December 6, 2010

Today, I switched from writing in my spiral notebook to making my thoughts/prayers more public. I'll see how that goes. I have been using the
I'm humbled by the people who have made a difference in my life. My parents, thankfully still living at age 91 and 84 brought me up in a church that set the habit of the importance of going to church. As an college freshman, I recoginized the need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Thankfully He has been patient with me in the past 35 years as I seek to be more like him.
Today, I read from Eziekiel 18:1-24. I used to think that the invisible barrier between the old and new testaments blocked my ability to understand what is going in the old....I've been enjoying the One Year Devotional for Men by Suart Briscoe. While not a "read through the Bible in a year" tool, he has effectively (for me) taken important scriptures throughout the Bible and applied them to a man's situation. It's been good.
He showed me today the importance of not blaming our current situations on genetics, environment, etc. We are puckering because of our parents' eating sour grapes! We are responsible for our relationship with Jesus Christ and our life situation.
That reminds me of our Sunday School lesson yesterday. It was a good one. One of the older guys in the class reminded us about how they had to memorize the poem "If". I had never heard of it. As I looked it up, I recognized the situation .

Rudyard Kipling
If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

If only more students would have to memorize such literature!