience applauded enthusiastically.
Other chances to conduct followed, and Toscanini was on his way. If he hadn't been nearsighted, he might have continued playing cello instead of becoming one of the finest conductors in the world.
Also published as "Butterfly Attack," "Butterfly Courage," "On Courage," "A Butterfly's Love," and "Now I Knew."
Walking down a path through some woods in Georgia in 1977, I saw a water puddle ahead on the path. I angled my direction to go around it on the part of the path that wasn't covered by water and mud. As I reached the puddle, I was suddenly attacked!
Yet I did nothing, for the attack was so unpredictable and from a source so totally unexpected. I was startled as well as unhurt, despite having been struck four or five times already. I backed up a foot and my attacker stopped attacking me. Instead of attacking more, he hovered in the air on graceful butterfly wings in front of me. Had I been hurt I wouldn't have found it amusing, but I was unhurt, it was funny, and I was laughing. After all, I was being attacked by a butterfly!
Having stopped laughing, I took a step forward. My attacker rushed me again. He rammed me in the chest with his head and body, striking me over and over again with all his might, still to no avail. For a second time, I retreated a step while my attacker relented in his attack.
Yet again, I tried moving forward. My attacker charged me again. I was rammed in the chest over and over again. I wasn't sure what to do, other than to retreat a third time. After all, it's just not everyday that one is attacked by a butterfly. This time, though, I stepped back several paces to look the situation over. My attacker moved back as well to land on the ground. That's when I discovered why my attacker was charging me only moments earlier.
He had a mate and she was dying. She was beside the puddle where he landed. Sitting close beside her, he opened and closed his wings as if to fan her. I could only admire the love and courage of that butterfly in his concern for his mate. He had taken it upon himself to attack me for his mate's sake, even though she was clearly dying and I was so large. He did so just to give her those extra few precious moments of life, should I have been careless enough to step on her.
Now I knew why and what he was fighting for. There was really only one option left for me. I carefully made my way around the puddle to the other side of the path, though it was only inches wide and extremely muddy. His courage in attacking something thousands of times larger and heavier than himself just for his mate's safety justified it. I couldn't do anything other than reward him by walking on the more difficult side of the puddle. He had truly earned those moments to be with her, undisturbed. I left them in peace for those last few moments, cleaning the mud from my boots when I later reached my car.
Since then, I've always tried to remember the courage of that butterfly whenever I see huge obstacles facing me. I use that butterfly's courage as an inspiration and to remind myself that good things are worth fighting for.
"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me" (2 Corinthians 12:9, NIV).
In a study, "Cradles of Eminence," by Victor and Mildred Goertzel, "the home backgrounds of three hundred highly successful people were investigated. These three hundred subjects had made it to the top. They were men and women whose names everyone would recognize as brilliant in their fields, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Winston Churchill, Albert Schweitzer, Clara Barton, Gandhi, and Einstein.
"This intensive investigation into their early home lives yielded some surprising findings. Three-fourths of the children were troubled either by poverty, a broken home, or by rejecting over-possessive, or dominating parents.
"Seventy-four of eighty-five writers of fiction or drama and sixteen of the twenty poets came from homes where, as children, they saw tense psychological drama played out by their parents.
"Physical handicaps such as blindness, deafness, or crippled limbs characterized over one-fourth of these samples.
"How did these people go on, then, to such outstanding accomplishments? Most likely by compensation. They compensated for their weakness in one area by excelling in another."
"Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you that I don't have to be 'perfect' for you to use me. Please use my weaknesses so any power in my life for helping others will be clearly seen as coming from you. Please glorify your name through my weaknesses. Gratefully in Jesus' name. Amen."
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