Never make a negative decision when you’re feeling low

Posted on October 20, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

Robert Schuller, author of many best selling books on ‘possibility thinking’, tells of a winter day when he and his dad cut down a dead tree on the family farm. But in the spring they found new shoots sprouting from the trunk. Robert’s Dad said to him, ‘I thought for sure it was dead; but now I see there is still life at the taproot of the old tree.’ Then he looked at his son and said, “Bob, there’s an important lesson in this that I don’t want you ever to forget. Never cut down a tree in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in a low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst mood. Wait. Be patient. The spring will come.’
That’s good advice. Like the Bible says, ‘Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.’

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‘A spirit manifest in the laws of the Universe

Posted on October 16, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

When Albert Einstein put forward his theory of relativity, the thing that bothered him was that his equations indicated that the universe was expanding, and therefore must have had a beginning. It was not until Edwin Hubble showed that the furthest galaxies were fleeing away from each other that Einstein accepted what we now call the Big Bang theory; that both the Universe and time had a beginning. He became convinced that matter, energy, time and space were created by an intelligence outside of time and space; an intelligence about which he said: ‘Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe…a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.’

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Keeping safe from the dangers of love

Posted on October 16, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

The deepest of all human needs is to love and be loved, but the thing that keeps us from finding it is fear of rejection. However, in holding back we deprive ourselves of the thing we want most. C.S. Lewis had to come to terms with this himself. He said: ‘To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to be sure of keeping your heart intact, you must give your heart to no one. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safely in the casket of your selfishness. And in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will not change, it will not be broken. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable and irredeemable. The only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the dangers of love is hell.’

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Meaning is in the final outcome

Posted on October 16, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

Aristotle said that we can never really understand the meaning of a thing until we look at its final outcome; like the alphabet for example; it only makes sense when we put the letters together and form a sentence. In the same way, to understand the meaning of life we have to look at its final form.
The Indians used to say: “When you were born, you cried, and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die, the world will cry, and you will rejoice.”
Jesus taught that this life is a journey, not a destination. “Don’t let your hearts be troubled,” he said. “You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. I go to prepare a place for you.” And St Paul, commenting on this, said: “Now we see but a poor reflection …. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

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Purpose of life

Posted on October 16, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

Dr. Hugh Moorhead of America’s Northeastern University once wrote to two hundred and fifty well-known philosophers, scientists, writers and intellectuals and asked for their comments on what is the purpose of life. Some of them offered their best guesses and others simply said they had no idea. There were even some who wrote back and said that if he knew the answer, would he please let them know. Carl Jung, one of the fathers of modern psychology, once said: ‘I don’t know the meaning and purpose of life, but it looks as if something were meant by it.’ However, I still think that Saint Augustine got it right when he said: ‘Man’s heart strives after unending eternal happiness. Thou hast created us, Lord, for thyself, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee.’

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Muscles are not just meant for show

Posted on September 29, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

The host of a television chat show once interviewed a group of body builders and asked them a very simple question: ‘What do you use these muscles for?’ One guy answered by flexing his muscles in one of those body builder stances. But the interviewer said: ‘No, you don’t understand. What do you USE all those muscles for?’ The muscle-man said, ‘I’ll show you.’ And he flexed again in another stance. The interviewer said again: ‘But what do you use them for?’ But the guy just posed again.
Some people’s faith is a bit like that. It looks good but it doesn’t do anything. We should always remember that when Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment he said it was to love God and to love people like you love yourself. Muscles are not just meant for show, and neither is faith.

Posted in Body builders, Faith, Living Life, love, Loving God, Loving other people, Muscles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Lopping off the branches of worry

Posted on September 29, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

If you’ve ever had a tree cut down in your back yard, you’ll know that you don’t start by attacking the base of the tree, because that would bring the house down with it. Instead, you lop off individual branches and gradually trim the tree down to a manageable size. Then you can attack the trunk without any danger to the property around it.
That’s a good example of how we should handle the little worries in our lives that have grown into a tree of anxiety. We aren’t going to change a lifetime habit in one blow, but what we can do is deal with each little niggling worry as it comes along, following that simple advice from the Bible that says: ‘Instead of worrying, let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers… Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness will come and settle you down.’

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Conditioned to failure

Posted on September 29, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

In the old days when travelling circuses had elephants, they used to restrain them by chaining them to a peg in the ground. People often wondered why the huge elephant didn’t just pull the peg out of the ground and escape. The reason was that as a baby elephant he was tied to a huge stake that he couldn’t pull out. Weeks of trying only wore a trench around the stake, and finally it gave up. The result was that when the elephant had grown to its full size and had massive strength – more than enough to pull a peg out of the ground – it only remembers the futility of past efforts and doesn’t even try. It’s been conditioned to failure.
Just as many of us are, even though we have capacities we’ve never dreamed of. We need to remember those powerful words of Jesus: ‘If you can believe, all things are possible.’

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‘When one’s expectations are reduced to zero’

Posted on September 29, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

Stephen Hawking, considered by many to be the most intelligent man on earth, suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease and, for years unable to speak, has been confined to a wheelchair, where he can do little more than sit and think. Yet, despite this, his personality shines through. Hawking says that before he became ill, he had very little interest in life, calling it a ‘pointless existence due to boredom.’ But now all that has changed. ‘When one’s expectations are reduced to zero,’ he said, ‘one really appreciates everything that one does have.’
If you’ve learned that every small pleasure becomes precious – a sunrise, a visit to a park and the laughter of children. By contrast, those who believe life owes them a free ride rarely find anything to rejoice in because they seem incapable of seeing anything other than their discontent.

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‘It takes more than diet and exercise to avoid heart attacks’

Posted on September 29, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

Dr. Meyer Friedman says it takes more than diet and exercise to avoid heart attacks. It also needs a balanced lifestyle and making creative use of leisure. ‘Many people who have paid attention to the body and diet,’ he said, ‘have neglected the spirit and are dying inside.’ He recommends we live more by the calendar than the clock, and ought to make a point of only thinking about one thing at a time, listening without interrupting, reading books that demand concentration, avoiding irritating people, planning for some personal quiet time each day, and, most of all, remembering that things worth being are better than things worth having.
It’s like Jesus said, ‘What good is it if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul.’…’ your life is not measured by the number of things you own.’

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