What seems to be tragic may actually become an occasion for joy

Posted on March 29, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

Joe Wagner once attended an auction where a little girl’s champion lamb went up for sale. As the bids came in, the little girl, standing beside the lamb, began to cry. The higher the bids rose, the more she cried. Finally, a local businessman bought the lamb for more than a thousand dollars, but then gave it back to her.
Months later, Joe was judging school essays and came across one from a girl who told about the time her champion lamb had been auctioned. ‘The prices began to get so high,’ she wrote, ‘that I started to cry from happiness. Then the man who bought the lamb for much more than I ever dreamed I’d get, gave it back to me, and when I got home, Daddy barbecued it. It was really delicious.’ It sounds like another version of that old Bible truth that what seems to be tragic may actually become an occasion for joy.

Posted in Joy, Trials and testings, tribulation and trouble, Troubles | Leave a comment

It’s easy to see the big sins of others

Posted on March 29, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

The world’s worst ever ecological disaster happened in nineteen eighty nine when the oil tanker Exxon Valdez dumped most of its crude oil into Prince William Sound in Alaska. The whole world watched in anger at such criminal negligence. However, a news report put it in perspective when it said that Americans, servicing their own cars, each year dump one hundred and ninety three million gallons of oil into storm water drains. That’s fifteen times as much pollution as the Exxon Valdez caused.
I wonder how many of them were among the millions who demanded that heads of executives at Exxon should roll. It’s easy to see the big sins of others, while failing to see our own; which is why we should remember that Jesus said we should never try to clean up other people’s sight into we’ve cleared our own.

Posted in Indifference, Sin, Spiritual blindness | Tagged | Leave a comment

‘What about us?’

Posted on March 29, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

An Army chaplain I know took part in a battle simulation exercise prior to his unit deploying overseas. He entered a tent where four supposed bodies were lying, and checked their identification discs. Two indicated the wearers had religious affiliations and the other two none. So he said prayers over the first two but not the others. As he got up to leave, the two soldiers who didn’t get prayed for sat up and said: ‘What about us?’ My friend said: ‘But you say you have no religion and I thought it would wrong for me not to respect your wishes.’ Well the outcome was that at the end of the exercise those two, and a number of other troops applied for new identity discs. Even though they professed no interest in religion, they still wanted a padre to pray for them if they were facing the end… Interesting!

Posted in Indifference, Prayer, Religion | Leave a comment

Knowing what temptation means

Posted on March 23, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

C.S. Lewis once said: ‘A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is . . . A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That’s why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They’ve lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Jesus, because He was the only person who never yielded to temptation, is also the only one who knows to the full what temptation means.’
He is also the only one who can who can help us when we are tempted and forgive us when fail. ‘Neither do I condemn you,’ he says; ‘Go, (and with my help) and sin no more.’

Posted in Forgiveness, God with us, God's presence, Temptation, Tempted | Tagged | Leave a comment

Strong but gentle

Posted on March 23, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

An editorial in the prestigious Wall Street Journal said: ‘People want to be lightly governed by strong governments.’ I suppose that’s what most of us have wanted since childhood. We wanted our dad to be big and strong and able to do anything. But we also wanted him to be gentle when he dealt with us. We wanted to have a policeman around, tough enough to handle the bullies, but also help us find our parents when we got lost. There’s an innate yearning in all of us for that rare combination of strength and gentleness. When evil people rise up, we want a strong government to slap them down. Yet we never want that clout turned on us.
It’s good to know that that’s how God deals with us. ‘Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,’ the Bible says. ‘For his compassions never fail. They are new every morning…’

Posted in Gentleness, God, God's love, God's nature, Strength | Leave a comment

Life, hope and God come to us in the form of people.

Posted on March 23, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

A teacher, whose job was to visit children in a city hospital, was assigned to a boy who had been badly burned. The child was in so much pain that he barely responded, and the teacher felt ashamed at putting him through what seemed like a senseless exercise. But the next morning a nurse on the burn unit asked: ‘What did you do to that boy? We’ve been so worried about him. But ever since you were here yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back and responding to treatment.’
Later, the boy himself explained that he’d given up hope until he saw the teacher and realized that they wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and verbs if he was about to die. She became his lifeline to recovery.
It reminds us that no matter what the pain, life, hope and God come to us in the form of people.

Posted in Compassion, God, Hope, Life, love, Loving other people | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Defining ourselves by what we are against

Posted on March 23, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

The novelist Graham Greene told the story of a group of nuns, whose lives were dedicated to taking care of lepers. When eventually they learned that a cure for leprosy had been discovered, they actually found themselves quite disappointed. Their identity had become so consumed with standing against the disease that, without realizing what was happening, they had begun to collude with it, needing it for their sense of purpose, and now resented that healing was coming to their patients from another source other than them.
It reminds us of the danger of defining ourselves by what we are against and forgetting what we are for. That’s why Jesus told his disciples that whoever was not against them and what they stood for was actually for them. Love is of God wherever it shines.

Posted in Life, Life's journey, Life's lessons, Meaning in life, Purpose in life | Leave a comment

Faith is not about everything turning out OK.

Posted on March 23, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

One of the best loved chapters of the Bible comes from the book of Hebrews, and is all about the triumphs of people who lived a life of faith. It gives an extensive list of names of the great heroes from Old Testament times, who, through faith, did amazing things, and experienced amazing deliverances, even though faced with amazing odds.
But then, in the midst of all this triumphalism, it starts to talk about those who didn’t experience wonderful deliverances, and those whose faithfulness to God resulted in pain, persecution, deprivation and death, but who never gave up. ‘These,’ the Bible says, ‘were all commended for their faith.’
It reminds us that faith is not about everything turning out OK. Faith is about being OK no matter how things turn out.

Posted in Endurance, Faith, God, God with us, God's faithfulness, God's presence | Tagged | 1 Comment

‘Love is never having to say you’re sorry.’

Posted on March 23, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

As a Valentine’s Day treat, I got to watch that great tear-jerker movie from nineteen seventy entitled ‘Love Story’. It starred Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw. Most people remember it for two things: its beautiful theme song: Oliver’s Theme, and the words that Ali MacGraw says to Ryan O’Neal: ‘Love is never having to say you’re sorry.’
Those words became some of the most quoted words from any movie. But I have to say that they are also some of the most stupid words ever to appear in any movie. The truth is that love cannot flourish without forgiveness, and saying sorry is an essential pre-requisite to forgiveness.
Sometimes, saying sorry is the most difficult thing in the world. But it’s the cheapest price we pay to save the most valuable things we have, namely our relationships.

Posted in Forgiveness, love, Saying sorry | Tagged | Leave a comment

Teaching horses to fly

Posted on March 23, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

There’s an old Jewish story about a man who’d been sentenced to death, but who obtained a reprieve by assuring the king that he would teach his majesty’s horse to fly within the year- but with the proviso that if he didn’t succeed, he would be put to death at the end of the year. The King liked the idea, but the man’s friends thought he was mad and asked him why he’d made such an impossible deal. ‘Well, who knows what will happen,’ he replied. ‘Within a year, the king may die, or I may die, or the horse may die. And who knows? In a year, maybe the horse will learn to fly.’
In a way, it sounds a bit like Jesus’ famous saying: ‘Don’t worry about tomorrow; it will have enough worries of its own.’ Don’t add to the troubles each day brings, because you and God together will cope with whatever it brings.

Posted in Facing the future, Faith, Hope, Positive Thoughts | Tagged | Leave a comment