Nothing to it but to do it

Posted on May 10, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

Diets and weight loss programs seem to be having little effect on our national epidemic of obesity, and it’s mainly because of habits we choose not to break. According to Self Magazine, losing just one dietary bad habit can result in significant weight loss over a year. If you just substitute high calorie offenders for similar tasting, lower calorie choices, the weight loss can still be significant. Give up one teaspoon of cream in your coffee and you’ll lose three kilos a year. Give up a glazed donut a day and you’ll lose ten kilos over a year. It’s all so easy; there’s nothing to it but to do it.
The trouble is bad habits are like comfortable beds – easy to get into but hard to get out of. Some wise person once said that a habit is something you can do without thinking, which is why so many of us have so many of them.

Posted in Apathy, Bad Habits, Diets, Food, Self Deception, Self Discipline | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Your room is ready

Posted on May 10, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

The Winchester Mystery House is a favourite tourist destination in California. It belonged to Sarah Winchester, widow of the man who invented the Winchester Rifle – the gun that won the West. Sarah was troubled for her soul and her husband’s because of all the Native Americans killed by his invention. So she sought help from mediums who told her to placate the spirits of the dead by making a place for them in her house. And, for the next thirty eight years until her death, she squandered her fortune adding rooms to the house and holding nightly séances to receive new directions.
How much happier her life would have been if she’d just accepted the promise Jesus made when he said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms, I go to prepare a place for you.” How much happier would we be, if we did the same.

Posted in Anxiety, Death, Futility, Guilt, Heaven, Spiritual blindness, Spiritual Darkness, Winchester Mystery House | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Everybody’s dancing

Posted on May 10, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

There’s an old story about a spider, who built a beautiful web and kept it clean and shiny so that flies would patronize it. Each time he trapped a fly he would clean up on him so the other flies would not get suspicious. Then one day a more intelligent fly came by and got invited in. But the fly said: “No, I don’t see other flies there, and I am not going in alone!” But soon after he saw a crowd of flies dancing around on a piece of brown paper, and he made straight for it. Just before he landed, a bee zoomed by, saying, “Don’t land there, stupid! That’s flypaper!” But the intelligent fly shouted back, “Don’t be silly. Those flies are dancing. There’s a big crowd there. Everybody’s doing it. That many flies can’t be wrong!”
It’s like Jesus said: the highway to hell is broad enough for all the multitudes who choose to follow the crowd.

Posted in Following the Crowd, Foolishness, Self Destruction, Spiritual blindness | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Happiness is not a destination

Posted on May 10, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

One of life’s persistant myths is that things will be better when we get to a certain point we haven’t reached yet – like when the mortgage is paid off, when the kids leave home, when we make that sea change or take that trip around the World. But of course we’ve been telling ourselves that all our lives. There was a time when we couldn’t wait to go to school, then to leave school and get a job; or to get married, and then to get out of the marriage. It always seems that happiness is forever over the next hill, but when we get there we find it has moved somewhere else.
You’d think by now we would have learned that happiness is not a destination, it’s actually a journey; and the secret to getting the most out of it is awareness – disciplining ourselves to look at what we’ve got and everyday to give thanks to God for it.

Posted in Appreciation, Attitude, Awareness, Contentment, Happiness, Journey, Life's journey, Living Life, Making the most of what you've got, Spiritual discernment, thankfulness | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

An Endless March to Nowhere

Posted on April 24, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

Jean Henri Fabre was a French naturalist who, fascinated by the sight of processional caterpillars marching in a long unbroken line, each one touching the one in front of it, decided to try an experiment to see if they would keep walking in an aimless circle. So, he captured enough caterpillars to encircle the rim of a flowerpot, linked them nose to posterior and started them walking in the closed circle. For days they went round and round on an endless march to nowhere until they starved to death.
That seems to be the story of many of our lives – a march that leads to nowhere. We need to stop for long enough to ask ourselves those two questions that have always been basic to a meaningful life: why am I here? And where am I going? It often causes people to start to look upwards for an answer.

Posted in Apathy, Death, emptiness, Journey, Life's journey, Living Life, Spiritual blindness, Spiritual Insight, Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Heaven for Twenty Dollars

Posted on April 24, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

A Canadian news report into a website called Heaven’s Registry tells us that for a mere twenty dollars we can have “guaranteed admission into heaven.” The certificate is also available for “cherished pets” at a cost of fifteen dollars. The website warns that only God knows which faults will keep us out of heaven, but, having raised the spectre of uncertainty, it promises that with this one hundred percent guaranteed heavenly admission certificate, there is now “no need for confessions or penance.” Although the police consider this a scam they admit that it would be pretty difficult to prove that it won’t work.
However I’d sooner believe the Bible which says: ‘Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What people plant is what they’ll harvest.’ The only thing that ultimately counts is our faith in God’s love and forgiveness.

Posted in God, Heaven, Hell, Hope, Religious Scam, Self Deception, Sin, Spiritual blindness, Spiritual discernment | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

If I had my life over again

Posted on April 24, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

The well known columnist Erma Bombeck once wrote: ‘If I had my life to live over, I would invite friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained. I would take the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth. I would burn the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage. I would sit on the lawn with my children and not worry about grass stains. I would go to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the world would fall apart if I wasn’t there for the day. I would never buy anything just because it was practical. There would be more “I love yous” and more “I’m sorrys”, but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute, look at it, really see it and really live it.’
That’s good advice, and the best part of it is we don’t need a second shot at life to take it.

Posted in Inspiration, Life's journey, Living Life, Making the most of what you've got, Riches | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Hell Where Youth and Laughter Go

Posted on April 24, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

On this ANZAC Day it behoves us to consider again the memories that those thousands of returned servicemen and women are unable to share with those of us who’ve never been where they went. Siegfied Sassoon, the famous soldier poet of World War 1, put it very powerfully in his poem, ‘Suicide in the Trenches.’
“There was a simple country boy
who laughed at life through mindless joy,
slept soundly through the noisome dark
and whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches cold and glum,
with crumps and lice and lack of rum,
he put a bullet through his brain.
No-one spoke of him again.

You smug faced crowds with kindling eye,
who cheer as soldier lads march by;
sneak home and pray you’ll never know
the hell where youth and laughter go.”

As the inscription in the Hyde Park War Memorial puts it, “Let silent contemplation be your offering.”

Posted in ANZAC Day, Patriotism, Remembrance, War | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Change of Identity

Posted on April 17, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

The French writer, Henri Barbusse, tells of a conversation overheard in a dugout full of wounded men during World War 1. One of them, who knew he had little time left to live, said to another man: “Listen, Dominic. You’ve led a bad life. Everywhere you are wanted by the police. But there are no convictions against me; my name is clear. So, take my wallet, take my papers, my identity, my good name, my life, and, quickly, hand me your papers that I may carry all your crimes away with me in death.” And that’s what they did. Dominic took on that man’s identity, while he died and took Dominic’s guilt with him to the grave.
That’s the same offer that Jesus makes to us through his death on the Cross. The Bible says that Jesus, who knew no sin, was “made to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” He became what we are that we might become what he is.”

Posted in Death, Easter, Forgiveness, God, Grace, Hope, Inspirational, Jesus, Life's journey, New Life, Resurrection | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Finding God in the Loneliest of Places

Posted on April 9, 2014 by vincentsmithauthor

There’s a wonderful story in the Bible about a man named Jacob who had to leave home in a hurry to flee for his life. That first night he ended up at a lonely spot where he settled down miserable and all alone, thinking his whole world had collapsed. But that night he had a dream of a stairway leading to Heaven. He woke up and realised this had been a message for him, and he said “Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not.”
Life sometimes takes us all to lonely spots where we lay down at night not caring if we wake up next morning. But God is in those spots too. It’s only later as we look back that we see how even our most dismal times led to new beginnings. The last thing Jesus said was “I am with you always, even to the end.” He still is. The Lord is still in this place even when we don’t recognise it.

Posted in Anxiety, Awareness, Contradictions, Discernment, Divine Protection, God, Guidance, Heaven, Hope, inner peace, Inspirational, Life's journey, Loneliness, pilgrimage, Promise, Seeing Jesus, Spiritual discernment, Trust in God, Wonder | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment