Knowing when enough is enough

Posted on February 19, 2017 by vincentsmithauthor

Someone overheard an old man saying to his daughter as she boarded a plane: ‘I love you and I wish you enough.’ She replied, ‘Daddy, I wish you enough too.’ They asked him what it meant. He said: ‘It means: I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright. I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more. I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive. I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys appear much bigger. I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting. I wish you enough loss to appreciate all you possess. And I wish enough “Hellos” to get you through the final “Goodbye”’
It reminds me of those words from the Bible: ‘Give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs,’ Knowing when enough is enough; that’s the key to contentment and blessing in life.

Posted in satisfaction, Wisdom | Leave a comment

The only sure way out of that hole

Posted on February 19, 2017 by vincentsmithauthor

A few years ago, the Isleta Casino in New Mexico used a TV commercial showing images of dollar bills floating down to an outstretched hand while an announcer said: ‘So the holidays have passed, and those credit card bills just keep piling up? Well, Isleta Casino Resort comes to your rescue.’ The ad provoked a storm of criticism denouncing it as a blatant attempt to target people who were uneducated, desperate and poor.
But you don’t have to be a genius to know that the problem in gambling is that irrational part of us that traps us into chasing our losses and digging ourselves into an even deeper hole. How much better to remember what Jesus said: ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.’ ‘For God has said, I will never abandon you.’

Posted in Faithfulness, Gambling, Kingdom of God | Leave a comment

The only assessment that ultimately counts

Posted on February 19, 2017 by vincentsmithauthor

One night at a famous jazz bar, legendary jazz musician Cab Calloway introduced a promising young saxophone player. After he’d played, a self-appointed jazz critic came over and said, ‘You aren’t that good, man. All you can do is play like Charlie Parker.’ Well, Cab Calloway took the young man’s saxophone and handed it over to the critic. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘You play it like Charlie Parker.’
Isn’t it true that whenever you are trying to do your best, there’s always somebody around who wants to cut you down? That’s why Jesus said that the only assessment that ultimately counts is the one that God will give to those who’ve made the best of what He gave them: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you’ve been faithful with what you received…enter the joy of your Lord.’ What matters is what you do with what you’re given.

Posted in Faithfulness, Judgement, Stewardship, Suffering | Leave a comment

God or chance?

Posted on February 19, 2017 by vincentsmithauthor

Scientists tell us that if our expanding universe had expanded a little faster, the matter formed would have sprayed out into space like fine mist so fast that a gazillion particles of dust would speed into infinity and never even form a single star. If it had expanded just a little slower, the material would have dribbled out like big drops of water, then collapsed back where it came from by the force of gravity. A little too fast, and you get a meaningless spray of fine dust. A little too slow, and the whole universe collapses back into one big black hole. They also estimate the mathematical chances of it happening the way it has are one in a figure with one hundred and twenty zeros. That’s why some people believe in God with a capital G and some believe in Chance with a Capital C.

Posted in Agnosticism, Atheism, Faith, God, Science and faith, Universe | 4 Comments

Saved by a comma

Posted on February 19, 2017 by vincentsmithauthor

Maria Fedorovna, the Empress of Russia and wife of Czar Alexander III, was well known for her philanthropy. She once saved a political prisoner from exile in Siberia by transposing a single comma in a warrant signed by her husband Alexander. The czar had written: “Pardon impossible [comma] to be sent to Siberia.” But Maria quietly got hold of it and crossed out the comma, moving it forward so that it read: “Pardon [comma] impossible to be sent to Siberia.” The prisoner was released – judgment was averted by substituting one punctuation mark for another. It reminds me that in the spiritual realm judgement for us is averted, not by any change in God’s moral law, but by the substitution of Christ’s righteousness for our unrighteousness. He became what we are so that we might become what He is.

Posted in Judgement, Pardon, Salvation, Substitutes, Substitution | Leave a comment

Like rats in a cellar

Posted on February 19, 2017 by vincentsmithauthor

C.S. Lewis used to say that the best evidence of what a person is like is what they do when they are off their guard. ‘Like rats in a cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in suddenly. But the suddenness doesn’t create the rats; it only prevents them from hiding. Similarly, it’s not the suddenness of a provocation that makes me ill-tempered; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am.’ That’s¬ why Good Housekeeping magazine used to advise prospective brides to find out what the men wanting to marry them were really like by watching them drive in heavy traffic, listening to them talk when their mothers weren’t around, or just playing golf with them. Our biggest problems in life come not from what happens to us, but from what is within us. That’s why we need to be renewed from within, and only Jesus can do it for us.

Posted in Human nature, Sin, Spiritual growth, Transformation | Leave a comment

Issues beyond the scope of science

Posted on January 26, 2017 by vincentsmithauthor

You often hear it said that science has disproved God because it has found no evidence apart from people’s belief. But that’s like saying that science has disproved love because it’s found no evidence other than what people claim to experience. The fact is that science works by experiments. It watches how things behave and forms its conclusions based on experiments consistently doing the same thing.
But when it comes to deep metaphysical issues like what caused the Big Bang and began the process whereby everything that now is came out of nothing, we are dealing with issues beyond the scope of science because there’s no experiment you can do to test it; except by looking at those whose lives are filled with meaning because of faith in whatever or whoever it is that stands behind it all, and for whom our innermost beings yearn.

Posted in Meaning in life, Science and faith, Universe | Leave a comment

Putting the clock back

Posted on January 26, 2017 by vincentsmithauthor

I was talking to some friends on New Year’s Eve and the general opinion was that the world is in a rather precarious state. But then someone added that the last thing we’d want to do is ‘put the clock back’ as the saying goes. However, if the clock is wrong, and the fingers are too far advanced, putting it back is the very thing you need to do. The same is true if you are wanting to make progress towards a destination but find yourself on the wrong road. You only really make progress by going back to where you went wrong and then taking the right road.
Now, maybe you and I can’t do all that much about turning the world back from its madness, but we can do something about our own personal journey, if we know something has gone wrong. And the first thing to do is return to the place where we knew we were on the right road.

Posted in direction, Life's journey, Self assessment | Leave a comment

The need to be reminded rather than instructed

Posted on January 26, 2017 by vincentsmithauthor

Dr. Johnson used to say that ‘People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.’ And that’s what every great moral teacher in history has done – reminded us of the old principles which we often choose to forget. And so it is today. We live in an age when technological advances are so rapid that even the possibility of creating artificial intelligence, with machines that are smarter than we are, is almost a reality. The frightening part about it is that moral wisdom has not kept pace with technological progress, and we wonder if we are not about to repeat the story of the sorcerer’s apprentice.
But even though we can’t do too much about the world’s mad rush to who knows where, we can ensure that wisdom guides our lives. The bible says: ‘If any of you lack wisdom let them ask of God, who gives it freely.’

Posted in Remembrance, Renewed Minds, Truth, Wisdom | Leave a comment

Self-healing

Posted on January 26, 2017 by vincentsmithauthor

One of the amazing things about our human body is its ability to heal and repair itself. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, ‘a live body is not one that never gets hurt, but one that can to some extent repair itself.’ Even deep wounds, if covered and kept from being infected, will heal themselves.
In the same way, Jesus taught that a righteous person is not someone who never goes wrong, but rather is someone whom God enables to acknowledge their failure, turn back and, in the strength God gives, begin again after each stumble. The presence of Jesus within them brings healing and power to go on, forgiven and renewed.
It’s not a matter of God loving us because we are good, but rather God making us good because He loves us; just as a greenhouse doesn’t attract the sun because it’s bright, it becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

Posted in Forgiveness, Healing, Renewed Minds | Leave a comment