Our Expectations and Our Reality

Posted on October 10, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

Megan Gressor said that the happiest person she’d ever met operates a pedicab in Saigon. He’d fought on the losing side in the Vietnam War, spent ten years in a re-education camp, had married late and now had a little girl, the great joy of his life. With a background like that what right had he to be happy, earning a pittance taking tourists, infinitely wealthier and infinitely more miserable than he, round the sites of the battles he’d lost?
Well, with great insight, Megan writes, ‘Happiness isn’t measured in absolute terms: it’s to do with the fit between our expectations and our reality. He’d done better than he’d expected and so he was happier than he’d ever dared hope.’
To me he’d learned one of life’s greatest lessons – to set realistic expectations and truly appreciate what he got rather than agonising about what was unavailable to him. Schopenhauer said ‘we rarely think about the 95% we have, but always about the 5% we lack.’ Sometimes we have to lower the bar of our expectations to be happy.

Posted in Encouragement, inner peace, Inspirational, Joy, Life's journey, Living Life, Personal Growth, relationships, satisfaction, Spirituality, thankfulness | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The difference is in the looking

Posted on October 5, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

I used to visit a hostel for aged people situated on a headland overlooking a magnificent stretch of coastline. I remember saying to the nurses how fortunate they were to work in such an environment. But they surprised me when they said they never paid any attention to it, there were too many other things that took their time and attention. It made me think of Marcel Proust’s statement that it’s not new visions we need, it’s new eyes to see the ones already there.
Maybe that’s what Jesus meant when he said, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ There are people who say there is no God because they see no evidence. There are others who think there is a God, but He’s so far away as to be unknowable. And then there are those who see God everywhere. The difference is in the looking.

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

Lucky

Posted on October 2, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

Johnny Carson, host of TV’s famous Tonight Show, got a big laugh when he read this item from the lost-and-found column of a small town newspaper: ‘Lost dog, brown fur, some missing due to mange, blind in one eye, deaf, lame leg due to recent traffic accident, slightly arthritic. Goes by the name of Lucky.’
Well, luck, if there is such a thing, sometimes comes in strange forms. Like Edwin Robinson who became blind and deaf after an accident. Nine years later he was struck by lightning and within hours his vision and hearing were restored. Stephen Leacock said, ‘I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.’
But for me, it’s not about luck, it’s about what the Bible means when it says, ‘We know that in all things God works together for good to those who love Him.’

Posted in Faith, God, inner peace, Inspirational, Living Life, Luck, Personal Growth, Spirituality, Trials and testings, Trust in God | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Helping People Cry

Posted on September 27, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

I read a wonderful account of a little boy who went into his neighbour’s backyard and sat on the old man’s lap because he was sitting there crying, having just lost his wife. Later, when the child returned home, his mother asked him what he’d said to the old man, and the child replied, ‘Nothing, I just helped him cry.’
I guess that’s what the Bible means when it talks about ‘bearing each other’s burdens and weeping with those who weep.’ Human beings have a remarkable capacity to cope with life’s sadness when they have someone who will stand with them. One line of a popular modern hymn says, ‘I will hold the Christ light for you in the night-time of your fear.’ There are few things better able to summon up hope than the presence of a silent and caring friend.

Posted in Inspirational, Journey, Life's journey, Loneliness, marriage, old age, pilgrimage, relationships, supportive community, Sympathy and Support, tribulation and trouble | Leave a comment

God Knows I’m Worth It.

Posted on August 27, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

The novelist A.J. Cronin based some of his best selling stories on his earlier experience as a doctor in a small mining community in Wales just after the First World War. There was a nurse there who used to help him. Her name was Oliven Davies. She’d served that impoverished community for more than twenty years with a degree of competence, patience and cheerfulness that deeply impressed Dr Cronin. Late one night, after a long and strenuous operation, he asked her why she didn’t make the miners and their families pay her more for her invaluable services to the community. She smiled and told him she had enough to get along. He said to her, ‘You ought at least to get an extra pound a week, God knows you’re worth it.’ To which she replied, ‘If God knows I’m worth it, then that’s all that matters.’

Posted in Called and Chosen, Encouragement, Faith, God, inner peace, Inspirational, Life's journey, Living Life, Religion, satisfaction, Spirituality, thankfulness, Trust in God, Wisdom | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

God Gives Me Rest

Posted on August 25, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

Sleep deprivation has emerged as one of the major threats to our sense of wellbeing. Most adult Australians now get less than seven hours of sleep per night, whereas our great grandparents got nine. Cultural and economic forces have combined to create a twenty four /seven society with cities that never sleep. It’s no wonder that Time magazine described the United States as ‘drowsy America,’ with more than fifty million people suffering sleep disorders.
However, I’ve always found that the best thing to do when I can’t sleep is to get out of bed, make myself a hot milk drink, then lie back and think of all the good things I’ve got going for me and pray for those who are on my mind. I find my racing thoughts slow down, my anxieties ebb away and, as Psalm twenty seven says, ‘God gives me rest.’

Posted in Bible, Faith, God, inner peace, Inspirational, Peaceful Sleep, Prayer, quietness, Sleeplessness, Spirituality, thankfulness, tribulation and trouble | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

It Takes Three to Make a Great Relationship

Posted on August 16, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

They say that the most difficult years of a marriage are those after the wedding. Well, we all know that it takes two people to make it success, but it only takes one to make it a failure. That’s why people everywhere love to give advice to those about to take the plunge. In China, for example, they advise that arguing with your wife is as useless as trying to blow out a light globe. In France they tell girls that husbands are like fires: if they are left unattended, they go out. And there’s a pearl of wisdom from England that says that more people would celebrate golden weddings if more people practiced the golden rule. But I think the Arabs have got a point when they say: ‘When buying a camel or taking a wife, shut your eyes and commend yourself to God.’ Because it takes three to make a great relationship: two people who love each other and God, who loves them both.

Posted in Faith, God, love, marriage, relationships, Spirituality | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

No Strings Attached

Posted on August 11, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

During the George Bush era Robert Kirkpatrick, who was serving a three year sentance at the Belmont Correctional Institution in eastern Ohio, got an invitation from Vice President Cheney to a two and a half thousand dollar a plate fundraising dinner in Washington to meet President Bush himself. Kirkpatrick told reporters that he wanted the President to know he’d be happy to attend but he’d need to pull some strings to get him there. I’m not sure what the final outcome was, but I doubt that the invitation was followed up.
Not so with Jesus. In one of his great stories He talked about God’s servants going out into the streets and lanes and inviting us all, even the most disreputable of us, to God’s great feast of abundant life. And the great thing is there are no strings that need to be pulled. All we have to do is turn round and say ‘Yes’.

Posted in Called and Chosen, Encouragement, Faith, Food, God, Inspirational, Invitation, Religion, Spirituality | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Miracle Fruit

Posted on August 5, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

I read somewhere that miraculin – sometimes known as miracle fruit – is a small berry with a citrus taste. But the miracle is not what it tastes like, but what it makes everything else taste like. So, for example, if you chew it up and then eat a lemon, the lemon will actually taste sweet. The effect of miraculin lasts for about an hour and you can use it to confuse your taste buds into turning vinegar into lemonade. The only problem is that when the vinegar hits your throat it burns all the way down because miraculin only works on the tongue’s taste buds. But your throat and stomach still know an acid when they feel one.
It reminds me of that timeless wisdom from the Bible that says, ‘Though there are things that are sweet in the mouth and we cannot bear to let them go, yet they will turn sour in the stomach and become the venom of serpents.’ It’s always the long term effect of things that we need to consider most.

Posted in Bible, Deceit, Inspirational, Personal Growth, pilgrimage, Righteousness, Spirituality, Wisdom | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Controlling Our Moods

Posted on July 31, 2013 by vincentsmithauthor

One of the hardest things in life is to understand and control our moods. When we’re feeling good everything around us looks good and is good. But when we get into a dark mood that same world becomes miserable and threatening. It takes effort to deal with this tendency. I think William James got it right when he said: ‘The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind.’ The trick is in having a ready resource always available to help us drag ourselves out of the negative into the positive; and that resource is prayer. Robert Cook said: ‘When I wait quietly before the Lord in prayer, it gives God the chance to change my mood and take all the steam out of my pressure cooker.’ God may not change my situation; but He does change me and my ability to respond with faith, courage and maturity.

Posted in Faith, God, inner peace, Inspirational, Moods, Personal Growth, Prayer, Spirituality, Trials and testings, tribulation and trouble, Trust in God | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment