Ingratitude

Posted on September 30, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

Many years ago, as the story is told, a devout king was disturbed by the ingratitude of his royal court. He prepared a large banquet for them. When all were seated, by prearrangement, a beggar shuffled into the hall, sat down at the king’s table, and gorged himself with food. Without saying a word, he then left the room. The guests were furious and asked permission to seize the tramp and punish him for his ingratitude. The king replied, “That beggar has done only once to an earthly king what each of you does three times each day to God. You sit there at the table and eat until you area satisfied. Then you walk away without recognizing God, or expressing one word of thanks to Him.”
Like infants who merely expect their mothers to provide for them, ingratitude denotes our spiritual immaturity.

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Well done, good and faithful servant

Posted on September 30, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

It’s surprising to realise how many of the great names of history faced the end of their lives with a sense of failure. Hugo Grotius, the father of modern international law, said, “I have accomplished nothing worthwhile in my life.” John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the U.S, wrote in his diary: “My life has been spent in vain and idle aspirations, and in ceaseless rejected prayers that something would be the result of my existence beneficial to my species.” Robert Louis Stevenson, whose stories continue to delight, wrote in his own epitaph? “Here lies one who meant well, who tried a little, and failed much.”
But Jesus said the only thing that matters is whether or not we have been faithful in doing the best we can with what we’ve been given; and, if we have, God’s estimate of us will be: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’

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How does your garden grow?

Posted on September 30, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. On one occasion he was talking with a visitor to his home, who argued strongly against giving children spiritual and moral instruction because it would prejudice them and keep them from forming their own opinions. Coleridge said nothing, but later took his visitor into an unkempt garden behind his house. ‘This is not a garden,’ his visitor exclaimed. ‘There’s nothing here but weeds.’ ‘Well, you see,’ Coleridge explained. ‘I did not wish to infringe upon the liberty of the garden in any way. I was just giving the garden a chance to express itself and make its own choices. And, as you see, it has.’

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Moderation is better than muscle

Posted on September 30, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

Bruce Carson, in his book titled ‘There’s More To Health Than Not Being Sick’, says that when it becomes necessary for people to give serious attention to their health, eight out of ten people prefer to choose surgery rather than self control and a change in lifestyle. Similarly, Scott Peck, in his best-seller, ‘The Road Less Traveled’ describes a bicycle accident that taught him a fundamental lesson about life. He says:‘I had been unwilling to suffer the pain of giving up my ecstatic speed in the interest of maintaining my balance around the corner. I learned, however, that the loss of balance is ultimately more painful than the giving up required to maintain balance.’

It is a lesson we all have to continually relearn. As the Bible says: ‘Moderation is better than muscle, self-control is better than power.’

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Planting and reaping

Posted on September 25, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

Many years ago farmers in China developed the habit of eating the big potatoes they’d grown and keeping the small ones to plant as seed crop. However, over a period of years they noticed that the new potatoes were getting smaller each harvest, and eventually were reduced to something the size of marbles. It was then they came to understand a fundamental law of life: the quality of what you reap is determined by the quality of what you sow. If you squander your best now with no thought for what is to come, your left overs will then become the best you can anticipate.
The Bible says: ‘Don’t be misled: no-one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness…harvests a crop of weeds…But the one who plants in response to God…harvests a crop of eternal life.’

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The last shall be first

Posted on September 25, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

Do you remember when Steven Bradbury won Australia’s only Olympic gold medal for ice-skating? The one thing that stands out about him is persistence. In an earlier competition he cut his leg and almost bled to death. Then he broke his neck while training. Doctors told him that if he skated again he risked paralysis. But he staged a comeback in time for the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. We remember his victory because he won it after the other competitors all fell down just before the finish and he skated from last to first in a split second.
Steven Bradbury reminds me of Jesus’ saying ‘But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” Only Jesus was talking about the race that is life itself. In that race it’s not the most talented who win, but those with determination, persistence and faith.

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The skeleton at the feast

Posted on September 25, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

It’s been said that of the seven deadly sins anger is the most fun. ‘To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, … to savour to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you’ve been given and the pain you are giving back – in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.’
This was born out in some recent medical tests in which participants underwent a physical stress test and three mental stress tests, including two that provoked anger. The tests found that anger reduced the amount of blood flow to body tissues, and that men who score high for hostility are four times more likely to die prematurely than men whose scores are low.
The only cure for inner anger is inner peace, and that only comes from God .

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Selling ourselves

Posted on September 25, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

Just when you thought that advertisers had exhausted all possibilities, Andrew Fischer, a web page designer, came up with a new idea. He decided to auction off his forehead on e Bay, and actually attracted a great deal of interest. The highest bidder was the snoring remedy, SnoreStop, who agreed to rent the blank space above Andrew’s eyes for thirty days, earning him thirty seven thousand three hundred and seventy five dollars. SnoreStop’s Chief Executive Officer described Fischer as “a man who clearly has a head for business.”
Well, selling our foreheads may not be as easy as it was for Andrew, but it reminds me of that great warning Jesus gave about how easy it is for us to sell our souls. “What can a man give in exchange for his soul. Even if you were to gain the whole world, you’ll lose in the end.”

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Follow your compass

Posted on September 24, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

I read about an old sailor who repeatedly got lost at sea, so his friends gave him a compass. The next time he took his boat out, he followed their advice and took the compass too. But again he got hopelessly confused and had to be rescued by the water police. His friends, now totally frustrated, asked him why he hadn’t used the compass they’d given him. His reply was that the thing didn’t work, because every time he wanted to go north, no matter how hard he’d try to make the needle aim in that direction, it just kept on pointing southeast.” The old sailor was so certain he knew which was was north that he refused the one thing that could really show him the way.
It reminds me of people I know who have rejected the moral compass of Christ’s teaching, and now flounder in a confusion of their own making.

Posted in Compass, direction, Discerning God's Will, Guidance, Moral compass, Pride, Stubborness, Willfullness | Tagged | Leave a comment

Measuring wealth

Posted on September 24, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

When most of us think of misers we think of Ebenezer Scrooge. But whereas Scrooge was a fictitious character, John G. Wendel and his sisters were real, and probably the most miserly people of all time. They inherited a vast fortune of which they spent very little. They lived in the same house in New York for fifty years, and when the last sister died in 1931, she left more than one hundred million dollars – the equivalent of billions today. Her only dress was one she’d made herself and had worn for twenty five years.
The Wendels are an extreme example of those Jesus referred to “who lay up treasure for themselves, and are not rich toward God”. The message for us is to measure wealth not not by the money we have, but by the things we have for which we would not take money.

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