Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

The Balanced Life

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, And a time to die;
A time to plant, And a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, And a time to heal;
A time to break down, And a time to build up;
A time to weep, And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, And a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, And a time to lose;
A time to keep, And a time to cast away;
A time to tear, And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, And a time to speak;
A time to love, And a time to hate;
A time for war, And a time for peace.

What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business God has given to the sons of men to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity into man's mind, yet so that man can't find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live. Also it is God's gift to man that every one should eat and drink, and take pleasure in all his toil."

--- Ecclesiastes 8:1-13

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Always Live Life To The Fullest

Don’t let go of Hope. Hope gives you the strength to keep
going when you feel like giving up.

Don’t ever quit believing in yourself. As long as you believe
you can you will have reason for trying.

Don’t let anyone hold your happiness in their hands;
Hold it in yours, so it will always be within your reach.

Don’t measure success or failure by material wealth, but by how
you feel; our feelings determine the richness of our lives.

Don’t let bad moments overcome you; be patient, and they will pass.

Don’t hesitate to reach out for help; we all need it from time to time.

Don’t run away from love but towards Love.
Because it is your deepest Joy.

Don’t wait for what you want to come to you. Go after it with all that
you are knowing that life will meet you halfway.

Don’t feel like you’ve lost when plans and dreams fall short of your hopes.
Anytime you learn something new about yourself or about life, you have progressed.

Don’t do anything that takes away from your self-respect. Feeling good about
yourself is essential to feeling good about life.

Don’t ever forget how to laugh or be too proud to cry. Or too stubborn to smile.

Don’t ever forget a friend who truly loves you as it could be that
friend who is true to your needs

Don’t ever forget who helped you grow as your need
for more seeds may often re-appear.

With all the above, live life to its fullest…

--- Author Unknown

[Vonnie]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Dear God, thank You that I can walk with You
That you are my friend. I want prayer to become more and more a part of my life, so that each and everything I do will be a prayer that ties me closer to You. Amen

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!


--- Rudyard Kipling

[Guest]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

When We Are Abused
2 Corinthians 4:8-9

When we experience abuse, it is natural to want to lash out at someone—whether the abuser, another person, or God. I would like to share some suggestions for surviving an abusive situation and finding wholeness.

Do not blame God. God never instigates any kind of abuse. To do so would be totally opposite of everything He says. God tells us to love, serve, and encourage each other. (John 13:34; Galatians 5:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:11) If you are going to blame somebody, blame the Devil because ultimately, he is the one behind all abuse. (Ephesians 6:12) Forgive the abuser and anyone who allowed the abuse. This is difficult, and I certainly do not understand the pain of each situation. But this much I do know: harboring anger, resentment, and bitterness leaves us empty. An unforgiving spirit is worse than a cancer on the inside. Jesus went to the cross for every single sin any of us could possibly commit. The Lord is intimately aware of the power of forgiveness—the releasing of hurts—in our lives.

Choose the truth about yourself. You may have heard awful words aimed at you, but God knows those things are not true. The best way to find out the truth is to read the Bible. If you go through the New Testament and write down all the things that God says about you, I guarantee that you’ll be standing on your tiptoes with your hands straight up into the sky praising Him and thanking Him for loving you the way He does.

---Early Lights Daily Devotional

[Guest]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

(Written over 700 years before the birth of Jesus Christ)

Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought GOD's saving power would look like this? The servant grew up before God--a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried--our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him--our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost. We've all done our own thing, gone our own way. And GOD has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong, on him, on him. He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn't say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence. Justice miscarried, and he was led off--and did anyone really know what was happening? He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people. They buried him with the wicked, threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he'd never hurt a soul or said one word that wasn't true. Still, it's what GOD had in mind all along, to crush him with pain. The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he'd see life come from it--life, life, and more life. And GOD's plan will deeply prosper through him. Out of that terrible travail of soul, he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it. Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many "righteous ones," as he himself carries the burden of their sins. Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly--the best of everything, the highest honors--Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

---Isaiah 53:1-12, The Message Translation

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Friends are quiet angels who lift us to our feet
when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.

--- Anonymous

[Vonnie]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

HOPE

Lord, when all around me looks dark, remind me the bridge of hope will carry me over the present trouble, into the future You have promised.

Hallelujah!

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

The Power of Goals

Did you know it was God, not the motivational gurus, who came up with the idea of writing down your goals as a key to success? Most of us have been hearing all our lives about the importance of setting realistic goals and objectives. It almost feels old hat to talk about the need to write down achievable, measurable goals as a key to accomplishing things. Yet I never cease to be amazed at how few Christians in the business world actually do it.

You may be surprised to discover that the Bible has quite a bit to say about the need to set goals. This isn't an idea cooked up by 20th-century man. It's a principle written into God's Word thousands of years ago. In fact, six hundred years before the birth of Christ, the Hebrew prophet Habakkuk wrote down an important goal-setting mandate. It says: "Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run." (Habakkuk 2:2)

What he's talking about here is writing down your vision or goals so you'll know the direction in which to run.

Did you know that God is a "goal setter?" All through the Bible we see God laying out a specific plan and then working to bring it to pass. In the account of creation in Genesis, God says, "Let us make man in our image." He established the goal of creating a being that would be crafted in the very likeness of God Himself. Then He set about achieving that goal. It's a pattern we see repeated over and over in the Bible. If you want to be productive this year, follow God's example, set some clear goals, write them down and then go to work.

--- Mac Hammond

[Vonnie]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

Thank you Lord for all the blessings. Amen

[Guest]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

A bible reading that caused me to stop and rethink today:

James 3


Two Kinds of Wisdom

13Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. 16For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
17But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.


James 4


Submit Yourselves to God

1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?[1] 6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
"God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble."[2]
7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
11Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you--who are you to judge your neighbor?

Boasting About Tomorrow

13Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 16As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

[Diplomat]

Re: Take 5 - A Moment of Reflection IV

On the Pursuit of Happiness

We have the right to happiness, not just to the pursuit of it. And happiness is found inside our selves when we accept ourselves the way we are, with our qualities as well as our "failings"...

Happiness, it has been said, is an "inside job". No one can "make you happy" just as no one can "make you" angry, sad, etc. These are choices we make, each day, each moment of our day, with each thought we have (or don't have). When we let the words and attitudes of others decide how we feel about ourselves, we are giving up our power to be happy... we have given that power over to someone else.

We have the right to be happy, and we have the right to choose happiness, self-esteem, self-worth, etc. each and every moment of our lives, with every breath we take.

--- Marie T. Russell, Taking it Personally