"Doubtless it is a rule in poetry that if you do your own work well, you will find you have done also work you never dreamed of."
-C.S. Lewis
09 November 2010
08 November 2010
Thought for Today
Exploring the question brings more wisdom than having the answer.
— A Course in Miracles
If you attack a problem, you are going to get your butt whipped. Anything you attack will fight back. Chances are, if you have a problem, it is bigger than you; it crept up on you or you didn’t know what you were doing in the first place. Don’t attack your problems. Face them, confess them, and understand what they are— that is the process. The process teaches and brings a richness that will help you avoid future problems. When you attack a problem is means you want a solution. The solution is not always the answer, but the process is. The process keeps you in the moment and your must be in the moment to fully experience the solution. When you wrestle, attack or fight a problem you are focused on a place you are not—the future. You are here, in the moment exactly where the problem is. So calm down, understand what is really going on and them surrender to the process.
Today I will not attack a problem; I will go through the solution process.
— A Course in Miracles
If you attack a problem, you are going to get your butt whipped. Anything you attack will fight back. Chances are, if you have a problem, it is bigger than you; it crept up on you or you didn’t know what you were doing in the first place. Don’t attack your problems. Face them, confess them, and understand what they are— that is the process. The process teaches and brings a richness that will help you avoid future problems. When you attack a problem is means you want a solution. The solution is not always the answer, but the process is. The process keeps you in the moment and your must be in the moment to fully experience the solution. When you wrestle, attack or fight a problem you are focused on a place you are not—the future. You are here, in the moment exactly where the problem is. So calm down, understand what is really going on and them surrender to the process.
Today I will not attack a problem; I will go through the solution process.
Thought for Today
What is it that would make a creature as fierce, majestic and powerful as a lion is, subject itself to the intimidation of a man, a whip and a chair? The lion has been taught to forget what it is.
06 November 2010
Thought for Today
O God, I Need Thee (1951)
Howard Thurman
I Need Thy Sense of Time
Always I have an underlying anxiety about things.
Sometimes I am in a hurry to achieve my ends
And am completely without patience. It is hard for me
To realize that some growth is slow,
That all processes are not swift. I cannot always discriminate
Between what takes time to develop and what can be rushed,
Because my sense of time is dulled.
I measure things in terms of happenings.
O to understand the meaning of perspective
That I may do all things with a profound sense of leisure --of
time.
I Need Thy Sense of Order
The confusion of the details of living
Is sometimes overwhelming. The little things
Keep getting in my way providing ready-made
Excuses for failure to do and be
What I know I ought to do and be.
Much time is spent on things that are not very important
While significant things are put into an insignificant place
In my scheme of order. I must unscramble my affairs
So that my life will become order. O God, I need
Thy sense of order.
I Need Thy Sense of the Future
Teach me to know that life is ever
On the side of the future,
Keep alive in me the forward look, the high hope,
The onward surge. Let me not be frozen
Either by the past or present.
Grant me, O patient Father, Thy sense of the future
Without which all life would sicken and die.
Howard Thurman
I Need Thy Sense of Time
Always I have an underlying anxiety about things.
Sometimes I am in a hurry to achieve my ends
And am completely without patience. It is hard for me
To realize that some growth is slow,
That all processes are not swift. I cannot always discriminate
Between what takes time to develop and what can be rushed,
Because my sense of time is dulled.
I measure things in terms of happenings.
O to understand the meaning of perspective
That I may do all things with a profound sense of leisure --of
time.
I Need Thy Sense of Order
The confusion of the details of living
Is sometimes overwhelming. The little things
Keep getting in my way providing ready-made
Excuses for failure to do and be
What I know I ought to do and be.
Much time is spent on things that are not very important
While significant things are put into an insignificant place
In my scheme of order. I must unscramble my affairs
So that my life will become order. O God, I need
Thy sense of order.
I Need Thy Sense of the Future
Teach me to know that life is ever
On the side of the future,
Keep alive in me the forward look, the high hope,
The onward surge. Let me not be frozen
Either by the past or present.
Grant me, O patient Father, Thy sense of the future
Without which all life would sicken and die.
04 November 2010
Thought for Today
Interrupted by God
We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, who will thwart our plans and frustrate our ways time and again, even daily, by sending people across our path with their demands and requests. We can, then pass them by, preoccupied with our more important daily tasks, just as the priest--perhaps reading the Bible--passed by the man who had fallen among robbers (Luke 10:31). When we do that, we pass by
the visible sign of the cross raised in our lives to show us that God’s way, and not our way, is what counts. It is a strange fact that, of all people, Christians and theologians often consider their work so important and urgent that they do not want to let anything interrupt it. They think they are doing God a favor, but actually they are despising God’s “crooked yet straight path” (Gottfried Arnold). They want to know nothing about how human plans are thwarted. But it is part of the school of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service. We do not manage our time ourselves but allow it to be occupied by God.
-from Life Together 99-100
We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, who will thwart our plans and frustrate our ways time and again, even daily, by sending people across our path with their demands and requests. We can, then pass them by, preoccupied with our more important daily tasks, just as the priest--perhaps reading the Bible--passed by the man who had fallen among robbers (Luke 10:31). When we do that, we pass by
the visible sign of the cross raised in our lives to show us that God’s way, and not our way, is what counts. It is a strange fact that, of all people, Christians and theologians often consider their work so important and urgent that they do not want to let anything interrupt it. They think they are doing God a favor, but actually they are despising God’s “crooked yet straight path” (Gottfried Arnold). They want to know nothing about how human plans are thwarted. But it is part of the school of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service. We do not manage our time ourselves but allow it to be occupied by God.
-from Life Together 99-100
01 November 2010
Thought for Today
Lead Me, Guide Me (1953)
Doris Akers
I am weak and I need Thy strength and pow’r,
To help me over my weakest hour,
Let me thru the darkness Thy face to see,
Lead me, oh Lord, lead me.
Lead me, guide along the way,
For if you lead me I cannot stray.
Lord, let me walk each day with Thee,
Lead me, oh Lord, lead me.
Help me tread in the paths of righteousness,
Be my aid when Satan and sin oppress.
I am putting all my trust in Thee,
Lead me, oh Lord, lead me.
I am lost, if you take your hand from me,
I am blind without Thy Light to see,
Lord, just always let me Thy servant be,
Lead me, oh Lord, lead me.
Doris Akers
I am weak and I need Thy strength and pow’r,
To help me over my weakest hour,
Let me thru the darkness Thy face to see,
Lead me, oh Lord, lead me.
Lead me, guide along the way,
For if you lead me I cannot stray.
Lord, let me walk each day with Thee,
Lead me, oh Lord, lead me.
Help me tread in the paths of righteousness,
Be my aid when Satan and sin oppress.
I am putting all my trust in Thee,
Lead me, oh Lord, lead me.
I am lost, if you take your hand from me,
I am blind without Thy Light to see,
Lord, just always let me Thy servant be,
Lead me, oh Lord, lead me.
31 October 2010
Thought for Today
Freedom and Truth
We know that all truth which exists in the presence of God must lead to the cross. The community that follows Christ must go with him to the cross. Because of their truth and freedom thy will be hated by the world. Nor can a people find truth and freedom if they do not place themselves in the judgment of God’s truth. Likewise, a people will remain in untruth and slavery until such time as they receive and continue to receive their truth and freedom from God alone, until they know that truth and freedom lead to love; indeed, until they know that the way of love leads to the cross. If a people are really able to acknowledge this today, then a free people, the only people that are not slaves to themselves, but who are free servants of God’s truth.
We know that all truth which exists in the presence of God must lead to the cross. The community that follows Christ must go with him to the cross. Because of their truth and freedom thy will be hated by the world. Nor can a people find truth and freedom if they do not place themselves in the judgment of God’s truth. Likewise, a people will remain in untruth and slavery until such time as they receive and continue to receive their truth and freedom from God alone, until they know that truth and freedom lead to love; indeed, until they know that the way of love leads to the cross. If a people are really able to acknowledge this today, then a free people, the only people that are not slaves to themselves, but who are free servants of God’s truth.
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