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Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Land of the dying and the land of living

Professional golfer Paul Azinger was diagnosed with cancer at age 33.

He had just won a PGA championship and had ten tournament victories to his credit.

He wrote, "A genuine feeling of fear came over me. I could die from cancer. Then another reality hit me even harder. I'm going to die eventually anyway, whether from cancer or something else. It's just a question of when.

Everything I had accomplished in golf became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live."


Then he remembered something that Larry Moody, who teaches a Bible study on the tour, had said to him...

"Zinger, we're not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We're in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living."

Golfer Paul Azinger recovered from chemotherapy and returned to the PGA tour.

He's done pretty well.

But that bout with cancer deepened his perspective. He wrote, "I've made a lot of money since I've been on the tour, and I've won a lot of tournaments, but that happiness is always temporary.

The only way you will ever have true contentment is in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

I'm not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don't have problems, but I feel like I've found the answer to the six-foot hole."


Paul's message was a great reminder for us that our life here on earth is just a dress rehearsal for eternity.

We should always aim to please God and let Him be the center of our lives.

Today, if you feel overwhelmed, stressed, and tired take a short break. Breathe, utter a prayer, and meditate your memory verse.

Life can be much easier if we marinate our minds with scriptures throughout the day.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Patient Teacher

A teacher friend of mine once worked with a student who  couldn't understand Algebra no matter how hard she tried. She'd gone to her professors and they were no help . She'd gone to the study lab at her community college and they couldn't help either. And finally she asked my friend for help.

First he tried doing what all her other teachers did. He showed her how to do Algebra using some simple examples. And she was able to do them immediately  after his instruction. But when she tried a little while later, she could not remember what to do.

He knew this student was doing well in her other  classes. He knew she was intelligent. So what was keeping her from learning Algebra?

Eventually he realized she didn't know know one basic  concept about math. The root of her problem was that  she didn't know that the equal sign meant that the value on both sides of an equation is the same.

Once he showed her how the equal sign worked it was like a light went on in her head. "Oh. I get it."

He then showed her how to apply this principle to Algebra: Whatever you do to one side of an equation must be done to the other to keep it equal.

She was then able to solve the problems he presented to her and eventually she was able to solve more and more complex problems.

At that point she really understood Algebra for the first time. Most importantly she was able to remember how to do the problems later.

A few years later my friend got a call from this woman. She was excited to tell him that she had the highest grade in her math class at the University of Alabama  and that she was studying to be an accountant.

What an incredible turnaround for her. And it's all  because she had a patient teacher who assumed she had the ability to succeed even when she had her doubts.

Love Letters

When the now-famous poet Elizabeth Barrett became the wife of Robert Browning, her parents disowned her because they disapproved of the marriage.

Their daughter Elizabeth, however, wrote almost every week, telling them that she loved them and longed for a reconciliation.

After 10 years, she received a huge box in the mail that contained all the notes she had sent. Not one had been opened!

Although these "love letters" have now become a precious part of classical English literature, it's really sad to think that they were never read by Elizabeth Barrett's own parents.

Had they looked at just one, the broken relationship with their daughter might have been healed.

All of us are alienated from God because of sin, but God has provided a way of reconciliation. In the Bible, He tells about it, and also expresses His earnest desire for fellowship with us.

The question is, are you reading God's letter to you regularly?

Are you meditating His Words daily?

If not, let this message today be of an encouragement to you.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Memory of an Incredible Father

I love sports so this event is something I really look forward to.
 
And every Olympics there's always BIG moments that will inspire you as human being and will make you believe in yourself and the God who created you.


The Barcelona Olympics of 1992 provided one of track and field's most incredible moments.
 

Britain's Derek Redmond had dreamed all his life of winning a gold medal in the 400-meter race, and his dream was in sight as the gun sounded in the semi-finals at Barcelona.
 

He was running the race of his life and could see the finish line as he rounded the turn into the backstretch.


Suddenly he felt a sharp pain go up the back of his leg. He fell face first onto the track with a torn right hamstring.
 

Sports Illustrated recorded the dramatic events: As the medical attendants were approaching, Redmond fought to his feet. "It was animal instinct," he would say later. He set out hopping, in a crazed attempt to finish the race.
 

When he reached the stretch, a large man in a T-shirt came out of the stands, hurled aside a security guard and ran to Redmond, embracing him.


It was Jim Redmond, Derek's father. "You don't have to do this," he told his weeping son. "Yes, I do," said Derek. "Well, then," said Jim, "we're going to finish this together."


And they did. Fighting off security men, the son's head sometimes buried in his father's shoulder, they stayed in Derek's lane all the way to the end, as the crowd gaped, then rose and howled and wept.


Derek didn't walk away with the gold medal, but he walked away with an incredible memory of a father who, when he saw his son in pain, left his seat in the stands to help him finish the race.


Astonishing, isn't it?

That's what God does for us when we place our trust in Him.


When we are experiencing pain and we're struggling to finish the race, we can be confident that we have a loving Father who won't let us do it alone.


You see, He left His place in heaven to come alongside us in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. "I am with you always," says Jesus to His followers, "to the very end of the age."


We just have to keep our eyes, heart, and mind in God's Word.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Frog Story

A boy told his father, "Dad, if three frogs were sitting on a limb that hung over a pool, and one frog decided to jump off into the pool, how many frogs would be left on the limb?"

The dad replied, "Two."

"No," the son replied. "There's three frogs and one decides to jump, how many are left?"

The dad said, "Oh, I get it, if one decides to jump, the others would too. So there are none left."

The boy said, "No dad, the answer is three. The frog only DECIDED to jump."

Does that sound like last year's resolution?

Great inspiration and great resolutions, but often times we only decide, and months later...

...we are still on the same limb of do-nothing.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

The Natural Order



A very wealthy man asked a Zen master for a text which would always remind him how happy he was with his family.

The Zen master took some parchment and, in beautiful calligraphy, wrote:

– The father dies. The son dies. The grandson dies.

– What? – said the furious rich man. – I asked you for something to inspire me, some teaching which might be respectfully contemplated by future generations, and you give me something as depressing and gloomy as these words?

– You asked me for something which would remind you of the happiness of living together with your family. If your son dies first, everyone will be devastated by the pain. If your grandson dies, it would be an unbearable experience.

“However, if your family disappears in the order which I placed on the paper, this is the natural course of life. Thus, although we all endure moments of pain, the generations will continue, and your legacy will be long-lasting.”

The Cry of the Desert

As soon as he arrived in Marrakesh, Morocco, a missionary decided he would stroll through the desert at the city’s boundary every morning. On his first stroll he noticed a man lying on the sand, caressing the ground with his hands and leaning his ears towards the earth.

“He is mad,” the missionary said to himself. But he saw the man every morning during his walks and after a month, intrigued by that strange behavior, he decided to approach the stranger.

He knelt beside him and asked, in broken Arabic, “What are you doing?”

“I keep the desert company and offer solace for its loneliness and its tears.”

“I didn’t know the desert was capable of crying.”

“It cries every day, because it dreams of being useful to mankind and turning into a huge garden where people could cultivate, flowers and sheep.”

“Well, then, tell the desert it accomplishes its mission very well,” said the missionary. “Every time I walk here, I am able to understand the true dimension of the human being, as its open space allows me to see how small we are before God. When I look at its sands, I imagine the millions of people in the world who were raised alike although the world isn’t always fair towards everyone. Its mountains help me meditate. As I see the sun rising on the horizon, my soul fills with joy and I get closer to the Creator.”

The missionary left the man and went back to his daily chores. To his surprise, he found him the next morning at the same place, in the same position.

“Did you tell the desert everything I told you?” he asked.

The man nodded.
“And even so it keeps crying?”

“I can hear each of its sobs,” answered the man, his head tilted towards the ground.

“Now it is crying because it spent thousands of years thinking it was completely useless and wasted all this time blaspheming God and its own destiny.”

“Well, then tell the desert that despite having a short lifespan, we human beings spend much of our days thinking we are useless. We rarely find the reason for our destiny and think God has been unfair to us. When a moment finally arrives in which we are shown the reason why we were born, we think it is too late to change and keep on suffering. And as the desert, we blame ourselves for the time we have wasted.”

“I am not sure the desert will bother to hear it,” said the man. “It is used to suffering and it can’t see things differently.”

“So then let us do what I always do when I feel people have lost faith. Let us pray.”

Both of them went down on their knees and prayed; one turned to Mecca as he was a Muslim and the other joined his hands in prayer, as he was Catholic. They prayed, each one to his own God.

The next day when the missionary resumed his daily walk, the man was no longer there. The ground where he used to embrace the sand seemed to be wet as if a small spring had formed. During the following months that spring grew and the city’s residents built a well around it.

The place is now called “The Well of the Desert’s Tears”. It is said that those who drink its water will be able to transform the reason of their suffering into the reason of their joy and will end up finding their true destiny.