"Church would be easy if it weren't for people."

"Church would be easy if it weren't for people."
Allister Begg, Truth for Life radio program,
heard on radio 6-25-2018

"Know how to use the power that you have."

"Know how to use the power that you have."

~ Truthful Grace

"Preaching should break a hard heart, and heal a broken heart."

"Preaching should break a hard heart, and heal a broken heart."

~ Pastor John Newton, ex drunken slave trader, author of the hymn "Amazing Grace"

Loving well is the best revenge

"Loving well is the best revenge."

~ author unknown

the intuitive mind

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

~ Albert Einstein

strength, courage and confidence

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Mindfulness

"Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness."

~ James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Native American Proverbs and Wisdom

Native American Proverbs and Wisdom

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice. – Cherokee

Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance. – Lakota

Remember that your children are not your own, but are lent to you by the Creator.  – Mohawk

Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children. – Tribe Unknown

Walk lightly in the spring; Mother Earth is pregnant. – Kiowa

Everything the power does, it does in a circle. – Lakota

Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past, Wisdom is of the future. – Lumbee

The bird who has eaten cannot fly with the bird that is hungry. – Omaha

Do not wrong or hate your neighbor for it is not he that you wrong but yourself. – Pima

It is no longer good enough to cry peace, we must act peace, live peace and live in peace. – Shenandoah

The one who tells the stories rules the world. – Hopi

Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me, and I may not remember. Involve me, and I’ll understand. – Tribe Unknown

Wisdom comes only when you stop looking for it and start living the life the Creator intended for you. – Hopi


Lakota Instructions for Living

Friend do it this way – that is,
whatever you do in life,
do the very best you can
with both your heart and mind.

And if you do it that way,
the Power Of The Universe
will come to your assistance,
if your heart and mind are in Unity.

When one sits in the Hoop Of The People,
one must be responsible because
All of Creation is related.
And the hurt of one is the hurt of all.
And the honor of one is the honor of all.
And whatever we do affects everything in the universe.

If you do it that way – that is,
if you truly join your heart and mind
as One – whatever you ask for,
that’s the Way It’s Going To Be.

Passed down from White Buffalo Calf Woman


Native American Ten Commandments

1. Treat the Earth and all that dwell therein with respect
2. Remain close to the Great Spirit
3. Show great respect for your fellow beings
4. Work together for the benefit of all Mankind
5. Give assistance and kindness wherever needed
6. Do what you know to be right
7. Look after the well-being of Mind and Body
8. Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater Good
9. Be truthful and honest at all times
10. Take full responsibility for your actions

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-proverbs/

The Surgeon's Prayer

"May we be helped to do here whatever is most right."

~ Traditional Native American Prayer

every mentally ill person you’ve ever worked with is basically lonely

Richard Rohr quote:
I once met a psychiatrist who said something to me that initially I thought was an overstatement: “Richard, at the end of your life, you’ll realize that every mentally ill person you’ve ever worked with is basically lonely.”
“Oh, come on, that’s a little glib, isn’t it?” I replied.
“Oh, I admit, there are surely physiological reasons for much mental illness, but loneliness might just be what activates it. Every case of nonphysiologically-based mental illness stems from a person who has been separated, cut off, living alone, and has forgotten how to relate in one way or another.” I still wonder if that might be true.

Richard Rohr, with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House: 2016), 45.

Remember to FROG every relationship.

GIFTED FOR LEADERSHIP
APRIL 28, 2016
www.christianitytoday.com/gifted-for-leadership/2016/april/how-to-lead-dominating-male-leaders.html as of 4/29/2016
LINDA A. WURZBACHER
How to Lead Dominating Male Leaders
Three things I’ve learned as I’ve led dominant men
quote:

I like to say: Remember to FROG every relationship. FROG stands for “Fully Rely on God.” And that means keeping a teachable spirit before the Lord. Second John 2:27 says, “But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.”
It has taken me way too many years to realize that God will help, teach, and direct me in every relationship I have. But one requirement is that I remain open, teachable, and accountable to him. 

Linda A. Wurzbacher is Lead Pastor of Blessed Hope Community Church in Rochester, New York.

Jesus put his body where his mouth was

Jesus put his body where his mouth was.
That's one reason why I trust him.
~ Truthful Grace

when the people of God are presented with the facts . . .

“I have most often seen that, when the people of God are presented with the facts, they do the right thing.”
~ Pastor John Bisagno,
currently the retired pastor of the 22,000-member First Baptist Church of Houston, Texas

no longer in the fight

“I pray that when I die, all of hell will rejoice that I am no longer in the fight.”
~ C.T. Studd

http://www.essentialcslewis.com/2017/01/07/ccslq-31-hell-rejoices/

What C.S. Lewis said about Humility

“It is better to forget about yourself altogether.”
from Mere Christianity, book 3, chapter 8 (The Great Sin)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step.
The first step is to realise that one is proud.”
from Mere Christianity, book 3, chapter 8 (The Great Sin)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call ‘humble’ nowadays: he will…not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”
from Mere Christianity, book 3, chapter 8 (The Great Sin)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“May God’s grace give you the necessary humility. Try not to think—much less, speak—of their sins. One’s own are a much more profitable theme!
And if on consideration, one can find no faults on one’s own side, then cry for mercy: for this must be a most dangerous delusion.”
from The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3 (to Mary Willis Shelbrune on 1/9/1961)

http://www.essentialcslewis.com/2015/10/03/humility-is-not/

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself,
it’s thinking of yourself less.”

The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren, 2002 (original) edition, Day 19, “Cultivating Community”

The Privilege, or the Burden, which Christianity lays upon Men

“It is painful, being a man, to have to assert the privilege, or the burden, which Christianity lays upon my own sex. I am crushingly aware how inadequate most of us are, in our actual and historical individualities, to fill the place prepared for us.”

from "Priestesses in the Church?" (in God in the Dock, C.S. Lewis)
http://www.essentialcslewis.com/2015/11/14/ccslq-12-monkey-bars/

Love people before they deserve it

If you want to be miserable,
go through life thinking of yourself as the "innocent victim."
If you want the joy of the Lord,
love people before they deserve it.
~ Truthful Grace

Jesus: But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
~ Luke 6:35-36 ESV

"The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us."
~ C.S. Lewis

The Road Is Too Rough - Olga J. Weiss

The Road Is Too Rough
(Poetry on the rejection and isolation Christ must have felt.)

The road is too rough," I said,
"Dear Lord, there are stones that hurt me so."
And He said, "Dear child, I understand,
I walked it long ago."

"But there's a cool green path," I said;
"Let me walk there for a time."
"No child," He gently answered me,
"The green path does not climb."

"My burden," I said, "Is far too great,
How can I bear it so?"
"My child," He said, "I remember the weight;
I carried My cross, you know."

But I said, "I wish there were friends with me
Who would make my way their own."
"Oh, yes," He said, "Gethsemane
Was hard to bear alone."

And so I climb the stony path,
Content at last to know
That where my Master had not gone,
I would not need to go.

And strangely then I found new friends,
The burden grew less sore;
And I remember--long ago
He went that way before.

Olga J. Weiss

What Jesus will be is a mother hen who defends her chicks

The well-known preacher Barbara Brown Taylor says,
"Jesus won’t be king of the jungle in this or any other story. What he will be is a mother hen, who stands between the chicks and those who mean to do them harm. She has no fangs, no claws, no rippling muscles. All she has is her willingness to shield her babies with her own body. If the fox wants them, he will have to kill her first."
Jesus came to be a suffering servant and live a life of self-sacrifice. And he calls us to that life as well.
Mickey Anders, The Fox and the Hen