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There is an old country saying: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”Someone said yes, but you can make him thirsty! I’m not so sure about horses, but it is possible to make a human being curious to learn. We sometimes let those two negative emotions, fear, and pride,  keep us from investigating new ideas. Fear says we dare not look because we might see that we need to change our way of thinking,…

There was a song recorded by Eddie Arnold some time ago called, “Just Call Me Lonesome”. A significant line in the song asks the question,  “what good is life when hope is gone?” As human beings, we always hope for a better life. We would be the most pitied without hope. But faith has to come first. Faith, unlike mere belief, always has an impact on behavior.  But the Bible says that Love is the most important. Faith sustains us…

There is an old saying, “curiosity killed the cat!”. We don’t know where it came from but in my remembrance it was used to encourage others to mind their own business. It was also used, as I remember, to hush up children who asked questions that the old folks did not want to explain. And we don’t really know what happened to the cat. Perhaps that cat did not die, but gained valuable information that made it’s life better. But…

We often say “I did the best I could” when we have tried to accomplish a task and didn’t get the results we wanted. It justifies us and sometimes keeps us from trying again. The Bible addresses this in James 1:2-4 when it says “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have it’s full effect, that you may be perfect…

There’s a lovely little poem that reminds us to be kind in words as well as deeds to one another. It goes like this: “Have a care with your words , my children, for words they are powerful things; they are sweet as the bee’s sweet honey, but like the bees they have terrible stings!” The apostle Peter in 1st Peter 3:10-12, quotes Psalms 34:12-16, when he says “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep…

Someone, somewhere, has once said, “Don’t expect to pick flowers when you have planted weeds”. Is what you have been doing working for you? Sometimes we are caught in a rut, continuing to do the same things with the same attitude. Life in this modern world can be tough, making us angry, resentful and turned in on our own problems. We tend to think, “I need to look out for Number One”. And we do need to take responsibility for…

Some folks worry and putter, Push and shove, Hunting little molehills To make big mountains of! A little rhyme to help us remember to not borrow trouble and not to magnify our problems. A Chinese proverb puts it this way, “A good memory is one trained to forget the trivial”, or we might say, “Don’t sweat the small stuff”. Someone somewhere has said, “If I learn nothing more in life than to keep my hands off what is not truly…

We hear it said, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”. It reminds us to stay focused and not give up so easily. We have many challenges as we live here on earth, and it is pretty common to act as everything depends on us. The Bible reminds us in Proverbs 3:5-7 to seek direction and perseverance from God. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him,…

Lord set a guard upon my lips, My tongue control today; Help me evaluate each thought, And watch each word I say.    —Hess The Bible has some interesting things to say about the use of our tongue. In the book of James, chapter 3 verses 5 through 13, we are warned of what great harm the tongue can do if we are not diligent to control our speech. It is powerful advice to ask God’s help in taming our…

There are folks who say, “We need to change the world!” And the world certainly needs changing, as we can all agree. A wise person once said, “The only person you can change is yourself, and if you can change yourself for the better, then the world is a better place because of that change”. We sometimes say, “If they would only act better” or “If they would only see things my way”. The idea is that if someone else…

Waiting is one of life’s frustrations. We seem constantly to be waiting for something; the traffic to clear, the weather to change, for vacation time to come, or the check that is supposed to come in the mail. The list goes on. But the Bible speaks to waiting in a very interesting way. In Psalm 27:13-14 we are reminded: “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the…