Everything good begins in silence

Posted on February 26, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

Most of us will do anything to avoid sitting alone and quietly confronting our own inner selves, which is why Pascal, the French philosopher, said: “All men’s miseries come from their inability to sit quietly and alone.” The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard put it this way: “Everything which is good in man begins in silence.” But he also said: “Man’s greatest fear is boredom. Boredom is the root of all evil so every moment must be filled with something, some activity, some form of business.”
This battle between our need for silence and our fear of boredom really speaks of our times. Yet over against all this are those timeless words of scripture in which God says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ ‘In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.’ Do yourself a favour – try it.

Posted in Boredom, Calmness, Contemplation, inner peace, Rush, Silence, Stillness | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The more I have the more bored I am

Posted on February 25, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

Family psychologist John Roseman has spent years researching the perennial problem of children complaining that they are bored. He reported that parents in less affluent countries tend to look at him with disbelief when he asks if their kids complain of being bored; whereas in affluent countries like ours, the opposite is true. Roseman’s research has revealed that the typical five year old here has accumulated two hundred and fifty toys; or almost one for every week they’ve been alive. But it’s these kids who complain of boredom.
It highlights a truth that most adults have still to learn; that boredom doesn’t come because of how much we don’t have, just as contentment doesn’t come from how much we do. The problem is actually a spiritual one – do we have a meaning to our lives?

Posted in Affluence, Boredom, Contentment, Meaninglessness, Purpose in life | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Being smart for things that are good

Posted on February 25, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

Sam Levenson described how his Jewish momma would always bargain with shopkeepers – even for the smallest items. He said he remembered her asking a greengrocer how much the cucumbers were. The greengrocer said they were two for five cents. So she picked one up and said: ‘How much for this one?’ ‘Three cents,’ he said. So she put it down, picked up another and said: ‘Well I’ll take this one,’ and gave him two cents.
It reminds me of a story Jesus told about a crooked manager who secured his own future by doing deals with his boss’s clients to the expense of his own boss. Referring to this Jesus said: ‘I want you to be smart like that, but for things that are good;’ meaning that if we paid as much attention to the good of our souls as wordly people do to their finances, we’d be much happier people.

Posted in Abundant life, Cleverness, Goodness, Life, Life's journey, Wisdom | Leave a comment

Exploding elephant

Posted on February 25, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

I once went on a four day hike through the mountains led by an experienced bushwalker who told us what provisions we’d need, and then told us to take a bag of rice as emergency rations in case we got stranded and ran out of food. I always wondered why it had to be rice until I read an a report from Thailand about an elephant that somehow got into a store of rice and ate seventy kilos of it. All would have been well if the elephant had not then followed up by drinking nearly three hundred litres of water. The result was the rice expanded at an astounding rate and not only filled the elephant’s stomach, but burst it. The creature actually exploded.
It reminds me of those people of whom the Bible says: ‘Their only god is their appetites, and they glory in what they should be ashamed of, and their future is eternal destruction.’

Posted in Appetites, Destruction, Greed, Hiking, Judgement, Rice, Shame | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Allergic to ourselves

Posted on February 25, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

Bill Flick, a columnist for The Pantagraph, reported the case of a man in England who, for thirty five years, had been robbed of restful sleep because he sneezed several hundred times each day. Over the years various doctors had him tested for all known allergies, but with no luck. Finally they gave up and told him he was allergic to himself. Fortunately he later saw another doctor who didn’t bother about the usual allergies but just examined his eating habits and discovered he simply had a reaction to the porridge he’d been eating for breakfast since childhood.
Now some of us have come to the conclusion we are hopeless cases too – alergic to ourselves and unable to find peace. But we have a great physician of the soul, Jesus, who still says: ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…’ and a new life.

Posted in Faith, Peace, Peaceful Sleep, Rest, Restlessness, Sleeplessness | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Meaningless monotony

Posted on February 25, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

William Barclay had a dog named Rusty who would accompany him on walks beside a stream, where he would plunge into the water, grab a rock in his mouth and bring it to the bank, and there he would carefully drop it before plunging back into the stream for another one. If allowed he would do this for hours. Barclay used to wonder what drove him in this pointless activity. It caused him to reflect on how life is for so many who seem to go through the same monotonous routine every day, but without a purpose other than eating to work and working to eat – hopefully with an occasional pleasure to brighten things up.
That’s why we need to pay heed to what Jesus said: ‘Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need…’- including a meaning for life.

Posted in Life, Meaninglessness | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The most beautiful things are not seen but felt

Posted on February 25, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

I remember hearing about one of those great Sydney characters of yesteryear, a celebrated open –air preacher named Roy Gordon, who was being constantly interrupted by an interjector who said it was nonsense to believe in things you can’t see. Eventually Roy got tired of the man’s interuptions and said to him: ‘So you don’t believe in anything you can’t see?’ ‘No,’ said the interjector. ‘Well turn round and look at that shop window,’ he said; and when the man did so, he lashed out with his foot and booted him in the backside. ‘You didn’t see that, did you,’ he said. ‘But I bet you felt it.’
Well, in a slightly more sophisticated way, Denzel Washington, the famous American movie star, said: ‘Why do we close our eyes when we pray, cry, kiss or dream? It’s because the most beautiful things in life are not seen but felt by the heart.’

Posted in Believing, Faith, Feeling, Preacher, Unbelief | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Start a quarrel and the vultures start circling

Posted on February 25, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

The American Indians used to tell a story about a couple of thirsty male cougars who both arrived at their usual water hole at the same time. They immediately began to snarl threateningly at each other, each one daring the other to satisfy his thirst first, but neither of them would back down. Eventually, the stand-off got to the point where they were about to pounce on each other and rip and tear with tooth and claw until one of them gave up or lay dead. But then, as they confronted each other, they both looked up and saw circling overhead a flock of vultures waiting for the loser to fall. Quietly, the two beasts turned and walked away.
The Bible says: ‘Starting a quarrel is like opening a floodgate, so stop before the argument gets out of control.’The only winners are the lawyers.

Posted in Conflict, Quarrel | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Fears become less fearful when we face them

Posted on February 25, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

There’s an old parable of a little boy running away from a witch who had turned herself into a cat. As the boy ran he kept glancing fearfully over his shoulder. The first time he looked back the cat was now the size of a calf. The next time it had grown as big as an elephant. Then he tripped and couldn’t run any further. Resolutely he got up and faced the pursuing horror. To his surprise it stopped. So he took a step toward it and it backed away. As he got closer to it it began to shrink. Finally it changed into a mouse and ran under the door of the witch’s cottage to be seen no more. The moral of the story is that when we stop running and face our fears they suddenly become less fearful; which is why Jesus constantly told his followers: ‘fear not, remember I am with you, right up to the end.’

Posted in Anxiety, Courage, facing our fears, Faith, Fear | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The anchors of hope

Posted on February 12, 2015 by vincentsmithauthor

In the ancient world the anchor was the symbol of hope.The Greek philosopher Epictetus said: ‘A ship should never depend on one anchor.’ The philosopher Pythagoras took this further when he said: ‘Wealth is a weak anchor; and fame is still weaker.’
These are important truths from two of history’s greatest thinkers, which we would do well to consider, because we, like people throughout the ages, tend to believe that fame and fortune are the two things most to be desired. Life teaches all of us that fame and fortune are fickle and are temporary at best.
That’s why we need to hear again the timeless words of scripture that tell us that the three anchors that ultimately hold us secure through all the storms of life and beyond are the anchors of faith, hope and love.

Posted in Anchor, Faith, fame, Hope, hope and love, love, Security, Spiritual Insight, wealth | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment