"Home Improvement"

Our children give us the opportunity to become the parents we always wished we'd had.

Louise Hart

"Wait For Clarity"

Act nothing in furious Passion; it's putting to Sea in a Storm.

Thomas Fuller

"Turn Not A Blind Eye"

There...is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue."

Edmund Burke

"Perplexed? Take A Seat"

Paul admitted to being “perplexed but not in despair” (2 Corinthians 4:8). I am curious about what could perplex a mature believer like Paul to the extent that despair was in the ballpark of contemplatable reactions. He doesn’t go into detail, so we must imagine.

Would Paul have been perplexed that people turned on him? Maybe. But I would think that, like Jesus, he already “knew what was in man” (John 2:24-25). Would he have been perplexed by the relentless volley of suffering in his life? Maybe. But then again, surely he knew that “to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example . . .” (1 Peter 2:21). Was he perplexed when the Galatians wanted to turn back from grace to earnings? Well, we know he was at least “astonished” (Galatians 1:6).

I would suspect that what perplexed Paul was what has perplexed God’s people of all time—God seeming to act inconsistently with his promises or character. One psalmist asked God: “Why, O LORD, do you stand afar off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1). That’s my perplexity too. Recently I prayed according to Hebrews 6:11 for “grace to help in time of need”—and I felt no different afterward, no abating of symptoms.

There are two different choices you can make at that point. You can be perplexed in doubt, or you can be perplexed in faith. Francis Schaeffer had said that there are at all times only the two “chairs” in the room: unfaith and faith...“I will put my trust in him” Hebrews 2:13.

Andree Seu

"This He Shall Also Reap"

Work in every hour; paid or unpaid, see only that thou work; and thou canst not escape the reward.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I Can't Believe My Eyes"

If God claims to be present and my trouble goes on and on, I need to decide whether to give up the faith or to put the Word of God (which says God claims to be present) above even something so fundamental a touchstone as my five senses. The five senses are our normal ways of knowing the world. But are they ultimate?

Come to think of it, why should the crumbling of my world be considered counter-evidence of God’s presence? Will I dictate to God what form His presence should take? Am I the judge that I should say what is inconsistent with God’s presence?

What if God is up to something in this crumbling of the world, something I have no idea of, something that will take time to be visible or come to fruition? If it comes to it, you and I must make this policy statement: Even if there is a choice between God’s Word and our eyes, I believe you, God. Because you say that you are with me, even now, I believe you.

Andree Seu

American Idols

While we may not be physically slaughtering our children before literal blocks of stone or wood, doesn’t idolatry continue to plague us? Who among us could deny that if the apostle Paul was looking over the average American city, his spirit would be “provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols” (Acts 17:16)? Though we live thousands of years after Ezekiel and Paul, our sons and daughters continue to be sacrificed on the altars of modern society.

Millions of unborn babies are slaughtered every year on the abortive altar of Selfishness. Sons are offered at the altar of Sports. Daughters are placed on the altar of Sexuality. The Temple of Materialism overflows with adherents. Shrines to Pride and Ego stand prominently in every neighborhood. Fulfillment is sought at the altar of Busyness and Celebrity is worshiped at the altar of Fame.

The time, geography and culture has changed, but the sinful tragedy marches on. With our idols we are guilty of unfaithfulness to our Creator. And we even offer our own God-given children in sacrifice to people and things that are not gods.

Dads, what do you want most for your children? Moms, what is your greatest aspiration for your sons and daughters? We know how we ought to answer that question, but what are we communicating to our heritage day after day, TV-show after TV-show, weekend after weekend? How are the priorities of our children being shaped as they follow the lead of our own living? Who or what is shown to be worthy of worship in our homes? Are we teaching our children that Almighty God is to be held as reverently ultimate and consistently worthy of the highest place in every single aspect of daily life?

...Moms and Dads, let’s not waste this precious time. When “enough is enough,” let’s have the courage to say so. As unrighteous danger and moral decay continues to creep into our homes, let’s have the fortitude to tune out, log off and fight back. Let’s take the time, not only to say “No” to our children, but to explain why. Let’s lovingly and consistently teach our children what is “out of bounds.” Let’s model for our children that the God of heaven alone is worthy of our worship.

Jason Hardin

"Slay Your Dragon"

It is always easier to locate an external enemy than grapple with an internal condition.

C. Wright Mills

"Strengthen Your Children"

Children thrive when parents set before them increasingly difficult, but always meetable, challenges.

Unknown

"Reined Passions"

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"And He Shall Lift You Up"

My lowliness is my loftiness, my loftiness my lowliness.

Hillel

"Life's Fertilizer"

It is most remarkable that those flowers which are most [emblematic] of purity should grow in the mud.

Henry David Thoreau

"Setting A Good Corporate Example"

Our decision to close on Sunday was our way of honoring God and directing our attention to things more important than our business. If it took seven days to make a living with a restaurant, then we needed to be in some other line of work. Through the years, I have never wavered from that position.”

S. Truett Cathy, Founder of Chic-fil-A.

"Eating For Two"

We live off half of what we eat, and the doctors live off the other half.

Saying

"His Glorious Radiance"

The radiance in some places is so great as to be fairly dazzling, keen lance rays of every color flashing sparkling in glorious abundance, joining the plants in their fine, brave beauty-work-every crystal, every flower a window opening into heaven, a mirror reflecting the Creator.

John Muir

"Neither Abuser Nor Abused"

Be neither a hammer nor a nail.

Saying

"They Need To Know"

Think about thinking:

Synthesize: manufacture, make, create, produce, fuse, blend, combine...

Amalgamate: mingle, integrate, unite, join,

Merge: to combine different ideas, influences, or objects into a new whole...

talk to your kids about what they think about...

they need to know what you know.

Anita Phillips

"Strive"

If you're coasting, you're going downhill.

L.W. Pierson

"Morality = Joy"

All theories of morality agree in considering that conduct whose total results, immediate and remote, are beneficial, is good conduct; while conduct whose total results, immediate and remote, are injurious, is bad conduct. The happiness or misery caused by it are the ultimate standards by which all men judge of behavior.

Herbert Spencer

"Because Winter Comes"

Make hay while the sun shineth.

John Clarke

"Adjust The Sails"

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

William Arthur Ward

"Irons In The Fire"

If you have many Irons in the Fire, some will burn.

Thomas Fuller

"All Members As Instruments of Righteousness"

Let your eye be chaste, your hand faithful, your tongue truthful and your heart enlightened.

Tablet of Baha’u'llah

[But Jehovah said it first :D]

"You Are What You Read"

Your library is your portrait.

Holbrook Jackson

"Time Together And Apart"

Company broadens the mind, solitude deepens it.

Saying

"Highs And Lows"

Mountaintops are for views and inspiration, but fruit is grown in the valleys.

Billy Graham

"Stirring A Conscience"

The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Passive Alliance"

To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system...Noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Like Statues Come To Life"

A statue has the shape of a man but is not alive. In the same way, man has (in a sense I am going to explain) the 'shape' or likeness of God, but he has not got the kind of life God has. Let us take the first point (man's resemblance to God) first. Everything God has made has some likeness to Himself. Space is like Him in its hugeness: not that the greatness of space is the same kind of greatness as God's, but it is a sort of symbol of it, or a translation of it into non-spiritual terms. Matter is like God in having energy...The vegetable world is like Him because it is alive...The intense activity and fertility of the insects, for example, is a first dim resemblance to the unceasing activity and the creativeness of God. In the higher mammals we get the beginnings of instinctive affection. That is not the same thing as the love that exists in God: but it is like it-rather in the way that a picture drawn on a flat piece of paper can nevertheless be 'like' a landscape. When we come to man, the highest of the animals, we get the completest resemblance to God which we know of....Man not only lives, but loves and reasons: biological life reaches its highest known level in him.

And that is precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor's shop. We are the statues and there is a rumour going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.

C.S. Lewis

"Put On Your Magic Glasses"

Back in November we were discussing the film Doctor Zhivago. The first commenter on my first column about it mentioned that her parents made the decision to divorce immediately after watching that film at a drive-in theater. I myself recall that when The Bridges of Madison County was the box office hit, an interview of viewers in China evinced the same phenomenon. One woman who saw it testified that the Clint Eastwood film gave her courage to leave her husband.

If we only had magic glasses that allowed us to see the infinite ripples of an exhaled word not in line with God’s truth, I think we would tremble at the thought of what we have spewed so casually all our lives.

Nowadays I start Paul’s letters and I pause over the words that I used to skim, and I wonder: What precisely is going on when Paul says “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”?

Andree Seu

"The Split Second"

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.

Pearl S. Buck

"The Moral Lesson"

The ... moral lesson which is suited for a child - the most important lesson for every time of life - is, this, "Never hurt anybody."

Rousseau

"Satisfied With Just A Cottage Below?"

Are you looking to Christ as an add-on, someone to spruce up the cottage, clean out the gutters, slap on some new paint? (And all the time we don't realize that God plans to make the cottage a palace.)

Marvin Olasky/Tim Keller

"Observe And Adopt"

No Nation has a monopoly on good things. Each one has something that the others could well afford to adopt.

Will Rogers

"With Boldness"

Who makes a timid request invites denial.

Seneca The Younger

"Howard Stern"

There is an important difference ... between the public interest and what interests the public.

Cass R. Sunstein

"Flicking Away Flies"

Whenever I was upset by something in the papers, [Jack] always told me to be more tolerant, like a horse flicking away flies in the summer.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

"Bluster And Boasting"

A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It's a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity.

Jimmy Carter

"Rise Above"

Nature...is what we are put into this world to rise above.

James Agee

"Nature: An Anticpation of Eternal Beauty"

Truth and goodness and beauty are but different faces of the same All. But beauty in nature is not ultimate. It is the herald of inward and eternal beauty.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Take The Time"

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

"Seven Essential Life Skills"

1)Focus and Self Control
2)Perspective Taking
3)Communicating
4)Making Connections
5)Critical Thinking
6)Taking on Challenges
7)Self-Directed, Engaged Learning.

Ellen Galinsky

"What If Everyone Did That?"

There is...only one categorical imperative: It is: Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

Immanuel Kant

"The Right Thing At The Right Time"

The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Become Great"

Great people are those who make others feel that they too, can become great.

Mark Twain

"Talking About My Generation"

"The self-aware, or self-absorbed, feel less self-fulfilled and thus are racked with self-pity...So, then, to those who once never trusted anyone over 30: Raise that bowl of high-fiber granola, antioxidant-rich blueberries and skim milk and give yourself... a happy birthday toast...Here's a simple explanation of how: Previous generations were raised to...speak only when spoken to and to endure in self-denying silence. But baby boomers were raised on the more nurturing, child-as-individual teachings of Dr. Benjamin Spock, and then placed under the spell of television, whose advertisers marked their wares directly to children. Parents were cut out of the sale — except, of course, for the actual purchase of that coonskin cap or Barbie doll...It created a sense of entitlement that had not existed before..."

Dan Barry

"Resolution"

Resolved, that I will live so, s I shall wish I had done when I come to die...Therefore to resolve to maximize his happiness in God was to resolve to show him more glorious than all other sources of happiness. Seeking happiness in God and glorifying god were the same..."The godly are designed for unknown and inconceivable happiness...This glory of God, therefore [consists] in the creature's admiring and rejoicing [and] exulting in the manifestation of his beauty and excellency...So we see it comes to this at last: that the end of the creation is that God may communicate happiness to the creature; for if God created the world that he may be glorified in the creature, he created it that they might rejoice in his glory: for we have shown that they are the same.

John Piper/Jonathon Edwards

"For Nothing is Hidden That Will Not Become Evident"

Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were the whole world looking at you, and act accordingly.

Thomas Jefferson (ironically)

"Timelessness, Prayer, and Freewill"

When we are praying about the result, say, of a battle or a medical consultation, the thought will often cross our minds that, if we only knew it, the event is already decided one way or the other. I believe this to be no good reason for ceasing our prayers. The event certainly has been decided. In a sense, it was decided before all the worlds. But one of the things taken into account in deciding it, and therefore one of the things that really causes it to happen, may be this very prayer that we are now offering. Thus, shocking as it may sound, I conclude that we can at noon become part causes of an event occurring at ten o'clock. (Some scientists would find this easier than popular thought does.) The imagination will, no doubt, try to play all sort of tricks on us at this point. It will ask, 'Then if I stop praying can God go back and alter what has already happened?' No. The event has already happened and one of its causes has been the fact that you are asking such questions instead of praying. It will ask, 'Then if I begin to pray can God go back and alter what has already happened?' No. The event has already happened and one of its causes is your present prayer. Thus something does really depend on my choice. My free act contributes to the cosmic shape. That contribution is made in eternity 'before all worlds'; but my consciousness of contributing reaches me at a particular point in the time series.

C.S. Lewis

"Will He Not Give His Children Good Gifts"

I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.

I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for,
but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself,
my unspoken prayers
were answered.
I am,
among all men,
most richly blessed.

An Unknown Confederate Soldier

"Without Doubting"

I thank You right now for a more glorious answer to my prayer than I can imagine.

Catherine Marshall

"Take Possession Of Our Hearts"

O Lord Jesus Christ,
word and revelation of the Eternal Father,
come, we pray You,
take possession of our hearts
and reign where you have right to reign.
So fill our minds with the thought
and our imaginations with the picture of your love,
that there may be in us no room for any desire
that is discordant with your holy will.
Cleanse us,
we pray you,
from all that may make us deaf to your call
or slow to obey it,
Who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
art one God,
blessed for ever.

William Temple

"Shovelling For The Right Reasons"

...shoveling is an activity not without its dangers. It starts out innocently enough, but an hour of solitude with a shovel is perfect campaigning weather for those who have an interest in your undoing. The pure pleasure of pleasing Josephine can be corrupted in a second into the not so pure pleasure of regarding yourself pleasing Josephine. The left hand should not know what the right hand is doing (Matthew 6:3), so this is to be resisted...When engaged in the dangerous act of snow removal, I find that you can’t go wrong repeating, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, Jesus!” with every scoop. I did a lot of that, with joy—for the health in my limbs; for my good, strong back; for special slant of sun at 3 o’clock in winter. There is nothing like it for deflecting the arrows of the Enemy. Because you never can be too careful when shoveling out Josephine.

Andree Seu

"Bliss"

To love and be loved - this
On earth is the highest bliss.

Heinrich Heine

"One"

In love, one and one are one.

Jean-Paul Sartre

"Love Your Enemies"

Show not yourself glad at the Misfortune of another though he were your enemy.

George Washington

"No"

The prompter the refusal, the less the disappointment.

Publius Syrus

"Spin Doctors: America's Hypnotists"

The media celebrities who modestly claim only to report the news are clearly its arbiters now.
Corporate conglomerates have taken over the news business.
Television has taken over the role that party bosses once played in selecting political candidates and issues.
Producers and their telegenic news superstars define the issues for the public and decide who does and does not get to speak to them.
The commentators tell us what reasonable people should think about the issues, and then they take another poll to see what we think abut what they have told us.
Right on cue, the eager politicians, along with their own pollsters and "spin doctors," take the results and announce their positions on the major questions of our public life.

This closed system of media-oriented political entertainment continually preempts genuine public dialogue and debate about the issues that most affect people's lives and the character of the nation.

Jim Wallis

Spare Tire Conscience

I think middle age is the best time, if we can escape the fatty degeneration of the conscience which often sets in at about fifty.

Dean William Ralph Inge

Good Fortune

Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not, "This is misfortune", but "To bear this worthily is good fortune."

Marcus Aurelius

"Be Dead Center"

If you are walking in God’s ways, and things get messy, cheer up—you are on the verge of something wonderful. If you are walking in rebellion against God, and things are going great, heads up—you are on the verge of disaster. Of course, God in His mercy may turn your disaster into a day of salvation. But for myself, I prefer to endure the mess when I know I am dead center in the will of God.

What is the mess you are in right now? Hold on to God and be patient. The faithful servant can have confidence that things are going to turn out. Just look at Paul’s confidence: “I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance” (1:19).” How it all turns out is what’s important.

Andree Seu

"Voluntary Surrender"

All creatures of course live from God in the sense that He made them and at every moment maintains them in existence. But there is a further and higher kind of "life from God" which can be given only to a creature who voluntarily surrenders himself to it.

C.S.Lewis

"Grouchy, Selfish, And Collecting Toys? Or Your Image Slowly Becoming His"

Dec. 8 was the 30-year anniversary of John Lennon’s death, of course. The “of course” is for members of my generation, for whom this marked the end of an age. Though more worthy men have been whisked away in an untimely fashion, the death at age 40 of the first of four Beatles, at the hands of deranged fan Mark David Chapman, was the coda to our adolescence and the last stop on our ride on the psychedelic bus.

At the time of Lennon’s death, it seemed tragic to me that a man should die this young, that he should not fill up half the years of a normal actuarial projection. And of course, it is tragic: Even the Bible touts the blessing of a quiver full of years (Proverbs 3:16).

But my impression has changed over time as my own sojourn lengthens and yields a new perspective. As the boomers’ collective graying matter is shuffled one by one into graduated assisted living facilities (how weird it will be to see Jimi Hendrix posters on a nursing home wall), it does not necessarily seem to me to be an advantage to have outlasted Lennon—if outlasting is all we have done. Hurrah! Three extra decades to be grouchy and selfish and collect toys.

No. Long years are an advantage only if you live for Christ, only if you wake up every morning with His praises on your lips, His will on your agenda, and your image slowly becoming His. I thought as much in those lucid days when I sat alone on new grass sprouts eight feet above my husband’s casket, and the conviction only grows.

I can’t see that 30 extra years did Paul McCartney much good. Then again, while one is still in the land of the living there is hope.

Andree Seu

"Here Is Diety"

We have never looked more squarely into the face of the living God
than when we stand by faith at the foot of the cross
and hear His Son plead for mercy upon the ungodly men who are murdering Him.
Here is power. Here is deity.

Author Unknown

"The Sword of Peace"

O God, you gave us the grace
to carry the sword of your kingdom of peace;
and you made us messengers of peace
in a world of strife,
and messengers of strife
in a world of false peace:
make strong our hand,
make clear our voice,
give us humility with firmness
and insight with passion,
that we may fight,
not to conquer,
but to redeem.

Gregory Vlastos

"Invisible Walls"

The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free.

Aldous Huxley

"Read It, Nebuchadnezzar"

Man is...strange...he doesn't like the read the handwriting on the wall until his back is up against it.

Adlai E. Stevenson

Do The Math

Mathematics is, I believe, the chief source of the belief in eternal and exact truth, as well as in a super-sensible intelligible world.

Bertrand Russell

Good Gifts

Holy Spirit, Truth divine,
dawn upon this soul of mine;
Word of God and inward light,
wake my spirit, clear my sight.

Holy Spirit, Love divine,
glow within this heart of mine;
kindle every high desire;
perish self in thy pure fire.

Holy Spirit, Power divine,
fill and nerve this will of mine;
grant that I may strongly live,
bravely bear, and nobly strive.

Holy Spirit, Right divine,
King within my conscience reign;
be my Lord, and I shall be
firmly bound, forever free.

Samuel Longfellow

"In His Time"

Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in His own good time, will give us the rightful result.

Abraham Lincoln

"The Approach"

The greatest favors may be done so awkwardly and bunglingly as to offend; and disagreeable things may be done so agreeably as almost to oblige.

Lord Chesterfield