‘You could never know how wonderful everything is.’

Posted on March 23, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

For fifty one years Bob Edens was blind. He felt his way through five decades of darkness until one day a skilled surgeon performed a complicated operation and, for the first time, Bob Edens had sight. He found it overwhelming. ‘I never would have dreamed that yellow is so beautiful,’ he said. ‘I just don’t have the words to express it. But red is my favourite colour. I can see the shape of the moon -and I like nothing better than seeing a jet plane flying across the sky leaving a vapour trail. And of course, there are the sunrises and sunsets. And at night I look at the stars in the sky and the flashing light. You could never know how wonderful everything is.’
The sad thing, though, is that most of us do know it, but because we’ve never been blind, we’ve lost the capacity to be filled with wonder.

Posted in Appreciation, Joy, Life, Life's journey, Life's lessons, Sight, thankfulness | Tagged , | Leave a comment

‘You gotta get out before you hit the mat.’

Posted on March 23, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

Tina Sinatra tells how her dad, Frank Sinatra, as he grew older started to have problems with his memory. At one show he forgot the lyrics to his hit song ‘Second Time Around,’ and his adoring fans had to finish it for him. She said that she couldn’t bear to see him struggle, and remembered all the times he’d repeated the old boxing maxim: ‘You gotta get out before you hit the mat.’ After seeing one too many of these fiascos, she said to him: ‘Pop, you can stop now.’ But with a stricken expression he replied: ‘No, I’ve got to earn more money. I have to make sure everyone is taken care of.’ However, since his death there have been constant family wrangles over his fortune.
It reminds me of that wisdom from the Bible that warns that ‘all our busy rushing to heap up wealth ultimately ends in nothing.’

Posted in Futility, Life, Life's journey, Life's lessons | Tagged , | 1 Comment

‘Quick to listen, slow to speak ‘

Posted on March 16, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

Calvin Coolidge, the thirtieth President of the United States, was known as a man of few words. Once, at a White House dinner, a woman told him she’d made a bet that she could get him to say at least three words. Coolidge looked at her and said: ‘You lose.’
It was Shakespeare who gave us those famous words: ‘Brevity is the soul of wit,’ meaning that intelligent conversation is characterized by the use of just a few well chosen words, rather than endless talking. Indeed, I’ve usually found that people who begin a conversation by saying things like: ‘now I won’t keep you long,’ usually end up boring me to tears.
In this respect, it’s good to remember the wise words of the Bible: ‘Dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.’

Posted in Listening, Talking, Wisdom | Leave a comment

Beware of the barrenness of a busy life

Posted on March 16, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

Karl Jung, one of the fathers of modern psychology, once said: ‘Busyness is not of the devil, it is the devil.’ The older I get and the more I reflect on life the more I tend to agree with him. Charles Swindoll said: ‘Busyness… substitutes shallow frenzy for deep friendship. It feeds the ego but starves the inner man.’ And Eric Hoffer wrote: ‘The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is, on the contrary, born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life.’
It certainly is destructive of spiritual growth; it keeps us from the one thing which, more than anything else, brings us into the presence of God: stillness – inner stillness.
That’s why the Bible records God as saying to us: ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ Beware of the barrenness of a busy life.

Posted in Abundant life, Busyness, God, God in us, Seeing Jesus, Stillness | Leave a comment

A text without a context is a pretext.

Posted on March 16, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

People trying to make a case against Christian faith often quote Bible texts that say things that are repulsive to modern ears. However, we should not quote the Bible indiscriminately. A barrister, hoping to make an impression on a jury, once quoted the Bible and said: ‘We have it on the highest authority that it has been said: “All that a man has will he give for his skin.” But the other barrister, who knew the Bible better, said: ‘I am much impressed that my learned colleague regards as the highest authority the one who said, “All that a man has will he give for his skin.” Those words come from the Book of Job, and were spoken by the devil. And that is whom he regards as the highest authority!’
It reminds me that one of the first things I learned as a theological student was that ‘a text without a context is a pretext.’

Posted in Believing, Bible, understanding | Leave a comment

Don’t argue, just try it

Posted on March 16, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

Josh McDowell says that people often refuse to believe that which they don’t want to believe in spite of evidence to the contrary. When the first Europeans settled in Australia they found a mammal which laid eggs, spent some time in water and some on land, had a broad, flat tail, webbed feet, and a bill similar to a duck. It was, of course, the platypus. But when this was reported back to England, people thought it was a hoax. So the colonists took a pelt from this animal back there, but people still considered it was a hoax. In spite of the evidence, they disbelieved because they didn’t want to believe.
I think the same is often true of some of us who don’t believe there’s any truth in the gospel of Christ. To which I often reply by quoting the words of the Bible itself: ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good.’ Don’t argue, just try it

Posted in Doubt, Faith, God, Gospel, Seeking and Finding | Leave a comment

If you really exist, let me know

Posted on March 16, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

I got an email recently from a person I hadn’t seen for thirty years. I first met her when she was quietly going mad because of loneliness, separated from everyone she knew. We became good friends; but the one thing we never talked about was religion, because she was an atheist. Then one day I bumped into her at a shopping mall and she challenged me to prove to her there is a God. I told her I could no more prove it than she could disprove it; but if she honestly wanted to know she should just pray: ‘God, if you really exist, let me know.’
Four days later she telephoned me and her first words were: ‘Bob, I know God is real.’ I asked her what had happened. She said nothing had happened. She’d been praying as I’d suggested and that morning she woke up and just knew.
I guess it’s what Jesus meant when he said, ‘Seek and you shall find.’

Posted in Believing, Doubt, God, Seeking and Finding | Tagged | 1 Comment

Not in the ’empty firmament of the mind’

Posted on March 16, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

The Russian novelist Dostoevsky once said: ‘He who desires to see the living God face to face should not seek him in the empty firmament of his mind, but in love.’ The great mistake of the current crop of evangelical atheists is that they cannot conceive of a reality beyond the confines of their own intellects. They are like people who are tone deaf and refuse to believe there is anything of beauty in a Mozart symphony because they can’t discern it; or people who are colour blind ridiculing those who are enraptured by the colours of a sunset, because they are unable to see it. But for those of us who do look deep into our hearts and know that there has to be something more, Jesus says: ‘Seek and you shall find.’ For ‘God rewards everyone who diligently searches for him.’

Posted in God, God's presence, Knowing God, love, Searching, Seeing Jesus | Leave a comment

Passed preaching but failed Christianity

Posted on March 16, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

Using Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan, a professor of theology arranged for ten of his students, for their final assessment before becoming ordained ministers, to record a short talk on radio. Each was released from class at ten minute intervals to walk to the studio and present their talk. The first one left and was half way there when a man collapsed in front of him. He immediately had to decide whether to stop and help, thereby missing his appointment, or continuing on. He chose to keep walking. Ten minutes later the next student left the class, and amazingly the same thing happened – as it did to all the others too.
It was, of course, all pre-arranged by their professor to see how these future ministers of Christ would respond. The result was that all ten passed as preachers, but failed as Christians.

Posted in Christlikeness, Faithfulness, Preacher, Self Deception, Servant leadership | Tagged , | Leave a comment

‘Our glory is the testimony of our conscience.’

Posted on March 16, 2016 by vincentsmithauthor

Philosophers, theologians and psychologists have pondered long and hard on what conscience really is and how it is that everyone seems to have one – at least when they set out in life. But one thing is sure; conscience is like a muscle, the less we use it the weaker it becomes. Someone, referring to a woman he knew, said: ‘She won’t listen to her conscience because she doesn’t take advice from a total stranger.’ And another writer claimed that most people he knew followed their conscience like people follow a wheelbarrow – they direct it wherever they want it to go, and then follow behind. But Abraham Lincoln got it right when he s‘our glory is the testimony of our conscience.’
aid that he wanted always to act in such a way that even if he were to lose every friend on earth, he’d still have one friend inside him.
The bible sums it up well when it says: ‘Our glory is the testimony of our conscience.’

Posted in Conscience, Self Destruction, Self respect | Tagged | Leave a comment