The other day, I went over to my cousin’s house to play a game of Sorry. The whole concept of the game is for each person to go around the board and enter their home base. They do this by moving a specific amount of spaces directed by the cards they draw. If you land on a space that your opponent already occupies, you move them all the way back to the beginning. If you are really ornery you yell, “SORRY!” as you do this. Of course you do not mean it. This is particularly obvious with me since I giggle in glee as I knock their piece out of the way with considerable force. I really do not regret it at all. Read the rest of this entry »

“You can not get up from the table until you finish your green beans,” the mother said to her son. “I don’t want them. They are yucky!” the son insolently replied. “They are good for you, and you need to eat them. You have to clean your plate.” Unfortunately for the mother, the battle of wills had just begun. This scenario of mother and child has happened countless times. For many children there are always some parts of their dinner they do not want to finish. They want to pick and choose what they eat. Often times its vegetables, and they ignore the part of dinner that is healthiest for them. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most powerful, and sometimes most neglected, weapons in the Christian arsenal is prayer. As James points out, God’s power is amazing. For Elijah, he was able to control the rain. A brief scan through Genesis and Exodus shows us the amazing power of God. First we see that God is the one who created everything. Everything around us, everything we see was brought into being by him. In Exodus, God does amazing miracles, turning water into blood, controlling the weather and animal infestations, and even the power to give and take life. What is amazing about this power is that it is available to us. Read the rest of this entry »

Proverbs 13:3

The one who guards his mouth preserves his life; The one who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.

      Words are easy to come by. The phrase “words are cheap” ring true to observers of people. The fact that it is so easy to speak leads some people to think that they should do so often. However, the Proverbs author points out that it is better off for us to guard our mouths. We should make sure that we weight our words so that when we speak, it matters. So many people will talk your ear off, but they have very little of value to say.

      We can easily see how people would come to ruin by opening their mouths wide open. The person who can not keep a secret is a great example. First of all, they break the trust of those around them. People will stop confiding in them.  Second, they look the fool for revealing things that should not be revealed. Not only that, sometimes secrets are secrets because they are not yet final. When things change at the last minute, the look the fool.

       There are also people who cannot control what they say. They offend people often because they do not control their thoughts or their tongues. They then wonder why people no longer desire to hang around them. Also, they speak without carrying an idea through to its consequences. Again, they may be made to look the fool because they did not think through their words carefully, but instead spoke off the top of their head. By not controlling their tongue, people can cause damage to both themselves and others. No one can deny the importance of carefully guarding the tongue.

The one who guards his mouth preserves his life; The one who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.

1 Corinthians 2:1

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.

     Every person wants their lives to mean something. This is the basis for the mid-life crisis. People look back at their lives and they wonder what it all meant. Have they done any good? Have they left the world in a better place than they found it? If they look back on their lives and find themselves deficient in this category, it can be very disheartening.

     Those who want to make the world a better place need to realize the principle action that must occur for them to be successful: change. If they do not enact change in the world, then they have not helped the world become a better place. In order to accomplish this goal, people must desire to change things. It is only through change that we can improve the current model.

      It may be discouraging to think that we need to offer change in order to make things better. However, we should take courage. The amazing aspect of this story is that there is no special ability needed in order to cause change. We do not have to be a super-intelligent scientist nor a wealthy tycoon, nor even a dynamic speaker. In fact, the only tool we need is widely available to any of us. It is the word of God. The word of God brings about change in people’s lives, and it is always a positive change. If we can bring even one soul to God by presenting the Word, then we have made the world a better place.

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.

Ecclesiastes 7:2

It is better to go to a house of mourning Than to go to a house of feasting, Because that is the end of every man, And the living takes it to heart.

     Just recently, I went to a viewing of a lady who had passed away. I had spent some time with her, but we were not all that close. Even with the emotional armor that distance can sometimes bring in such situations, it was a very sobering experience. I was amazed to look at her. She was almost unrecognizable. This was not due to some major injury, but because it was obvious that her spirit was no longer there. All that was left was just the physical encasing that had been carrying it. As I viewed her body, I realized I was not really looking at her at all.

     This somber occasion caused the words of the preacher (Eccl. 1:1) to echo in my mind. I realized that it was good for me to be here contemplating these thoughts. First, as I said above, it was amazing to me to realize that she was not just there. So many times in our lives we define ourselves by our outward appearance. We focus on it, trying to base our happiness on how we look. Yet in a few years, we will leave this fleshly vessel. Instead, what should we be focusing on and defining ourselves by?

     It was also important to spend time contemplating that her fate was sealed. She had made a life time of choices, and those choices determined her relationship with God. Wherever she was is where she is now. There is no second chance. There is also no squandering. We need to prepare ourselves for such a day. How will our next choice affect our relationship with God? Will it push Him away? Or bring Him closer? We always expect there to be a tomorrow. In many ways we feel immortal, as if we will never die. Yet all men die. Are we ready? If that day were today, would we be satisfied with our relationship with God? If not, we must diligently strive to make it so.

It is better to go to a house of mourning Than to go to a house of feasting, Because that is the end of every man, And the living takes it to heart.

Proverbs 16:25

“There is a way which seems right to a man,

But its end is the way of death.”

There once was a girl who owned a computer. For whatever reason, her computer was not working properly. She was concerned that she had a virus. Rather than take it to a specialist to fix it, she decided that she would handle it herself. In order to fix the problem, she started randomly deleting files that she didn’t recognize as important. This was very dangerous, because a lot of the files with weird names are the ones that are most important to the computer. This was obviously a bad idea. But she thought it was the most effective way to get rid of a virus.

Read the rest of this entry »

Proverbs 1:22

“How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing And fools hate knowledge?”

      There was a wonderful tradition in my family as I grew up. Anytime we would buy a swing set, bookshelf, grill, or anything that required assembly, my Dad would be the one to put it all together. However he would refuse the help of the directions. Who needs those? We kids would help. By help I mean be in the way and giggle annoyingly anytime things went wrong. Every 15 minutes, when another frustration arose, my Mother would offer to give him the directions. He would scoff at the idea, with my Mom shaking her head.

      This harmless example describes exactly how many people live their lives. They go about stubbornly refusing to look at the wisdom that would show them how to live. Not only that, but they take a perverse joy in refusing such wisdom. They enjoy doing it their own way, even if that way is doomed to fail.  They delight in making fun of others who would live by such wisdom. How stupid and wasted a person’s life is by actually using the instructions! Do not dare to offer them knowledge. They want absolutely no part in it.

      We too can fall into this trap. It does not have to be nearly as blatant as this. We may have a silent, less obvious rebellion. Or we can find ourselves just being too lazy. For our lives, God has given us the instructions. He has told us how to construct a good life. It is found in the Bible. All we have to do is read it and apply it. Some people do not do these things willfully, others because of a lack of diligence. The result is the same. Will we reject the knowledge He has offered? Will we continue being simple-minded in our day-to-day decisions?

“How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing And fools hate knowledge?”