Bite sized truth that becomeslife sized principles: COMPLIMENT, One good thing about paying a compliment is that it doesn’t cost a cent more than it used to.  As nobody knows where light goes when it goes out, nobody knows a good deed’s whereabouts –except that it does not end.  This is one way to be immortal –just be a light. 

     It is gratifying to be just a little candle.  Human beams shine far, and if they shine far, they shine near.   The darker the night, the brighter they shine, though quietly.  Don’t mistake the silence of light; it is effective without noise.  A candle blows no horn, just shines; do that, and the world will blow a horn for you.

 “How far that little candle throws his beams! so shines a good deed in a naughty world.”  – William Shakespeare   Read Psalms 18:28

 Words — food for thought — Something to think about, to pray about –Today!

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Bite sized truth that becomes life sized principles: SUCCESS IS DILIGENT: The Success Family is very distinctive.  It has no lazy or wavery children.  But indolence and success, unsteadfastness and victory, are not even fourth cousins; so there is no way to relate them.  For only like kind are like kin.

Whole-heartedness and success; Diligence and victory; Indolence and failure; Unsteadfastness and defeat; Here we have four sets of Siamese twins, and the whole world know they belong as we have liked them.  “Diligence is the mother of good fortune.” – Miguel de Cervantes 1547-1616

Words — food for thought — Something to think about, to pray about –Today!

p.s. (All comments contributed are welcome but carefully and prayerfully scrutinized for public posting.)

Bite sized truth that becomes life sized principles: It is not wise to minimize the present by maximizing the past.  The past was good, but perhaps not as good as some would have us think.  Its presently regarded Excellency is not so much in blue-ribbon accomplishments as in an inclination to over appreciate it now because it was under appreciated then.       Furthermore, as man’s future shrinks, there is a tendency to swell his past.  This accounts for much of the praise heaped on yesteryears.  While they were wonderful, most of the merit is in the mind.  Accordingly, the
realistic value of today is what each makes it.

“That sign of old age, extolling the past at the expense of the present.” –Sidney Smith (1771-1845)

“Say not thou, ‘What is the cause that the former days were better than this’?  For thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this… –Ecclesiastes 7:10

 Words — food for thought — Something to think about, to pray about –Today!

p.s. (All comments contributed are welcome but carefully and prayerfully scrutinized for public posting.)

Bite sized truth that becomes life sizedprinciples: When a little boy on his scooter hit a bump in the sidewalk and took a tumble, he
paused and then burst out laughing.  A passer-by who saw no fun in the bruises asked: “What’s so funny?  Why laugh about it?”  The boy replied, “Mr., I’m laughing so I won’t
cry.”     Occasionally we adults hit a rough place in life and suffer a spill; now that is a good time to laugh, lest we lose self-possession. Laughing is a safety valve which lets off the tensions of irritations; if the valve doesn’t work, we become as grim as an owl, but without his proverbial wisdom.

“Even in laughter, the heart is sorrowful.” – Proverbs 14:13

Words — food for thought — Something to think about, to pray about –Today!

p.s. (All comments contributed are welcome but carefully and prayerfully scrutinized for public posting.)

Bite sized truth that becomes life sized principles: Helping people takes heart.  The wellspring of success is man’s heart.  The lessons of biography clearly teach that the greats of history had internal resources from which they drew as they faced their times.

In letting down our buckets and pulling them up, what do we get; Sparkling, fresh, life-renewing strength;  Or empty buckets from wells that are dry?  When we need extra faith, more courage, stiller calmness, additional self-approval, more magnanimity, surer steadfastness, and cast down the bucket, do we get the renewal to carry on? Or do we just get older drawing up nothing?

Dig your well deep enough to hit water before you get thirsty.  There are wells without water. –II Peter 2:17

Words — food for thought — Something to think about, to pray about –Today!

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Bite sized truth that becomes life sized principles: “It’s a pity to get on a topic and can’t get off.  Harping on the same string is an imposition on another person’s time and ears.”  So, I took the month of June off to renew my inner self and regroup my thoughts.  Thanks for missing these messages of Bite sized truths that becomes life sized principles.  I’m back!

“If you bring forth that which is within you, then that which is within you will be your salvation; if you do not bring forth that which is within you, then that which is within you will destroy you” - The Gnostic Gospels.   The identical tune gets monotonous, and in time will vex the most patient listener.  Enough is enough!  And the kindest thing we can say is that it is a plentiful lack of good judgment.  That others may enjoy you; learn to play more than one tune.

Words — food for thought — Something to think about, to pray about –Today!

p.s. (All comments contributed are welcome but carefully and prayerfully scrutinized for public posting.)

Bite sized truth that becomes life sized principles: “The map of America is a map of endlessness, of opening out, of forever and ever.  No man’s face would make you think of it but his hope might, his courage might.”—Archibald MacLeish

God, give me courage for this day.  May I not turn coward before its difficulties.  May I prove equal to its duties.  Come what will, let me cling to the philosophy that I am not beaten.  Let me see myself not as a worm to crawl at men’s feet, but as a man who holds up his head and stands tall in the midst of men.  May I never bow to failure, and when a setback comes, let me see it as only an experience for a rematch.  Knowing that fear is a lack of faith and vision, may I believe, lift up my eyes, and walk unafraid.  “Nothing is as valuable to a man as courage.”—Terence   Give me courage to live, to pray, and to hope.

Words — food for thought — Something to think about, to pray about –Today!

p.s. (All comments contributed are welcome but carefully and prayerfully scrutinized for public posting.)

Bite sized truth that becomes life sized principles: “…the very world, which is the world of all of us—the place where, in the end, we find our happiness, or not at all”,  was the thought of C.S. Lewis and continues, “be not too wildly amorous of the far nor lure thy fantasy to its utmost scope.”  Eternity is a good possibility don’t you think; Reality, both in heaven and on earth?

Lewis had a chance to spend fourteen days, and most of the fourteen nights as well, in close contact with a man who was going mad.  He was a man whom kicked and wallowed on the floor, screaming out that devils were tearing him and that he was that moment falling down into Hell.  And this man, as he knew him well, had not kept the beaten track.  He had flirted with Theosophy, Yoga, Spiritualism, Psychoanalysis, what not?  Probably these things had in fact no connection with his insanity, for which Lewis believed, there were physical causes.  But it did not seem so to him at the time.  He thought he had seen a warning; it was to this, this raving on the floor, that all romantic longings and unearthly speculations led a man in the end.

Safety first, he thought: the beaten track, the approved road, the center of the road, the lights on.  For some months after that nightmare fortnight, the words “ordinary” and “humdrum” summoned up everything that appeared to him most desirable.

 

Words — food for thought — Something to think about, to pray about –Today!

p.s. (All comments contributed are welcome but carefully and prayerfully scrutinized for public posting.)

Bite sized truth that becomes life sized principles: “Some of your hurts you have cured, and the sharpest you still have survived, but what torments of grief you endured from the evil which never arrived.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson.   There are enough real troubles without imagining some.  I shall have more energy and poise to face real adversities, if I don’t tire myself with conceived ones.

Carved over a mantel in an old farm house was Mark Twain’s summation of troubles:  “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”  This reflection gave hope to the farmer who ever had to face the possibility of floods, droughts, storms, breakdowns and insects.

 

Words — food for thought — Something to think about, to pray about –Today!

p.s. (All comments contributed are welcome but carefully and prayerfully scrutinized for public posting.)

Bite sized truth that becomes life sized principles: “I have been driven to my knees by the overwhelming conviction, that I had nowhere else to go.  My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the day.”—Abraham Lincoln. Of course, for your words to get through, you should not live too far away.

If “in God we trust,” then we trust in prayer.  Prayer gives strength in weakness, courage in despair.  It is the shield which protects from the blows and darts of an inconsiderate world.  It is the bed upon which frailty sleeps in peace, and where worry has forgotten to vex.

So when you feel weak, drop to your knees—in prayer.  There your burdens will not press you to stumble; there your tired soul can rest; there you can reverently address your needs to a Greater Power.

“And when he had sent the multitude away he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.—Matthew 14:23

Words — food for thought — Something to think about, to pray about –Today!

p.s. (All comments contributed are welcome but carefully and prayerfully scrutinized for public posting.)