Make A Difference

Some of us have the idea that our life can't make much of a difference.

Sometimes we think, "What can one person do?"

This reminds me of the man who, when walking along the beach, kept picking up starfish that had been washed ashore. There must have been hundreds of them. One by one he picked them up and threw each back into the ocean.

A stranger watching said to the man, "Why are you doing that? There are so many starfish on the beach. What you are doing makes no difference."

"Makes a difference to that one," the man replied as he threw another starfish back into the ocean.

Robert Kennedy once said, "Many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single person. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and it was the 32-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal."

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in a bus to a white man on December 1, 1955, she triggered the civil rights movement in the U.S.A. In so doing she played a key role that changed a nation.

You and I may not achieve such greatness but we can make a difference. We do so every time we stand up for what is right, lend a helping hand to a friend or stranger in need.

Added up, our small ripples blend together to reach ever-widening circles. In so doing, one life does make a difference and can make an impact.

Dear God,
I'm available.
Please help and use me
to make a difference in somebody's life
today.

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz.

The Gift of an Untroubled Mind

In his book, Peace of Mind, Joshua Liebman writes of an experience he had when he was still a boy. "I made a list of the supreme goods in life," Liebman said.

"Went to a wise mentor and I showed him the list expecting to be praised for my precocity. The list went something like this … health, love, talent, riches, beauty, and faith. As I shared the list with the old wise man, he reached for a stub of a pencil, and carefully scratched through all of the things that I had listed.

He said, "Young man, you may have all of these--health, love, faith, riches, beauty -- but they will all turn out to be enemies instead of friends unless you have the one thing you missed." Then he wrote on the paper, "The gift of an untroubled mind."

From what I read and hear it appears that so many people (at least in our modern society) are plagued by depression, heartbreak, worry, anxiety, fear, and impaired relationships. And (compared to most of the world) we have just about every material benefit and human comfort we want, except so many don't have peace of mind.

There are two kinds of peace we all need in order to fully live. First, and most important of all, is spiritual peace knowing that our sins are forgiven, and we have God's promise of a home in heaven for all eternity. This gift from God is absolutely free and comes from admitting our "Tawba" - repenting to God due to performing any sins and misdeeds. It is a direct matter between a person and God, so there is no intercession.

The other kind of peace we could call emotional or relational peace. This comes from resolving any and all impaired relationships, forgiving any and all who have ever hurt us, and resolving any and all negative emotions--especially super-charged repressed negative emotions which are destroyers of both emotional and physical wellbeing and extremely destructive of personal relationships.

Dear God,
Please help me to see andresolve
anything in my life
that is causing me
to have a troubled mind.

Please fill me with your love
and help me to know and experience
your eternal peace in the very center
of my being.

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz.

Doers and Hearers

In 1953 reporters gathered at a Chicago railway station waiting to meet the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

He was a big man, six-feet-four tall with bushy hair and a large mustache.

Reporters were excited to see him and expressed what an honor it was to meet him. Cameras were flashing, compliments were being expressed--but seeing beyond the adulation the visitor noticed an elderly Afro-American woman struggling to carry her two large suitcases.

"Excuse me," he said as he went to the aid of this woman. Picking up her cases, he escorted her to a bus and then apologized to the reporters for keeping them waiting.

The man was Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the famous doctor who had invested his life helping poor and sick people in Africa.

The measure of any man or woman is not their name, their fame, nor what they say--but what they do.

Dear God,
please help me
to be a doer of your Word
and not just a hearer.

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz.

Unexpected Strangers

Imagine you were an expert mechanic working on your car and along comes a stranger and tells you what you should do to fix it. What would you think and how would you feel? At the very least I'd question the stranger's reliability.

Unfortunately, it is true that we can't trust everybody and we need to be on our guard against deceptive and dishonest people. At the same time we never know who the stranger is that has crossed our path. He/ she may be an angel unawares. Or he/ she may be a person in need of a helping hand, an encouraging word, or just "a cup of cold water."

Dear God,
please give me
eyes to see,
ears to hear,
and a heart to sense
so that I will know
when you have sent
a 'stranger'
to minister to me
in my hour of need,
or if you have brought into my life
a person in need
of a helping hand
or a touch from you

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz.