“He who has not been a determined accuser during prosperity should hold his peace in adversity. He alone who denounces the success has a right to proclaim the justice of the downfall.”
“Who knows how easily ambition disguises itself under the name of a calling, possibly in good faith and deceiving itself, in sanctimonious confusion?”
Fruitless Joys I Fear to Lose
“How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose! You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure.””
What joys do you fear to lose?
Have you traded in all other joys for the joy of Christ?
Materialism is Stupid
“Temporal sacrifices will pay off in eternity and temporal indulgences will cost us in eternity. . . . Materialism is not only wrong but stupid. Conversely, trusting God, giving and caring and sharing are not only right but smart. Someday this upside-down world will be turned right side up. Nothing in all eternity will turn it back again. If we are wise, we will spend our brief lives on earth position ourselves for the turn.”
Are You Afraid to Think Big?
I have been afraid to think big. I see this as a common ailment of the mediocre. We fear sacrifice. We fear the cost. We fear discomfort. We fear failure.
I am reading The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller. Chapter 9 claims that the idea that "big is bad" is a lie.
This book is not from a biblical perspective, but (as usual) anyone who hits on something true hits on God's truth. The main idea is that our mindset (the bigness of our thoughts) determines our actions, which determine our outcome.
“Everyone has the same amount of time, and hard work is simply hard work. As a result, what you do in the time you work determines what you achieve. And since what you do is determined by what you think, how big you think becomes the launching pad for how high you achieve.”
Our limits are the ones we place on ourselves. Aside from the reality of my physical and mental limitations, this principle works in the natural word. But it is even more potent in light of God's promises!
“God is able to make all grace abound to you,
so that having all sufficiency in all things at all time,
you may abound in every good work.”
The connector to this mindset is faith. Do I believe that I really have access to the abundant grace of God that empowers me in all things at all times to succeed in what he wants me to do? If we believe this, we will BOLDLY OBEY ALL that God has said. And then there will be AMAZING results.
“Don’t fear big. Fear mediocrity. Fear waste. Fear the lack of living to your fullest. . . . Don’t fear failure. . . . We fail our way to success. When we fail, we stop, ask what we need to do to succeed, learn from our mistakes, and grow.”
A Philosphy of Education from Louis L'Amour
The pioneers halted their westward wagon train to hold up against winter. Then they began thinking of staying right where they stopped. They began to think of building a community.
“Of course, we must have a school, but the building is less important than the teacher. It is the teacher who makes the school, no matter how magnificent the building.
A school is wherever a man can learn. Mr. Shafter, do not forget that. A man can learn from these mountains and the trees, he can learn by listening, by seeing, and by hearing the talk of other men and thinking about what they say.”
“It is easier to act yourself into a better way of feeling than to feel yourself into a better way of action.”