See Life From A Better Perspective

A writer was in his study room. He picked up his pen and started writing:

Last year, I had surgery and my gall bladder was removed. I had to remain in bed for a duration of time due to that surgery.

In the same year, I reached the age of 60 and had to give up my favorite job. I had spent 30 years of my life in this publishing company.

Then during the same year, I experienced the sorrow of the death of my father.

And in the same year, my son failed his medical examination because he had a serious car accident. He had to be hospitalized and subsequently, wore a cast on his legs for months. The car was totally damaged and that was a great loss too.

At the end, he wrote: "Alas! It was such a bad year!"

When the writer's wife entered the room, she found her husband looking sad and lost in his thoughts. From behind his back, she read what was written on the paper. She left the room silently and came back with another paper and placed it by the side of her husband's writing.

The writer read her paper silently.

Last year I finally got rid of my gall bladder due to which I had spent years in pain.

I turned 60 with good health and a sound mind. And I retired from my job and now I can utilize my time to write something that I like to write and with more focus and peace.

The same year, my father, at the age of 95, went to see our Creator. He was healthy throughout and had no need to depend upon anyone to care for him.

During the same year, God had blessed my son with a new life. I am forever thankful that my son survived the car accident with only a broken leg. Though my car was totally damaged, the insurance gave me enough money to put as a deposit for a new car. 

Last year was filled with the immense blessings of God and it was a great year.

The writer stood up and hugged his wife.

"Thank you, my darling, for helping me to see life from a different perspective". 

The Other Side of The Door

A very sick man, visiting a small-town clinic, turned to his doctor, as he was leaving the room after paying a visit, and said, "Doctor, I am afraid to die. Tell me what lies on the other side." 

Very quietly the doctor said, "I don't know." 

"You don't know?" the man said. 

"You, a Christian man, do not know what is on the other side?"

The doctor was holding the handle of the door, on the other side of which came a sound of scratching and whining. As he opened the door, a dog sprang into the room and leaped on him with an eager show of gladness. 

Turning to the patient, the doctor said, "Did you notice my dog? He's never been in this room before. He didn't know what was inside. He knew nothing except that his master was here, and when the door opened, he sprang in without fear."

"I know little of what is on the other side of death," the doctor continued, "but I do know one thing: I know my Master is there, and that is enough. And when the door opens, I shall pass through with no fear, but with gladness."

The 33’: A Beautiful Illustration of the Gospel of Grace

On a Thursday afternoon in August 2010, thirty-three miners were digging, hauling and drilling rock, deep beneath the Atacama Desert, in Chile. A mineshaft above the workers exploded and then collapsed. The 33 Chilean miners were trapped in rubble some three miles underground. For about two weeks, the world assumed the men had died.

Then, 17 days after the collapse, a drill bit returned to the surface with a message taped to it written in bold, red letters: “Estamos bien en el refugio, los 33.” (In English, “We are well in the shelter, the 33 of us.”)

One source records that, “Once the rescuers, and the world, knew that the men were alive, Chile implemented a comprehensive plan to both care for the workers during their entrapment and to rescue the miners from the depths.”

In the same way, when God looked down and saw humanity trapped in the contaminated rubble of sin, He implemented a two-prong rescue plan: First, to sustain us during our entrapment in this fallen world; and second, to rescue us out of this darkness. This is why Jesus left heaven and came to earth, on a rescue operation.

Jesus spoke about this rescue plan when He said, “I have come that you may have abundant (or full) life.” He came from Heaven to give us peace and purpose during our time in this dark world. He also came to rescue us out of the depths entirely. He referred to this escape plan when He said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” He didn’t come to make Rocky Flats into heaven. He came to light the way out of Rocky Flats, to drill to an escape route for you.

This is why Jesus spoke, time and again, of another Kingdom, another world and of “eternal life.” He said, “I go to prepare a place for you…and I will return, to take you there with me” (John 14). And “He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.”

The government of Chile spent more than $20 million dollars attempting to retrieve those 33 miners. It spared no expense.

Does $20 million seem like a lot to spend on 33 people? Not if you love the people who need rescue, or especially if you love one of them deeply. In the same way, God so valued and so loved you, that He spared no expense to rescue you. God does not desire for anyone to die in the hopelessness of this contaminated world. (1 Tim. 2:4, Titus 2:11)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16)

John S. Dickerson

One Solitary Life

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself...

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth - His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.

I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.

Thank you, Jesus.

A Sign In The Heavens

Ziglar's Cloud

The daughter of Zig Ziglar reminds us that even at the darkest times we are given reason to rejoice.

By Julie Ziglar Norman, Alvord, Texas
I’d turned on the car radio for the long drive home that afternoon last November. My favorite preacher was on, but I wasn't really paying attention. My mind was on my father. I’d just visited him at the nursing facility where he’d been for the past few months, his health failing.

He was 86. His spirit remained strong but the light in his eyes had dimmed and I had to wonder if this was the last time we’d see each other. My dad, the motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, was known the world over for his energy, optimism and faith. The interesting thing is, he came to that faith in his mid-forties.

It was the night of July 4, 1972, not long after he left a successful career as a salesman to pursue public speaking full time. He’d grown up in a church-going family but he had more doubts than belief.

That night he was out in his swimming pool when he was struck by the urge to pray, as his friend Sister Jessie had been encouraging him to do. Was God real? he asked. Was he truly present in our day-to-day lives? Dad lay back in the water and stared up into the heavens.

All at once a shooting star streaked across the sky. He was startled and elated. A warmth filled him, like the light from the star. He knew with the utmost certainty the answers to his questions. And he knew that he needed to share not just his energy and optimism in his speeches but his faith.

Dad often talked about the sign he saw. Maybe that’s why I looked up myself that afternoon, driving home from visiting him. Clouds were skimming across the Texas sky. Then I saw it, a cloud in the unmistakable shape of a Z.

Z for Ziglar.

I pulled over, grabbed my cell phone and took a picture. It wasn't till later that I realized the camera function must have been set to video. I showed the recording to my brother and sister when we were keeping vigil in Dad’s hospital room. He’d been rushed there on Thanksgiving with pneumonia.

“We’re sorry, but there’s no hope,” the doctors told us. Dad would have argued that meeting his savior was more than hope enough. My prayers were for his time on earth to end peacefully. That was how he died six days later, in his sleep.

The family met to plan the funeral. Dad had spelled out exactly what he wanted for the “big church memorial,” as he called it—down to which Bible passages to read and which songs to sing. But for the private graveside service that would come first, he gave free rein to his pastor, Jack Graham.

Someone suggested that we get a better quality image of the Z cloud for the memorial program. I found the video on my phone and pressed “play.” Who was talking in the background? I hadn't noticed it before.

I turned up the volume—it was the preacher from the car radio. He was quoting from I Thessalonians 4:13–18: “Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope...”

Hope. That was what Dad was all about. “Hey, y’all, listen to this,” I said to my family and played the video again. We’d have to tell Pastor Graham about this after the graveside service. He would be as moved as we were.

The next morning we gathered at the cemetery. “Years ago I committed to memory certain Bible verses,” Pastor Graham began. “Verses that I believe God wants me to share with you today.” He started quoting the Scripture.

My brother and I looked at each other, stunned. Then we said quietly along with Pastor Graham, “...that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.”

Dad was in his eternal home, and like Dad, I had looked to the heavens and had seen a sign telling me with the utmost certainty that I would see him again.

Article from Guideposts

http://www.guideposts.org/inspiration/stories-of-hope/a-sign-in-the-heavens?utm_source=Inspirational%20Roundup&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2013-6-29_nl_a-sign-in-the-heavens

God's Coffee

A group of alumni, 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.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink.

What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of Life we live.

Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee God has provided us."

God brews the coffee, not the cups. Enjoy your coffee!

"The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything."

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

The Bubbles Are Always Right

I learned that when a diver was deep under water, he could lose all sense of direction. He becomes weightless-no sense of gravity-and swimming without a natural source of light causes him to become disoriented and swim sideways, thinking that he is rising to the top. 

In fact, a diver can become so convinced that his perception is correct that he continues to swim in the wrong direction until he eventually runs out of air and drowns. My friend then said that the only way to keep this from happening is to follow the direction of your air bubbles. "No matter how you feel, or what your brain may tell you," he said, "the bubbles are always right." 

The world today is like a group of scuba divers: disoriented and void of direction. Absolutely convinced that their perception of right and wrong is correct, they ignore the warnings, while the bubbles of truth tell them otherwise. Instead, they willfully folloew the directions of other disoriented expert divers who say, "Live like this . . . believe like this . . . think this way . . . go that way"-and all the while their tanks are running out of oxygen.

The Word of God has been given to us that we may have direction for living. As Christians, we have no excuse for moving through life disoriented; the verses in Scripture are like the air bubbles from a diver—they show the way up.

Make sure you’re swimming in the right direction . . . just follow the “bubbles”! 

 

Stephen Davey

Can You Trust Your Rope?

Can you trust this rope?

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death. 

It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. 

Wouldn’t you then first discover how much you really trusted it?

C. S. Lewis

A Grief Observed

Crappy Old Man

As I was searching through my writing resource files I came across the following item. It was sent to me quite some time ago as one those emails making the rounds. I don’t know why I saved it, but as I look at it now I seem to reflect on it more personally than I might have at first. I remember as my grandparents aged and as my mother reached the 100-year mark. I know of others who also found themselves in declining years with the declining abilities that come with the territory.

When I checked the story with Snopes, an Internet hoax tracker, I found it to be a well worn story with a number of different starting points, but not without a sense of authenticity. I decided that, for me, it didn’t make any difference where it came from. The story is worth repeating.

CRABBY OLD MAN
When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a small hospital near Tampa, Florida, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value. Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, they found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.One nurse took her copy to Missouri. The old man's sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the News Magazine of the St. Louis Association for Mental Health. A slide presentation (here) has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem.

What do you see nurses?......... What do you see? What are you thinking.......... when you're looking at me? A crabby old man......... not very wise,Uncertain of habit......... with faraway eyes?

Who dribbles his food......... and makes no reply. When you say in a loud voice......... 'I do wish you'd try! 'Who seems not to notice......... the things that you do. And forever is losing......... A sock or shoe?

Who, resisting or not......... lets you do as you will, With bathing and feeding......... The long day to fill? Is that what you're thinking?......... Is that what you see? Then open your eyes, nurse......... you're not looking at me.

I'll tell you who I am......... As I sit here so still, As I do at your bidding......... as I eat at your will. I'm a small child of Ten......... with a father and mother, Brothers and sisters......... who love one another.

A young boy of Sixteen......... with wings on his feet. Dreaming that soon now......... a lover he'll meet. A groom soon at Twenty......... my heart gives a leap.Remembering, the vows......... that I promised to keep.

At Twenty-Five, now......... I have young of my own. Who need me to guide......... And a secure happy home. A man of Thirty......... My young now grown fast, Bound to each other......... With ties that should last.

At Forty, my young sons......... have grown and are gone, But my woman's beside me......... to see I don't mourn. At Fifty, once more,......... Babies play 'round my knee, Again, we know children......... My loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me......... My wife is now dead. I look at the future......... I shudder with dread. For my young are all rearing......... young of their own. And I think of the years.......... And the love that I've known.

I'm now an old man......... and nature is cruel.'Tis jest to make old age......... look like a fool. The body, it crumbles......... grace and vigor, depart. There is now a stone......... where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass......... A young guy still dwells, And now and again......... my battered heart swells. I remember the joys......... I remember the pain. And I'm loving and living......... life over again.

I think of the years--all too few......... gone too fast. And accept the stark fact......... that nothing can last. So open your eyes, people......... open and see. Not a crabby old man.....Look closer....see......... ME!!

Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within. We will all, one day, be there, too!

FEEL FREE TO SHARE THIS POEM. The best and most beautiful things of this world can't be seen or touched. They must be felt by the heart. God Bless. 

Dan Perin

Beaverton, Oregon

United States

Special Bank

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day, every evening it deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day.

What would you do?

Draw out every cent, of course!
Each of us has such a bank. It's name is TIME.

Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft.

Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "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!

The clock is running. Make the most of today.

Learning from Pigeons

"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account."1

You may have read about an experiment where "pigeons were put in cages with one green and one red button. In one cage, if the birds pecked the green button they got food every time. In the other, the green button yielded food erratically and the pigeons had to persist to get enough food. 

In both cases, pecking the red button did nothing. Both sets of birds thrived, learning what they had to do to survive and ignoring the red button that yielded no food. But when the birds that were used to getting a reward every time were put in the cage that fed them only occasionally, they failed to adapt; they hit their heads against the cage and pecked wildly at everything in sight."2

Birds and animals can be very smart and quickly learn to pursue activities that produce positive results while avoiding activities that don't. Pity we humans aren't always as smart. Too many of us invest our lives in empty, meaningless or even harmful activities and relationships, and have a way of continually hitting red buttons that always result in getting negative responses.

Others, who, like the pigeons that were used to getting rewarded all the time when put in the cage where they were rewarded only occasionally, couldn't cope, so people who, when growing up, were overprotected, spoiled, or had parents that did far too much for them, have a difficult time adjusting to adult life and accepting personal responsibility. Also as adults, when we, other organizations, and/or the government do for others what they CAN and NEED to do for themselves, we keep them over-dependent and irresponsible.

As adults we need to eliminate (overcome) our own red buttons that trigger our unresolved issues from the past, and not purposely hit others' red buttons that never result in obtaining what we need or want.

Furthermore, we need to learn through experience and hard work to accept personal responsibility for every area of our life. True, we were not responsible for our upbringing and early training, but as adults we are totally responsible for our recovery, our actions, our well-being, for who and what we become, and for every area of our life. To expect otherwise is self-defeating and ultimately self-destructive.

Most important of all is that we need to remind ourselves that we are not only responsible for ourselves and what we do, but we are also responsible before God and one day will be required to give an account of our life to him.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you for the gift of life and for all the blessings you have given so freely to me. Help me to see issues in my life that I need to resolve and overcome, to avoid unnecessarily hitting others' red buttons, and help me to accept personal responsibility for every area of my life so that when I stand before you, I will hear your welcoming words, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name. Amen."

1. Hebrews 4:13 (NIV).
2. Michael Josephson in Character Counts. www.charactercounts.org

By Dick Innes <:))))><

Lose It or Give It?

A chaplain was speaking to a soldier on a cot in an army hospital. 

"You have lost an arm in the great cause," he said. 

"No," said the soldier with a smile. "I didn't lose it--I gave it." 

In that same way, Jesus did not lose His life. He gave it purposefully.

The Difference Between Hummingbird and Vulture

Both the hummingbird and the vulture fly over our nation's deserts. All vultures see is rotting meat, because that is what they look for. 

They thrive on that diet. But hummingbirds ignore the smelly flesh of dead animals. Instead, they look for the colorful blossoms of desert plants. 

The vultures live on what was. They live on the past. They fill themselves with what is dead and gone. But hummingbirds live on what is. They seek new life. They fill themselves with freshness and life. 

Each bird finds what it is looking for. We all do.  

Steve Goodier, Quote Magazine, in Reader's Digest, May, 1990.