Forwarded Messages

This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Please, LORD, please save us. Please, LORD, please give us success ( Psalm 118:24-25 NLT). The really good coaches are smart cookies. Forget the "dumb jock" jokes, and pay attention to their ability to motivate — and focus on what matters. One of several nicknames carried by the late UCLA basketball coach John Wooden was The Wizard of Westwood. During his eventful career, he mentored — not just coached — dozens of men who went on to success both in the NBA and in a variety of careers outside athletics. Along the way, his teams won a record ten national titles and set a record 88-game collegiate winning streak. He died in 2010 but remains one of the most respected figures in all of sports. Wooden was a reflective man whose speeches, books, and occasional interviews scattered gems of practical wisdom. A Christian who read his Bible daily, many of those tidbits mirror the teachings of the Master Tea...

1} Down days are completely normal, and not something you should feel guilty about having.   Happiness is never constant.   2} When you are at your lowest point, you are open to the greatest positive change.   Happiness is not the absence of problems, but the strength to deal with them.  3} There is a huge difference between giving up and moving on.   Moving on doesn’t mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are some things that cannot be.  4} Life rarely turns out exactly the way you want it to, but you still have an opportunity to make it great.   You have to do what you can, with what you have, exactly where you are. 5} Most people ask for happiness on condition, but long-term happiness can only be felt if you don’t set conditions.   Accept life unconditionally. 6} Too often, we carry around things from our past that hurt us  – regrets, shame, anger, pain, etc.  Don’t let these negative points from the past rob your ...

The lead story on our local news this morning was about potholes. After the rough winter we have experienced already, the roads are a mess — with auto-damaging potholes on all the main thoroughfares. It reminds me of the way human life works. Life is a journey. We map our roads to success and happiness. There are curves along the way, and we must not give in to the temptation just to coast. Okay. You've got it. Right? The notion of life as a road to travel has been used in the Bible, by Scott Peck, and in the vocabularies of practically all of us. There are no roads without potholes. So the people who get the most joy out of life are the ones who learn early how to deal with discouragement. Temperament appears to predispose some people to see the dark side of situations and to incline toward pessimism. There are external circumstances over which one does not have control. There are people who can make life harder for you as critics or enemies. But you are not helpl...

One of our dogs is a tattletale. She is small, cute, and has a very loud excitable bark when something sets her off. And nothing sets her off like when our Golden Retriever does something he should not. If he sticks his nose in the trash, she gets about six inches from his face and starts barking as loud as she can. If he puts one paw on the couch, same thing. If he does anything he is not supposed to do, then she lets him, us, and everyone in earshot know about it. You have known people like that. They want to be sure everyone knows about every mistake you have ever made. It is as if their greatest joy in life is to see someone get in trouble. Tattletales want to get people in trouble, see people "get what is coming to them," and make sure everyone knows about it. You see them among children on the playground, and among employees in the workplace. There is even a tattletale who wants to be sure God gives you what you deserve for all the wrong choices in your life. A...

Who am I? What was I created to be and to do? Why am I here? Do I have a purpose? Does God have a plan for my life? These are all questions we struggle with from time to time questions some struggle with all the time.

For a believer, life is a growing collection of God stories...  See beyond your vision.

Sometimes we say ...   "Lord, I am tired because there is too much ..."     * Too much stress.     * Too much stress over money.     * Too much stress over balancing, or trying to balance accounts.     * Too much stress over things that we cannot change.     * Too much stress due to talking about having a simpler life.     * Too much discontent.     * Too much time wasted on trivial and useless endeavours.     * Too much stuff.     * Too much stuff happening.

I admit it. I love the office shredder. It might be because I am  mesmerized by loud machines that destroy things. But I am also  fascinated by the process. After a document is run through, there is no  way to reconstruct it, no way to put it together again, and no way to  know what was originally there. We use it to destroy sensitive  documents, addresses, and any material we do not want seen. I also use it for something else. I use it to destroy my mistakes. If I  print the wrong form, misspell a name, or use the wrong name -- a quick  trip to the shredder and it is as if it never happened. It is gone  forever.

"I speak without exaggeration," Thomas Edison once said, "when I say that I have constructed three thousand different theories in connection with electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet in two cases only did my experiments prove the truth of my theory." That means Edison developed 2,998 failed theories along with his two successful experiments! The entire story of the light bulb is a long, tedious tale of repeated trial and failure. Yet, through it all, Edison was watching attentively -- and learning.

Friends, success in this life isn’t necessarily about how popular, influential or educated someone is. Success is about living a life of excellence in obedience to God’s Word. When we step out to do what God has called us to do, scripture says that His favor surrounds us like a shield. When we have His favor, we have everything, and we have an advantage for success!

A veteran pastor began a custom during his Sunday service - a custom he continued for twelve years. Before dismissing the children for Junior church, he invited them all to the front of the sanctuary to march past his pulpit on their way to the special kid oriented service. As the kids walked past him, the pastor made a point to smile at each one. In return, all of them smiled at him. "It was one of the high points of the service," he once said.

An expert wood carver sat on his front porch, sipping lemonade and enjoying the view one spring afternoon. Around him on the porch sat his various creations. A friend of the carver's stopped by got a quick visit and was surprised to see the artisan relaxing. "It's only 1:30 in the afternoon," he observed,  "a little early for a break, isn't it?"

A Good Example  is the Best Sermon Four men stood in a church lobby. They were arguing over which Bible translation was the best. One argued for the King James Version, citing its beautiful, eloquent old English. The second man advocated the American Standard Bible, noting its literalism and the confidence he felt in its commitment to accurately representing the message of the original texts. The third man praised The Living Bible for its conversational, easy-to-understand prose.

A 10-year-old boy decided to study judo despite the fact that he had lost his left arm in a devastating car accident. The boy began lessons with an old Japanese judo master. The boy was doing well, so he couldn’t understand why, after three months of training the master had taught him only one move. “Sensei,”(Teacher in Japanese) the boy finally said, “Shouldn’t I be learning more moves?” “This is the only move you know, but this is the only move you’ll ever need to know,” the sensei replied. Not quite understanding, but believing in his teacher, the boy kept training. Several months later, the sensei took the boy to his first tournament. Surprising himself, the boy easily won his first two matches. The third match proved to be more difficult, but after some time, his opponent became impatient and charged; the boy deftly used his one move to win the match. Still amazed by his success, the boy was now in the finals. This time, his opponent was bigger, stronger, and more experienced. For...

The happiest people in the world are not those who have no problems, but those who learn to live with things that are less than perfect.” A group of graduates, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups – porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite – telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

How well do you solve problems? This brief quiz will help you gauge (and improve) your problem-solving ability. The questions seem simple, but think carefully before answering. You might have encountered this before as a joke... but read and learn the key points of this so exercise.  1. How do you put a giraffe into the refrigerator? 2. How do you  put an elephant into the refrigerator? 3. The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. One animal is missing - which one? 4. You come to a river that is known to be inhabited by crocodiles. How do you get across?

by Tim Archer I didn't find any gold today. Haven't found any all week. In fact, I've  never found gold. Nor diamonds. Nor silver. Not once. I'd be more than happy to stumble across any of those things. But it  hasn't happened. I'm guessing that you're not surprised. Neither am I, especially since  I've never gone out looking for gold, or diamonds, or silver. I haven't  gone to the places where they tend to be found. I haven't done the  things people do to try and find them. So it's not all that surprising that I've never found any of these  treasures. Have you found God? If not, it's possible that you're not really  looking for Him. It's one thing to say, "I'd like to find God." It's  quite another to actually look for Him. There are some basic things you need to do:

A business executive was deep in debt and could see no way out. Creditors were closing in on him. Suppliers were demanding payment. He sat on the park bench , head in hands, wondering if anything could save his company from bankruptcy. Suddenly an old man appeared before him. “I can see that something is troubling you,” he said. After listening to the executive’s woes, the old man said, “I believe I can help you.” He asked the man his name, wrote out a check, and pushed it into his hand saying, “Take this money. Meet me here exactly one year from today, and you can pay me back at that time.” Then he turned and disappeared as quickly as he had come. The business executive saw in his hand a check for $500,000, signed by John D. Rockefeller, then one of the richest men in the world! “I can erase my money worries in an instant!” he realized. But instead, the executive decided to put the un-cashed check in his safe. Just knowing it was there might give him the strength to work out a way...

A Russian boy, plagued by feelings of ugliness, gazed into a mirror and studied his reflection -- wide nose, think lips, tiny gray eyes, and over-large hands and feet. The boy was distraught about his appearance that he begged God to work a miracle and turn him into a handsome man. He vowed that if God would transform him, he would give his Creator all that he now possessed and all that he would earn in the future.

1. SLOW DOWN If you often arrive places unable to recall the journey, it's time to check your internal speedometer. Take your time and be present in each moment. 2. MAKE 'ME TIME' Whether it's taking a solitary walk, soaking in the tub with your favorite music, or reflecting on your day in a journal, set aside time each day to check in with yourself and how you feel.  If you get into the habit, your awareness of your life desires will grow -- as well as your self-confidence. 3. DE CLUTTER