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Author Topic: Meditations  (Read 73261 times)
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« Reply #40 on: January 14, 2011, 08:08:09 AM »

from gratefulness.org

As i walked down the avenue, the late afternoon sun was turning the lovely and dying sycamore leaves into fragments of brilliant stained glass, and i said to myself, "This alone is worth the price of admission to our broken and glorious world."
Linda Larsson
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« Reply #41 on: January 28, 2011, 07:56:04 AM »

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues
but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”
― C.S. Lewis
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« Reply #42 on: February 03, 2011, 09:26:15 AM »

Matthew 21:10-11
How do we face success?  How do we handle our blessings?  Success and abundant blessings are greater threats to our religion and faith than hardships and doing without are.  Most of us know how to live with trouble and hard times.  A number of us were born in trouble, shaped by hard times, and raised on a steady diet of doing without.  When difficulties arise we know what to do.  We find our way to church . . . we become more prayerful . . . we start reading the Bible more often . . . we make all kinds of promises to God, to ourselves, and to others.  We know how to say “Lord, have mercy.”  In times of trouble we know how to call on the Lord.  If trouble lasted we would be fine examples of virtue.  But what happens to our piety, our promises, our prayer life, our participation, our righteousness and religion, when trouble lessens and the load lightens?
For many of us, piety is directly related to our problems and faith has a corollary with our fear.  It seems that the only way the Lord can keep some of us humble and some of us prayerful is to keep us in trouble.  Because God is gracious, however, “trouble don’t last always.”  So the question for us is, “How do we keep our head on straight and stay focused and balanced when our blessings and our prayers are answered?”  Or is our religion going to continue to be like a roller coaster, climbing up to its highest point when we’re in trouble and falling down to its lowest practice when we think we have been delivered?
The day we celebrate as Palm Sunday was a moment of great joy for Jesus.  In the Gospel of Matthew, the whole town is moved and Jesus immediately cleanses the temple.  In Mark, Jesus goes to temple and looks around and returns later to cleanse it.  In Luke, Jesus weeps over the city of Jerusalem because its people did not know the things that made for peace and then cleanses the temple.  In John, while Jesus’ enemies declare that the whole world has gone after him, he goes on to predict his own death.
Although the writers of the Gospels differ in details about chronology and everything that happened on Palm Sunday, they all show that Jesus was not carried away with it.  He was able to put praise in its proper place and keep his priorities in perspective.  Praise is all right and everybody likes to receive it, but we have to live for something other than the praise of people.  Praise of people is a great place to visit, but we can’t make a home there.  Praise is a nice snack, but it ought not be our main meal.  Praise of people is recess in the school of life, but it is not the main curriculum.  Praise is a good servant, but a terrible master.  Praise of people is good medicine, but a terrible narcotic.  It is a good prescription, but a terrible addiction.  The trouble with a number of people is that they have allowed praise of people to become their main priority.  When praise of people becomes our priority, we become their main priority.  When praise of people becomes our priority, we become a slave to the group that we want the approval from.  If people tell us to jump, we ask, “How high?”  If they tell us to make a fool of ourselves, we ask, “When?  Where?  How long?”  If they tell us to speak in tongues to prove we have the Holy Spirit, we ask, “When?”  If they tell us to be petty or vulgar, we ask, “How low should we stoop?”  If they tell us to pretend to be something we are not, we ask, “When should we go into our act?”
Praise from people is good, but like Jesus we have to put praise in its place and keep other priorities in perspective.  After the Palm Sunday praise, Jesus went to the temple.  He went from the streets where the voices of people were heard . . .  to the sanctuary where God was glorified.  How do we handle praise and success?  We keep God in perspective from whom all blessings flow.  So when we receive a compliment, instead of letting it go to our heads we say, “Thank you, and to God be the glory.”  If someone says you sang well, spoke well, prepared a good meal, you did a good job, our response should be, “Thank you and to God be the glory, because God gave the talent and gift.  I’m just trying to use what God gave me, and if it’s been a blessing to you, praise God.”  If someone says you have a nice outfit or a fine car, our response should be, “Thank you and to God be the glory because if God hadn’t blessed me, I wouldn’t be able to buy what I have.  I’m just another example and witness of how God will take care of you.”  Jesus could handle praise and success because he had another priority and that was the glory of God.
Jesus could enjoy great success because he had great standards.  Some things he was not prepared to do.  The devil promised Jesus the kingdoms of the world, if Jesus would bow down and worship him.  Jesus told him, “Away with you, Satan!  For it is written ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only’” (Matthew 4:10).  Like Jesus, we have to have some standards.  If we don’t take some stands we will fall for anything.  Sometimes we have to say . . . even if it takes longer and the road is rougher, and we are misunderstood and mocked, and even if it means suffering and a cross . . . some things we are not going to do.  We’re going to worship and trust God, and if it doesn’t happen God’s way it just won’t happen.  But I don’t believe that God will allow those who put their trust in God to fail.
Satan will seduce you even on good things if you allow him, and sometimes you just have to stand on your standards and say, “As badly as I want this degree, or as badly as I want this relationship to work, as badly as I want this promotion, as badly as I need the extra money, as badly as I want to be successful, I have great standards, and some things I’m not going to do.”
Can’t you see the three Hebrew boys standing before the great Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar and saying, “We have no need to present a defense to you in this matter.  If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us.  But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up” (Daniel 3:16-18).
Jesus could face success because he was able to put praise in its place and keep his priorities in focus.  He could enjoy great success because he had great standards.  Then he could face success because he knew that fame was fleeting but that his heavenly Father was faithful.  Success and fame have no loyalty.
They will lift you today and drop you tomorrow.  They will love you today and leave you tomorrow.  They will hug you today and deny you tomorrow.  They will hallelujah you today and crucify you tomorrow.  Think twice about giving up something or somebody who has a track record of faithfulness for somebody or something whose loyalty has yet to be proven or who has no loyalty.  Many a person has dropped the loyal for the lovely, and the faithful for the fresh, only to come back to the faithful and loyal begging for another chance, because the lovely and the fresh walked out when the going got tough or when the thrill was gone.  Be careful about forsaking a faithful God for a new promotion, new job, new degree, a new set of friends, a new love, new home, or new possessions.  What you can buy for one price, somebody else can buy for a higher price.  What is made in time will wear out in time.  What you acquire by politics, sex, or promises, somebody else can acquire the same way.  What you acquire by skill or merit, someone with greater skill or productivity can take away
But I know a God who is faithful.  Amidst the fluctuating circumstances of life, God is faithful.  God’s power is faithful . . . it wakes the sun up every morning.  God’s word is faithful . . . God keeps all God’s promises.  Jesus’ blood is faithful    . . . it still saves to the uttermost.  The ministry of the Holy Spirit is faithful . . . he still empowers, enables and energizes, inspires and informs, guides and grants grace.
The Bible is the story of God’s continuing faithfulness.  Jeremiah declared, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).  The psalmist writes, “Yea, though I walk through the valley and shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4).  Jesus said, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).  Paul said, “I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
How do we face success?  How do we handle our blessings?  Like Jesus, we do not let them go to our heads or turn them away from a God who is faithful and who teaches us what really matters in life.  What really matters is not the television we watch, but the eyes that are watching us.  Not what we buy, but the One who bought us.  Not what we possess, but what possesses us.  Not what we drive, but who drives us.  Not where we live, but who lives within us.  Not what we own, but who owns us. Not our dress, but our deliverance.  Not our success, but our soul’s salvation.
What really matters is the God who is faithful.
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« Reply #43 on: February 14, 2011, 05:36:24 AM »

"The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life."
Robert Louis Stevenson
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« Reply #44 on: February 16, 2011, 09:04:33 AM »

from gratefulness.org
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
Leo Buscaglia
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« Reply #45 on: February 17, 2011, 09:40:02 AM »

from gratefulness.org

I like not to know for as long as possible because then it tells me the truth instead of me imposing the truth.
Michael Moschen
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« Reply #46 on: March 21, 2011, 08:17:03 AM »

from gratefulness.org

When it seems humanly impossible to do more in a difficult situation, surrender yourself to the inner silence and thereafter wait for a sign of obvious guidance or for a renewal of inner strength.
Paul Brunton
Meditations for People in Crisis
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« Reply #47 on: April 07, 2011, 08:17:41 AM »

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
― C.S. Lewis
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« Reply #48 on: May 08, 2011, 07:48:56 AM »

“Sometimes”
by Margaret E. Sangster
Sometimes I think God grew tired of making
Thunder and mountains and dawn redly breaking;
Weary of fashioning gorges and seas,
Weary of planting great forests of trees.
Sometimes I think God grew tired of heating
The earth with the sun and of fully completing
The whole of the world! God grew tired, and so
He took just a bit of the soft afterglow,
He took just a petal or two from a flower,
And took a songbird from a sweet-scented bower.
The dewdrops He took from the heart of a rose
And added the freshness of each breeze that blows.
Across long green meadows He took all the love
Left over from making His heaven above.
His kind fingers mixed them – God’s hand and no other –
And made, for the first time, the soul of a mother.
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« Reply #49 on: May 20, 2011, 08:20:09 AM »

from gratefulness.org

Dive deeply into the miracle of life and let the tips of your wings be burnt by the flame, let your feet be lacerated by the thorns, let your heart be stirred by human emotion, and let your soul be lifted beyond the earth.
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Call of the Dervish
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« Reply #50 on: June 03, 2011, 06:48:15 PM »

Sister,

"God is Freedom"  ~Rush Limbaugh

I do not know if we can mediate on his quote or not, but it makes me smile. Smile
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"Let us Give, Forgive, and Be Thankful"

 Zayra is remembered
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« Reply #51 on: June 03, 2011, 07:26:30 PM »

Sister,

"God is Freedom"  ~Rush Limbaugh

I do not know if we can mediate on his quote or not, but it makes me smile. Smile
Of course, anything which provokes thought and contemplatation is a meditation :>)
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« Reply #52 on: June 06, 2011, 03:20:31 PM »

"Rejection is Redirection" ~ Joel Osteen
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Wynton Marsalis~
"Let us Give, Forgive, and Be Thankful"

 Zayra is remembered
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« Reply #53 on: June 07, 2011, 08:22:38 AM »

“Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.”
― Janis Joplin
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« Reply #54 on: June 15, 2011, 07:55:40 AM »

from gratefulness.org

Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle
by which what is broken is made whole again,
what is soiled is made clean again.
Dag Hammarskjold
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« Reply #55 on: June 22, 2011, 12:14:01 PM »

You have enemies?  Good.  That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.  -- Winston Churchill
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« Reply #56 on: August 15, 2011, 08:58:45 AM »

“I think your whole life shows in your face, and you should be proud of that.”
Lauren Bacall
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« Reply #57 on: August 23, 2011, 10:30:06 AM »

from gratefulness.org

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
A.A. Milne
Winnie-the-Pooh
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« Reply #58 on: August 29, 2011, 08:25:49 AM »

“No great goal was ever easily achieved.”
Margaret Thatcher
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« Reply #59 on: September 01, 2011, 05:53:03 AM »

How does love come?
It comes unsought and unsent
How does love go?
It was not love that went


Sister,

This gives me a sense of freedom, we do not lose love, if it was never there. 
Sorry, I do not have the authors name, I read it in the paper years ago. 
I hope you and the doggie are doing fine.
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 Zayra is remembered
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