Start With Nothing

Two little teardrops were floating down the river of life. One teardrop said to the other, "Who are you?" Said the other, "I am a teardrop from a girl who loved a man and lost him." Who are you?" "Well, I am a teardrop of the girl who got him. Ah, yes we cry over what we lose, and we cry over what we gain. All of which raises a vital question - what is the secret of true satisfaction in life?

Analyze for a moment the cause of all discontentment. Regardless of the circumstance, it always boils down to one thing - we want what we do not have. Maybe it's marriage, or freedom from marriage; maybe it's money, a new car, a different home, a better job, some pleasure, position, or power; or maybe we long for release from trials and sufferings.

Let us be reminded that we came into the world with nothing, and that we will leave it the same way. Furthermore, whatever we've gained through personal initiative, talent, or favorable circumstances can be taken away in an instant. Therefore, is it not wise to claim nothing as our own, except that we belong to Jesus, who claims us as His own? When we recognize Him as our primary source of every blessing, we'll know how to abound everywhere in all things. Every temporal benefit will be viewed as a bonus, not a payment owed us nor a right to be demanded.

Let's try starting each new day with nothing - nothing but Jesus. To our amazement, we'll find that God will give us "richly all things to enjoy."

All I have Seen Teaches Me To Trust The Creator ....

The more I wonder, the more I love...Inspite of pains, sorrows and troubles we experience along this path called life...life is still beautiful. Inspite of the heartache we experience in this feeling called love...love is still the best and the most beautiful thing in the whole world.

I have seen sorrows and i have seen joys, i have experienced love's exultation and love pains...all i have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen and it is the heart which experiences God and not the reason...Loving God above all..this is Ophelia Jane Julia wishing everyone who pass by my sweet musings the best in life and love. Praise and glory is due to God in everything...

Even When It's Painful

The following humorous story appears in the autobiography of Clarence E. Macartney.

As two men were walking through a field one day, they spotted an enraged bull. Instantly, they darted toward the nearest fence. The storming bull followed in hot pursuit, and it was soon apparent they wouldn't make it. Terrified, the one shouted to the other, "Put up a prayer, John. We're in for it!" John answered, "I can't. I have never made a public prayer in my life!" "But you must!" implored his companion. "The bull is catching up to us!" "All right," panted John, "I'll say the only prayer I know, the one my father used to repeat at the dining table: O Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful!"

This fictitious story suggests a valuable truth. We should thank God always not only through good times but also through bad times.

Source for art painting image:

http://www.illusionsgallery.com/all-saints.html

Here's to us....when all is said and done....

Painter's Honeymoon by Lord Fredrick Leighton



Here's to us one more toast and then we'll pay the bill
Deep inside both of us can feel the autumn chill
Birds of passage, you and me
We fly instinctively
When the summer's over and the dark clouds hide the sun
Neither you nor I'm to blame when all is said and done

In our lives we have walked some strange and lonely treks
Slightly worn but dignified and not too old for sex
We're still striving for the sky
No taste for humble pie
Thanks for all your generous love and thanks for all the fun
Neither you nor I'm to blame when all is said and done

Its so strange when you're down and lying on the floor
How you rise, shake your head, get up and ask for more
Clear-headed and open-eyed
With nothing left untried
Standing calmly at the crossroads,no desire to run
There's no hurry any more when all is said and done

Good Temper: Love is not easily provoked...

Good Temper: "Love is not easily provoked." We are inclined to look upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness. We speak of it as a mere infirmity of nature, a family failing, a matter of temperament, not a thing to take into very serious account in estimating a man's character. And yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of love, it finds a place ; and the Bible again and again returns to condemn it as one of the most destructive elements of human nature. The peculiarity of ill-temper is that it is the vic eof the virtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. You know men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but for an easily ruffled quick-tempered or "touchy" disposition. This compatibility of ill-temper with high moral character is one of the strangest and saddest problems of ethics. The truth is there are two great classes of sins - sins of the Body, and sins of Disposition. The prodigal son may be taken as a type of the first, the Elder brother of the second. Now society has no doubt whatever as to which of these is the worse. Its brand falls, without a challenge, upon the Prodigal. But are we right? We have no balance to weigh one another's sins, and coarser and finer are but human words ; but faults in the higher nature may be less venial than those in the lower, and to the eye of Him who is Love, a sin against Love may seem a hundred times more base. No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself does more to un-christianise society than evil temper. For embittering life, for breaking up communities, for destroying the most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, for withering up men and women, for taking the bloom off childhood; in short for sheer gratuitous misery-producing power, this influence stands alone. Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness, sullenness - in varying proportions these are the ingredients of all ill-temper. Judge if such sins of disposition are not worse to live in, and for others to live with than sins of the body. There is really no place in Heaven for a disposition like this. A man with such a mood could only make Heaven miserable for all the people in it.

Restless Hearts

The heart is by nature restless as old ocean's waves; it seeks an object for its affections; and when it finds one beneath the stars, it is doomed to sorrow. Either the beloved changes, and there is disappointment; or death comes in, and ther eis bereavement. The more tender the heart, the greater its unrest. Those in whom the heart is simply one of the largest valves are undisturbed because they are callous; but the sensitive and the generous, the unselfish are often found seeking rest and finding none. To such, the Lord Jesus says, "Come unto Me and I will give you rest."

Think about God. Make much of Him till He broadens and fills the horizon of faith. Then prayer will come into its marvellous inderitance of wonders. The marvels of prayers are seen when we remember that God's purposes are changed by prayer, God's vengeance is stayed by prayer, and God's penalty is remitted by prayer. Here is a force which must be increasingly used, that of prayer, a force to which all the events of life outght to be subjected.

Prayer brings to us blessings which we need, and which only God can give, and which prayer can alone convey to us. Asking is man's part...the praying belongs to us. The answer belongs to God. Man makes the plea and God makes the answer. The plea and the answer compose the prayer.

God is everywhere, watching, superintending, overseeing, governing everything in the highest interest of man. He is not an absentee God. He did not make the world with all that is in it, and turn it over to the so-called natural laws and then retire into the secret places of the universe having no regard for it or for the working of His laws. His hand is on the throttle. The work is not beyond His control.

Earth's inhabitants and its affairs are not running independent fo almighty God. God's hand is in everything. None are beyond HIm opr beneath His notice. The providence of God reaches as far as the realm of prayer. It has to do with everything for which we pray. Nothing is too small for the eye of God, nothing too insignificant for His notice and His care. God's providence has to do with even the stumbling of the feet of His saints. The care of Providence reaches to the most insignificant creatures and the most minute events...the death of the sparrow and the fall of a hair.


Heart Photo copied and pasted from rebranca46's photostream at flickr.

Life Is A One Way Road

Life is not easy. It's a one way road full of ups and downs. As we travel life's road we are open to everything, like exiles pushed from safety. We build our strong cities and they don't shelter us. We formulate philosophies which do not comfort us. We make all the world clamourous and nothing listens to us, and everything that is innocent avoids us though we were death itself. We all kill ourselves one way or another. We are the race of suicides. we don't resemble any other creature in this. What drives man to murder himself, through hate, ambition, work, striving, hope, despair, struggle, building, destroying and war? What had someone once written? "We are born so that we should know and glorify God. That is the only reason. When we refuse to know, then we die in many ways.

Man is open to calamity and there's no shelter. Animals die without any knowledge of death. Man has that knowledge. Life is too terrible for us. We feel we dont deserve this blind punishment. Don't we? We tend to live as if we will not die. All of us want to enjoy life, who doesn't? But along with the enjoyment come a dozen harsh realities that when they bit us we think we dont deserve them.

Our permissive society brings us enjoyment and pleasure as well as calamities brought about by immoral sex practices. We tend to always care about sex, luxury and fun. But when our immoral practices bring us fatal calamities we become distraught, helpless and self-piteous and say we dont deserve this terrible life.

Yes, life is not easy. It is beautiful as well as ugly. It is simple as well as complicated. It is peaceful as well as tragic...but it is here...and we might as well dance with it carefully with our steps lest we tripped and then comes a fatal fall.



Image taken from Jorge Luis Photography Flickr stream