Don’t wish them happiness

Posted on December 10, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

Lisa Grunwald, writing in the Los Angeles Times, made a plea to all parents who want more than anything for their children to be happy. “Don’t wish them happiness,” she says. “Wish them goodness, energy, humour, brains, diligence, discipline, even luck. But don’t wish them happiness. In our cynical age I’d rather wish my children the strength to come to terms with sadness than a guarantee of happiness. When gardeners prepare hothouse plants for replanting outdoors, they subject them to stress to strengthen them, and that’s what I want for my kids. I’d certainly wish them humour but most of all I’d wish them the desire to think about other people’s happiness before their own.”
It’s the same counter-intuitive wisdom that Jesus taught when he said we only find our lives when we give them away.

Posted in children, direction, Faith, Inspirational, Life's journey, Living Life, Personal Growth, Religion, Spiritual Insight, Spirituality, Trials and testings, Unselfishness | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

When you’re not cured but are healed

Posted on December 7, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

Tony Campolo once received a telephone call from a woman who, in a church service the previous Sunday, had asked him to pray for her husband who was riddled with cancer. The call was to tell him her husband had died. Tony didn’t know what to say to her, but she put him at ease when she said: “You mustn’t feel bad about it. When he came to church on Sunday he knew he was going to die soon, and he hated God. He would lie in bed and curse God. The more his anger grew, the more miserable he made everybody around him. It was an awful thing to be in his presence. But after you prayed for him a peace came over him and a joy came into him, and the last three days have been the best days of our lives. He wasn’t cured, but he was healed.”
And that’s the healing we all need most; the healing that comes from being at peace – with ourselves, each other and God

Posted in angry with God, Bitterness, Faith, God, Healing, Hope, inner peace, Inspirational, Life's journey, pilgrimage, Prayer, Religion, Spiritual Insight, Trials and testings, Trust in God, Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Never cry over anything that can’t cry over you

Posted on December 5, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

When Sophia Loren, broken hearted, sobbed to movie director Vittorio De Sica over the theft of her jewelry, he gave her this advice: “Listen to me, Sophia. I am much older than you and if there is one great truth I have learned about life, it is this – never cry over anything that can’t cry over you.”
Psychiatrist Victor Frankl learned the same in a Nazi concentration camp. “Everything can be taken from you,” he said, “Except for one thing: to choose your attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose your way.”
It’s another reminder of that timeless wisdom from the Bible that says “Don’t be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” That’s what faith does, it gives us a new and deeper perspective on life. It helps us to see where our true riches are and gives us the courage to live according to that truth.

Posted in Appreciation, Bible, inner peace, Inspirational, Life's journey, Living Life, Personal Growth, Riches, satisfaction, Spiritual Insight, Sympathy and Support, Trials and testings, wealth, Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It’s not how much you have

Posted on November 30, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

A friend who grew up in Japan told me that in traditional Japanese society it was considered preferable to own one thing of beauty rather than many, because if you own one thing you will look at it and truly appreciate it, whereas if you own many things the beauty of each gets lost and you fully appreciate none of them. G. K. Chesterton said something similar. ‘The modern world’s notion of progress,’ he said, ‘has been to pile one thing on top of another, without caring if each thing was crushed in turn. People forgot that the human soul can enjoy a thing most when there is time to think about it and be thankful for it. And by crowding things together they lost the sense of surprise; and surprise is the secret of joy.’
It’s not how much you have that makes you rich, it’s how much you appreciate it.

Posted in emptiness, Inspirational, Life's journey, Living Life, Personal Growth, pilgrimage, satisfaction, Spiritual Insight, thankfulness, Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Promise

Posted on November 29, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

In John Bunyan’s great parable of life, the Pilgrim’s Progress, there’s a point where Christian and Hopeful are captured by the Giant Despair, locked in the dungeons of Doubting Castle and beaten unmercifully. But at dawn on Sunday, after days of misery, Christian suddenly realises how to escape. He says ‘What a fool I am to lie in a stinking dungeon when I could walk in liberty. I have a key, called Promise that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in doubting castle.’ And it did.
Promise was the key that freed them from despair, and it’s Promise that does it for us too – those great and precious promises like: ‘I am with you always, even to the end of the age’,’If God is for us, who can be against us?’, ‘Nothing can separate us from the love of God.’
What we have to do is remember to use it

Posted in Bible, Encouragement, Faith, God, Hope, inner peace, Inspirational, Peaceful Sleep, Promise, Religion, Spiritual Insight, Spirituality, Trials and testings, tribulation and trouble, Trust in God, Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Life is Greater than Death

Posted on November 10, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

I came across a wonderful story about a London parish church during the Blitz, which was all set up for the annual Harvest Thanksgiving Service next day. The front of the church was filled with whatever foodstuffs were still available, and pride of place was given to a sheaf of golden wheat, symbolising Christ, the bread of life. But that night the church and everything in it was destroyed in an air raid, and the dispay was soon forgotten during the long winter that followed. But when Spring came people noticed shoots growing in the midst of the rubble that had once been a church. By autumn those shoots had grown into more golden wheat, reminding the people of London that good is greater than evil, life is greater than death, and nothing, not even the evil of war, can overcome the eternal reality of faith, hope and love.

Posted in Encouragement, Faith, Food, God, Inspirational, love, Religion, Resurrection, Spirituality, thankfulness, Trials and testings, Trust in God, War | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

But What Does He Think About You?

Posted on November 7, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

I had an interesting discussion with the librarian on a cruise ship recently. He noticed I’d checked out a book by the one-time atheist and now Oxford professor of theology, Alistair McGrath, entitled ‘The Dawkins Delusion’, a parady on the title of Richard Dawkin’s book, ‘The God Delusion’. He asked me what I thought of the Dawkin’s book and I told him that I thought Dawkins was very selective in his choice of things to condemn, concentrating on the lunatic fringe of religious faith, and seemed totally unaware of what the mainstream was all about. The librarian then became rather irate and said: ‘Do you want to know what I think about God?’ I was a bit taken aback by his vehemence but before I could answer, a man walking past said: ‘I’d be more concerned about what He thinks about you, mate.’
I wish I’d thought of that.

Posted in Alistair McGrath, Atheism, Faith, God, Inspirational, Religion, Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Trust in God, Wisdom | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

God Shaped Holes

Posted on November 2, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

Sigmund Freud thought that religion is not about people finding God but people creating God. God, he claimed, is a projection of our needs and insecurities. Commenting on the bleakness of this view Freud said “I can offer people no consolation: for at bottom that is what they are all demanding.” Whereas Freud’s most famous disciple, Karl Jung, had a completely opposite view. He said that amongst his clients who were in the second half of life there was not one who, in his opinion, was not in need of finding a religious outlook on life.
It reminds us that psychologists can be believers as much as they can be unbelievers. But one thing both Freud and Jung agreed on was, as the philosopher Pascal said, that there is still a God shaped hole in the human heart that nothing else in life can ever fully satisfy.

Posted in Faith, God, inner peace, Inspirational, Life's journey, Living Life, Personal Growth, Religion, Spiritual Insight, Spirituality | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

It’s not about where we are, but where we’re heading

Posted on October 22, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

Oliver Wendell Holmes said: ‘I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving. We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it. But we must sail, and not drift.’ That reminds me of an elderly man I used to know who had spent half of his life in gaol and then, in his latter years, opened up his life to the transforming power of faith in God. He summed up his philosophy of life when he said, ‘I’d rather be ten yards from Hell and heading in the opposite direction than a hundred miles away and heading towards it.’ It also reminds me of the thief who was crucified next to Jesus, who said ‘Lord, remember me when you come you’re your kingdom.’ No matter how much of a mess we may have made of life, the crucial thing is not where we are, but the direction we’re heading.

Posted in direction, Encouragement, Faith, God, Hell, inner peace, Inspirational, Journey, Life's journey, Living Life, old age, Personal Growth, pilgrimage, Spirituality, Trust in God, Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Divine Intelligence

Posted on October 14, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

A few years ago scientists in Arizona tried to set up an isolated living environment that would be a self contained microcosm of life on earth, containing soil, air, water, plants and animals. They called it Biosphere 2 and it consisted of an air tight enclosure covering more than three acres. But despite having the best brains in the country, an investment of two hundred million dollars, a multi- million dollar budget and unlimited technological support, it proved impossible to sustain eight people with adequate food, water and air for two years.
If all that human intelligence was unable to make Biosphere 2 work, it makes you wonder how the marvellously integrated ecosystems of earth, which have supported life for countless generations, just happened without an intelligence behind it.

Posted in creation, Faith, God, Inspirational, Intelligence behind the Universe, Living Life, Religion, Spiritual Insight, supreme being | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment