Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 10 – No. 4508 November 08, 2008
Thought for the week: "All God's giants have been weak men who did great things for God, because they reckoned on God's being with them." – J. Hudson Taylor
"I would rather be hated for who I am than liked for who I pretend to be." – Unknown
"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about." – Charles Kingsley
"We need more Christians for whom prayer is the first resort, not the last." – John Blanchard
"Don't be content with doing only your duty. Do more than your duty. It's the horse that finishes a neck ahead that wins the race." – Andrew Carnegie
"All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim and have fixed their gaze on a goal that is high—one that sometimes seems impossible." – Orison Swett Marden
"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these." – George Washington Carver
"With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?" – Jay Leno
A woman was flying from Seattle to San Francisco. Unexpectedly, the plane was diverted to Sacramento along the way. The flight attendant explained that there would be a delay, and if the passengers wanted to get off the aircraft, the plane would re-board in 50 minutes.
Everybody got off the plane except one lady who was blind. The man had noticed her as he walked by and could tell the lady was blind because her seeing-eye dog lay quietly underneath the seats in front of her throughout the entire flight.
He could also tell she had flown this very flight before because the pilot approached her, and calling her by name, said, "Kathy, we are in Sacramento for almost an hour. Would you like to get off and stretch your legs?" The blind lady replied, "No thanks, but maybe Buddy would like to stretch his legs."
Picture this: All the people in the gate area came to a complete standstill when they looked up and saw the pilot walk off the plane with a Seeing Eye dog! The pilot was even wearing sunglasses.
A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, "How heavy is this glass of water?"
Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.
The lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."
He continued, "And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on. As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden.
"So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can."
An off-duty police officer, familiar with radar guns, drove through a school zone within the legal speed limit when the flash of a camera went off, taking a picture of his license plate.
The officer, thinking the radar was in error, drove by again; even more slowly. Another flash. He did it again for a third time, at an even slower speed. Same result. So, he made a note to himself to contact the traffic department and tell them that their machine was messed up.
A few weeks later, the off duty police officer received an envelope from the police department containing three traffic citations, each of them were for not wearing a seat belt.
Whether they believe in the principle of tithing or not, few Americans give away that much money. In 2007, the research revealed that just 5% of adults tithed.
Not surprisingly, some population groups were more likely than others to have given away at least ten percent of their income. Among the most generous segments were evangelicals (24% of whom tithed); conservatives (12%); people who had prayed, read the Bible and attended a church service during the past week (12%); charismatic or Pentecostal Christians (11%); and registered Republicans (10%).
Several groups also stood out as highly unlikely to tithe: people under the age of 25, atheists and agnostics, single adults who have never been married, liberals, and downscale adults. One percent or less of the people in each of those segments tithed in 2007.
Among all born again adults, 9% contributed one-tenth or more of their income. The study also showed that Protestants were four times as likely to tithe as were Catholics (8% versus 2%, respectively).
For the rest of this informative article on giving/tithing, Click HERE.
After having just lost his bride of 42 years, a reader named Bob wrote to tell me how deeply important it's been to him to be the beneficiary of grand and spontaneous acts of kindness of strangers.
In one case, he was overcome with emotion and began to cry while making copies of all the notes of love and support he received. Seeing his pain, a young woman hugged him until he regained control.
Weeks later, he was at a restaurant alone and began to cry when he thought about his wife. A waitress sat beside him and held his hand. As long as there are people like that in the world, Bob concluded, there's still hope.
The great musician Pablo Casals said, "Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he acts on it and listens to it, he is giving a great deal of what the world needs most. It is not complicated, but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act upon it."
Poet William Wordsworth put it another way, declaring that the best portions of a good person's life are "little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love." And novelist Henry James said, "Three things in human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind."
Think how much better the world would be, and how much more gratifying your life would be, if every day each of us set out to lighten the life or brighten the day of another with simple kindness.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, 'Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.'"1
"According to a Greek legend, in ancient Athens a man noticed the great storyteller Aesop playing childish games with some little boys. He laughed and jeered at Aesop, asking him why he wasted his time in such frivolous activity.
"Aesop responded by picking up a bow, loosening its string, and placing it on the ground. Then he said to the critical Athenian, 'Now, answer the riddle, if you can. Tell us what the unstrung bows imply.'
"The man looked at it for several moments but had no idea what point Aesop was trying to make. Aesop explained, 'If you keep a bow always bent, it will break eventually; but if you let it go slack, it will be more fit for use when you want it.'"2
So many of us today, including me, (at least in the Western world) are bogged down with being too busy. Much of life seems to be controlled by the tyranny of the urgent—unforeseen crises or needs that daily pop up unexpectedly—all of which are a vivid reminder that I, too, need to "come apart and rest a while—before I come apart." Even Jesus and his disciples, in the midst of their busy ministry, needed to take time out to get some rest. Dare we do less? There are times when we, too, need to loosen the bow.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you for the reminder that I need, not only to be diligent in my work and service, but also to take time to get needed rest every day. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus name, amen."
1. Mark 6:30-31 (NIV).
2. Our Daily Bread, June 6, 1994
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