Faith Without Action

Napoleon Hill said, "Whatever the mind can conceive and believe can be achieved."

While this statement sounds rather grandiose, there is certainly a measure of truth in it. It's somewhat similar to "without action faith is useless".

As the old saying goes, you can't steer a ship or a bicycle to go anywhere until they're moving. Zig Ziglar in his book, See You at the Top, put it this way: "The largest locomotive in the world can be held in its tracks while standing still simply by placing a single one-inch block of wood in front of each of the eight drive wheels. The same locomotive moving at 100 miles per hour can crash through a wall of steel reinforced concrete five feet thick."

The important thing is that we get moving!

"Faith without works is dead."

Some people are sitting around waiting for some kind of special call or revelation from God before they get involved in His work. It's not likely to happen because God has already given us lots of instructions in his Word regarding what to do. All we need to do is read these instructions … and start moving into action!

Being Connected

Unfortunately, many people are taught to ignore their negative emotions. As John T. Raffa wrote in Psychology for Living magazine: "They believe you should hide such feelings--deny, deny, deny--and become nothing but a robot instead of what God made us, beings with feelings."

I have always emphasized the need to be honest, to be open-faced, to walk in the light, and to love one another. Repressed people are closed people and are unable to fully love and fully live. Neither can they have any kind of emotional intimacy in close relationships.

Only as we walk in the light, that is, in honesty and openness, are we able to have true fellowship and connection with both God and others. Furthermore, only then are we able to be open channels through which God's love can flow to others, and in so doing will we be able to fully live and fully love.

Dear God
please reveal to me
any and every barrier in my life
that blocks my feeling close to you
and to others
so that I can know true intimacy with you
and the ones I love the most
--and be a vibrant channel
through which
your love to others can flow.

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz.

چھوئی موئی، پیرا سائیٹ اور امر بیل

ہائی اسکول کے دنوں کی بات ہے زراعت کو ایک علیحدہ مضمون کے طور پر متعارف کرایا گیا ۔۔ ہمارے لئے اس میں دلچسپی کی ایک وجہ اس کے پریکٹیکل تھے ۔۔ ہمہ رنگ پھول پتے اور کیڑے پریکٹیکل بک کی زینت بنے ۔۔ اسی دوران کسی نے گورنمنٹ کالج جھنگ کے بوٹانیکل گارڈن کی بابت بتایا کہ وہاں کئی قسم کے پھول لگائے گئے ہیں ۔۔ چونکہ گورنمنٹ کالج جھنگ ہمارے گھر کے نزدیک تھا تو صبح سویرے معمول بنا کہ کالج کی سیر کی جائے ۔۔ ابا جی مرحوم ہمیں فجر کے ٹائم اٹھا دیتے اور ہم کالج کے گراونڈ کے چکر لگاتے ہوئے بوٹانیکل گارڈن نکل جاتے ۔۔

ہمیں جو پھول پتے اور جڑی بوٹیاں ان دنوں میں متعارف ہوئیں انہوں نے آنے والی زندگی میں ہمیں بہت سے اصولوں سے روشناس کرایا اور زندگی کے یہ اصول ہماری زندگی میں ہمیشہ قائم رہیں گے - انشااللہ ۔۔

ہم نے ایک بوٹی دیکھی جس کا نام مالی نے چھوئی موئی بتایا ۔۔ ہمیں لگا کہ ہاتھ لگاتے ہی چھوئی موئی ہو جانے والی چیز کو لوگ نہ صرف بار بار ہاتھ لگاتے ہیں بلکہ جب وہ مرجھاتی ہے تو بہت بد ہیئت لگتی ہے ۔۔ اس سے ہمیں "خود پر اعتماد" کا سبق ملا ۔۔

ہم نے دیکھا کہ کچھ کیڑے پتوں کو کھا کر زندہ رہتے ہیں - خود تو نشونما پا کر پلتے ہیں لیکن پتوں کو مار دیتے ہیں ۔۔ ہمارے استاد نے ان کا نام پیرا سائیٹ بتایا ۔۔ بہت غصہ آیا اور تہیہ کیا کہ کبھی ان کیڑوں جیسا نہیں بننا اور نہ ہی ان پتوں جیسا بننا ہے ۔۔ ہمیشہ زندگی میں خود محنت کر کے نام بنایا اور کام کی عظمت کے مزے بھی چکھے ۔۔

ہم نے ایک بیل دیکھی جو دیواروں پر چڑھ کر پھیلتی جاتی ہے اور دیوار کا رنگ بدل دیتی ہے ۔۔ اس کا نام امربیل معلوم پڑا ۔۔ سبق لیا کہ کبھی کسی کو اپنے اوپر سوار مت ہونے دو کہ وہ تمہاری شناخت ہی ختم کر دے ۔۔

پھول کی طرح پر اعتماد رہیے اور خوشبو اور رنگ بکھیرتے رہیئے، تاہم اپنے کانٹے تیار اور تیزدھار  رکھیے ۔۔ لوگوں کے روئیے جائیے اور پیرا سائیٹس سے بچیے، تناور درخت بنیے جو موسموں کی سختیاں سہہ کر بھی سایہ دیتا ہے اور اپنی شناخت بناییے ۔۔  
      
Have A Blessed Sunday ..

The Beauty and Meaning of Life

In speaking about the meaning and purpose of life, one insightful writer said, "It is not about writing great books, amassing great wealth, achieving great power. It is about loving and being loved. It is about savoring the beauty of moments that don't last, the sunsets, the leaves turning color, the rare moments of true human communication."

The essence of life is not in power, performance, or possessions but in loving relationships--both with people around and with God--and in appreciating the beauty of His creation, and fulfilling His purpose for our lives.

Dear God,
give me the wisdom
to understand
that the beauty
and true meaning of life is not found
in power, performance, or possessions
but in loving relationships
the human heart yearns for,
and in loving and serving You.

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz.

Don't Waste Your Pain--Invest It

In almost every trial we face, God is seeking to "tell" us something. Sometimes, the only time He can get our attention is when we're hurting sufficiently to slow us down so we will stop and listen.

That has certainly been true in my life.

On one occasion, God used an accident and a time in the hospital to get my attention and to speak to me. The decision I made as a result ended up radically changing the total course of my life.

Another time God used a major crisis and loss to expand my work. He used another emotional setback to get me started in writing. That was apprx two decades ago and I'm still writing!

When you are hurting, you can be sure that God has something to say to you too--something for your good. Ask Him to help you hear what it is and to give you the courage to do what He is telling leading you to do. Whatever it is, you can be certain it will enrich your life in one way or another.

Furthermore, whatever you do, don't waste your pain. Invest it in your own growth and then in helping another fellow struggler along the way.

Dear God ..
please help me
to see how you want to use all the trials
that come my way
to help me grow
and change my life for the better.

And please help me
never to waste my pain
but to invest it wisely
in my own growth
and in making me
a more effective helper
to other fellow strugglers.

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz.

God

God shows Himself to us through creation.

In My Search for the Ultimate, research scientist Lambert Dolphin Jr. writes, "Confronted every day with the mysteries of space and the atom, I continue to be amazed at the complexity and order of our universe. From the sub-microscopic realm of the atom to the expanding reaches of the galaxies, our universe runs like intricate and well-oiled clockwork according to great physical laws which never change or falter.

"Our sun, which is the nearest star, a hundred earth diameters across, is 93 million miles into space. Each day the sun supplies our solar system with heat, power and light at the rate of a million billion, billion horsepower! Yet it is only an average star.

"Our island universe of stars which we call the Milky Way is 100,000 light years across. If we could travel at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), it would take us 100,000 years to traverse the Milky Way!

Yet this is only one of a billion or more such island universes stretched out in every direction from our earth to distances measured in billions of light years."

However, one doesn't need to be a scientist to see and feel the greatness of creation all around us.

"Did all this happen by chance?" I ask myself. For me it would take more faith to believe that than to believe that our world and universe were created by a Master Designer whose power and greatness are beyond human understanding.

Anselm, the famous Italian theologian who lived in the eleventh century, stated that the idea of God in the mind is proof that God exists. Pascal, the French physicist and philosopher who lived in the seventeenth century, spoke about the "God-shaped vacuum in every life that only God can fill."

In life we all see and believe basically what we want to see and believe. If we want to see and believe in God, we can. It is our sin that has separated us from God and prevented us from finding him.

Because We Are What We Are

 

Have you ever felt in the pits when a well-meaning friend told you that you shouldn't feel that way? It makes you feel worse. Right? Whether we should or shouldn't feel what we feel is beside the point. We feel what we feel because we are who and what we are.

Feelings are neither right nor wrong. They just are. It's what we do with them that counts. And, contrary to what many of us were taught, feelings are important. They are a God-given vital part of our humanity.

In one sense feelings are an "emotional thermometer." They tell us what's going on inside of us--what our emotional temperature is and, when interpreted correctly, can indicate when we are emotionally well or if there is some issue in our life we need to resolve.

When feelings are repressed, one's "thermometer" is out of order. It's a very unhealthy way to live. You don't even know when you are sick (emotionally and/ or spiritually). Furthermore, people whose feelings are repressed may be clever but can, at the same time, be very cold, calculating, insensitive, callous, and--in the extreme--even murderous.

Feelings can be trusted. What we can't always trust is our interpretation of them. That's the difficult part, but with help it can be learned and learn it we must if we are to be emotionally, spiritually and physically healthy.

Learn to listen to your emotions. Take time to write a daily journal. Record what you are feeling without any kind of self-judgment.

Be aware, too, that the negative emotions we fail to talk out creatively we will inevitably act out in one way or another destructively.

Dear God,
help me to get in touch
with all of my emotions
--both positive and negative
--and learn how to express them
creatively in a healthy manner
so that I will become
an honest and real person.

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz.

Well Done

Theodore Roosevelt said, "It's not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of good deeds could have done better.

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena: Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again ..

"Who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause ..

"Who, at best, knows the triumph of high achievement ..

"And who, at worst, if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Every one of us has been given at least one talent; many have been given several. Regardless of whether we have one or many talents, what is important is to use well what God has given and entrusted to us and therewith give life our best shot.

Remember, too: "Only one life 'twill soon be past/ Only what's done for God's will last."

Things That Bug Us

As the ditty goes, "It's the little things that bother us and put us on the rack, you can sit upon a mountain but you can't sit on a tack."

And isn't that the truth? It's the little annoyances in life that get us tied in a knot. A slight criticism, a driver who cuts us off on the freeway, a green light that turns red before we get to it, a friend running late, and so on.

Let us realize, however, that somebody's negative reaction may have more to do with them than us. A criticism may be somebody projecting their unresolved issues onto us. Somebody failing to thank us may indicate that they are having a "bad hair" day, and somebody cutting us off on the freeway may be an indication of their impatience--as well as a reflection of ours!

What somebody else does to me may or may not be a problem. How I react, though, is always my issue, and when I overreact, that is always my problem. What the other person does is their issue. How I act, react, or overreact is always my issue and my responsibility.

If we'd remember that "whatever others think of me is none of my business," I would at least learn to cope much better with many of life's little annoyances. I know it's easier said than done, but it is a goal to work towards. Furthermore, the more mature and whole I become, the less life's little annoyances will bother me.

I'm still working on this issue.

The Right Word

 

Mark Twain said, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."

When English poet Keats was writing a poem he asked his friend Leigh Hunt what he thought of the line, "A beautiful thing is an unending joy."

"Good, but not quite perfect," said Hunt.

"How about this?" said Keats, "A thing of beauty is an unending joy."

Finally Keats put it this way, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

"That," said his friend, "will live as long as the English language is spoken.'

May God help us to always speak the right word. It doesn't have to be eloquent but it needs to be straightforward, genuine, and spoken in truth from the heart!

Dear God,
please help me
to say the right thing
at the right time
and always speak the truth in love
--and keep my mouth shut when I need to.

Always. Even when I'm ticked off.

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz.