Mingle2 - Philadelphia Singles
"Truth becomes hard if it is not softened by love; love becomes soft if it is not strengthened by truth." - John Stott
At first I saw God as an observer, maybe someone with a telescope who watched me from far away. He was like a judge, keeping track of what I did right and what I did wrong. At the end of my life, He would decide whether I deserved heaven or hell. I did not know God back then.
Later on I met Jesus, and I started to see life like a bike ride. It was a tandem bike and now Jesus was in the back helping me to pedal. I don't know just when He suggested that we switch places, but life has not been the same since. When I had control I knew what way I wanted to go. It was a little boring but predictable. I had the same friends, we did the same things. Life was the shortest distance between two points.
But when He took the lead, He showed me delightful long cuts, up mountains and through rocky places at break-neck speed. It was all I could do to hang on. Even though sometimes it all seemed crazy, He'd just keeping saying "pedal."
I would become worried and ask: "Where are you taking me? Can I trust you?" But He'd just laugh and say "yes" and slowly I started to trust. I forgot my boring life and entered into the adventure. And when I'd say I'm scared he'd lean back and take my hand. He took me to meet people I never thought I would ever associate with and they would become my friends. They had things that I needed: gifts of acceptance and joy, lessons about life and love. And sometimes we'd meet people who needed a gift from me. I'd never done that before. When I would be overwhelmed by it all, Jesus would just smile and say, "I told you it would be fun!"
I must say I did not trust Him at first in control of my life. I thought he would wreck it. But He knows bike secrets, and I have learned that they are the secrets of life, too. He knows how to take sharp corners, how to jump high rocks and how to stop and rest in the most amazing places. Now I am just learning to enjoy being with my Lord, to pedal without fear in the strangest and beautiful places, to enjoy the wind in my hair and the sun on my face. I could never have gone where I have gone, or seen what I have seen, or become what I have become without Him. And still He just says, "Pedal." -anonymous
"To grow, you must be willing to let your present and future be totally unlike your past. Your history is not your destiny."
Alan Cohen
Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
- Author Unknown
Just For Today
Just for today I will try to live through this day only nad not tackle my whole life program at once. I can do some things for twelve hours that would appall me if I felt I had to keep them up for a lifetime.
Just for today I will be happy. This assumes what Abraham Lincoln said is true: that "most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Happiness is from within. It is not a matter of externals.
Just for today I will take care of my body. I will exercise it, and nourish it, and not abuse it or neglect it, so that it will be a perfect machine for my will.
Just for today I will try to strengthen my mind. I will study. I will learn something useful. I will not be a mental loafer all day. I will read something that requires effort, thought, and concentration.
Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: (1) I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out; if anybody knows of it, it will not count; (2) I will do at least two things I don't want to do, as William James suggests, just for exercise; (3) I will not show anyone that my feelings are hurt. They may be hurt, but today I will not show it.
Just for today I will be agreeable. I will look as well as I can, dress as becomingly as possible, talk low, act courteously, be liberal with appreciation, criticize not one bit nor find fault with anything, and not try to regulate or improve anyone.
Just for today I will have a program. I will write down just what I expect to do every hour. I may not follow it exactly, but I'll have it. It will save me from the two pests of hurry and indecision.
Just for today Ill have a quiet half hour, all by myself, and relax. In this half hour, sometime, I will think of God, so as to get a little more perspective in my life.
Just for today I will be unafraid. Especially I will not be afraid to be happy, to enjoy what is beautiful, to love and to believe that those I love, love me.
Robert L. Wood
"Most great men and women are not perfectly rounded in their personalities, but are instead people whose one driving enthusiasm is so great it makes their faults seem insignificant."
Charles A. Cerami
Author
"They may become harder to achieve, but your dreams can't stop because you've hit a certain age."
Dara Torres
The man to whom I'm going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn't believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn't make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn't swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.
"I'm truly sorry to distress you," he told his wife, "but I'm not going with you to church this Christmas Eve." He said he'd feel like a hypocrite. That he'd much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.
Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound...Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud...At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They'd been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.
Well, he couldn't let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it. Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them...He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms...Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.
And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me...That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.
"If only I could be a bird," he thought to himself, "and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safe, warm...to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand." At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.
Paul Harvey
There are two days in every week about which we should not worry, two days which should be kept free from fear and apprehension.
One of these days is Yesterday with its mistakes and cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains. Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control.
All the money in the world cannot bring back Yesterday. We cannot undo a single act we performed; we cannot erase a single word we said. Yesterday is gone.
The other day we should not worry about is Tomorrow with its possible adversaries, its burdens, its large promise and poor performance. Tomorrow is also beyond our immediate control.
Tomorrow’s sun will rise, either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds...but it will rise. Until it does, we have no stake in Tomorrow, for it is yet unborn.
This leaves only one day...Today. Any man can fight the battles of just one day, it is only when you and I add the burdens of those two awful eternities...Yesterday and Tomorrow that we break down.
It is not the experience of Today that drives men mad...it is remorse or bitterness for something which happened Yesterday and the dread of what Tomorrow may bring
— Author Unknown
"Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter." Tim Kizziar
"I think that is God's plan -- to meet me where I am, in all my ugliness, not where I pretend to be or wish I were; to meet me in my weakness and shame and fear and to give me hope that God loves me, that He can change me, and that He can use me. I need help to dare believe that though I deserve to be hated, God delights in me; that though I keep living in my mess, He is changing me and will one day finish the job; and that He can use me to change the world, to make an eternal difference in this sorry but God-loved planet." Larry Crabb - Real Church
" If you had a bank that credited your account each morning with $86,400.00 that carried over no balance from day to day and allowed you to keep no cash in your account...and every evening cancelled whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day...what would you do? Draw out every cent, of course! Well...you have such a bank, and it's name is "Time". Every night it rules off, as lost whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose...it carries over no balance. It allows no overdrafts. Each day it opens a new account with you. Each night it burns the records of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. Ther is no drawing against tomorrow. You must live in the present - on today's deposits. Invest it...so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success."
- Author Unknown
