Tag: wisdom

Ten Life Principles Worth Knowing

 

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This list was were found floating out on the internet, and although they are a bit secular most of them have corresponding Christian principles.  I’ve added a comment after each.  I hope that you will read them, and hold on to the good.

I’m not sure who the author of this list was. But kudos to them whoever they are.

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1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period. (But don’t forget that you are first a spirit, that just happens to have a body.)

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.” (This is called “discipleship.” Welcome!)

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”  (Consider the life of Peter, the apostle– he was up and down, but always learning. He was loved by the Lord, very, very much.)

4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson. (The Holy Spirit is a most excellent teacher.)

5. Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned. (Learn to love people is generally what these lessons are about. But remember, there is a life after this one that is vastly more significant.) 

6. “There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”  (Actually, the best place to be is in the center of God’s will.)

7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.  (Hmmm. It is true that we have a common humanity, and we learn a ton just by observing human behavior.  And people do mirror our character back to us.)

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours. (Perhaps.  But God directs our steps.  He is supremely in control, but will graciously lend you his tools.)

9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust. (Actually, the Bible is pretty comprehensive in this capacity. Read it to be wise; trust it to be sure.)

10. You will forget all this. (Unfortunately, this is all too true.)

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It is God’s Glory, Not Ours

 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

 1 Corinthians 10:31, ESV

We are to make distinctions of all that passes by us.  Making the decisions based on value and content and worth is the correct way to go about deciding what is worthwhile.  The radiance and brilliance are not our way of sounding poetic about something.  It is the real core of essential nature.  It’s like watching a doctor perform a biopsy.  They extract a tiny speck of organ tissue with a long needle.  A biopsy will give the physician a real understanding of what is really happening inside.

The Bible tells us ‘taste and see, that God is good’ [tasty].  This is what real faith does, it reaches out and takes a sample.  Often in a big grocery store the management sets up a card table.  A person attends the table, and offers passing customers samples.  Of course, they do this so you will buy this new product.  (Sausage and cheese samples are my favorites.  I generally try to avoid the cole slaw, as a general rule).

I guess God made us humans with an adventurous and inquisitive nature.  We climb mountains, and eat Korean food.  We have this built in curiosity that leaks out all over the place.  Some really need a taste of danger, or to be creative, or competitive.  The point is this– we are created in God’s image.  And only God is majestic enough, and big enough–  to be enough.

We are learning that all our activity, and all our passion is to contribute and build His Glory.  In order to do this we need to amputate our passivity and stretch out to a muscular faith.  Flabby and flaccid discipleship won’t be able to give God any real glory, or give us any real joy.  We were designed and built specifically to give God immense glory.  There is nothing better to do with our lives.

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Bedlam: Prisons and the Mentally Ill

Taking a Stand for Our Brothers and Sisters

 By Mark Earley, Christian Post Guest Columnist, Wed, Aug. 08, 2007
The least of these is my brother
The least of these is my brother

In the 16th century, London’s mentally ill were often kept at Bethlem Royal Hospital. The conditions inside the hospital were notoriously poor. Patients were often chained to the floor and the noise was so great that Bethlem was more likely to drive a man crazy than to cure him. The conditions were so infamous that the nickname locals gave the hospital—Bedlam—has come to mean any scene of great confusion.

Unfortunately five hundred years later, we’re still treating the mentally ill more like prisoners than patients. Fifty years ago, more than 550 thousand people were institutionalized in public mental hospitals. Today, only between 60 and 70 thousand are, despite a two-thirds increase in the country’s population.

Since there’s no evidence that the incidence of mental illness has dropped precipitously, the mentally ill who previously had been institutionalized had to have gone somewhere. While some are being treated successfully in their communities, at homes and groups homes, but for many that “somewhere” is behind bars. This last part shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Five years ago, the Washington Post told the story of “Leon,” a one-time honor student, who had 17 years in and out of jail on various drug-related charges. It was only after several suicide attempts, including drinking a “bleach-and-Ajax cocktail,” that Leon was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Leon’s story was a microcosm of a larger problem: “Prisons and jails are increasingly substituting as mental hospitals.”

As one advocate for the mentally ill told the Post, “a lot of people with mental illness are charged with minor crimes as a way to get them off the streets.” In effect, they are behind bars for “being sick.” Fast forward five years and little, if anything, has changed. A few weeks ago, another piece in the Post discussed the same problem.

Psychiatrist Marcia Kraft Goin told readers something that should shock and outrage them: “The Los Angeles County Jail houses the largest psychiatric population in the country.” As with the earlier Post piece, the conclusion was inescapable: “People with [untreated] mental illnesses often end up with symptoms and behaviors that result in jail time.” You don’t have to be a “bleeding heart” to understand that this is an injustice—any kind of heart will do.

Not only are the mentally ill not getting the help they need, they are as lambs to the slaughter in our crowded and violent prisons. They are being victimized twice over. They’re not the only ones being victimized.

At a time when most state prisons are unlawfully overcrowded, there are better uses for prison beds than as makeshift mental hospitals. As Goin wrote, “treating” mental illness as a criminal justice problem costs “more than treating patients appropriately in their community.”

As part of its ministry to prisoners and their families, Prison Fellowship supports community-based alternatives to incarceration. Not only because it makes “financial sense” but because it’s what Christ would have done. In Matthew 25 he called the ill and the prisoner his “brothers” and he expects us to offer them something more than bedlam.

“There but for the Grace of God go I…” –Bryan

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From BreakPoint®, August 6, 2007, Copyright 2007, Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with the permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. All rights reserved.  “BreakPoint®” and “Prison Fellowship Ministries®” are registered trademarks of Prison Fellowship.

Good Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethlem_Royal_Hospital

http://www.bethlemheritage.org.uk/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/etc/faqs.html

http://www.afscme.org/publications/6042.cfm

Bearing One Another Up

And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.

Mark 2:3

Sociologists are quick to point out that the healthiest people mentally and physically, are those who are functionally aware of others.  These people often find themselves in “the helping professions” like nurses, counselors, pastors, policemen and many other affiliated occupations.  It seems that there are some who will wade into other people’s lives, try to do what seems right and most importantly, touching others in their needs.

There are some who say that you either got it, or you don’t.  My issue is that Jesus seems to think that His followers would learn how to activate this mentality– this gift.  Each of us are directed to “bear one another’s burdens”.  This really can’t be adjusted in order to fit my selfish personality. Regardless of my personal proclivities,  it seems I am stuck with “the least of these”.  Thankfully Jesus promises me a Helper to help me, and help others who need help.

Carrying a cot for a paralyzed man seems to be indicative of how life is going to go for us, as we surrender to the task and carry our share of the load.  We comply with the need of the moment, to bring this man into the Lord’s presence.  I’m not thinking rewards here, or any special recognition.  Essentially, I’m just the schmuck who has to carry this guy into the presence of Jesus.

“Our society is filled with runaways, dropouts, and quitters. The epidemic of walking away has hit our land with effects as devastating as the bubonic plague, and it has destroyed millions of effective lives and relationships. We are so self-centered that we have ceased to lay down our lives for others.”

Kay Arthur

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Making a way for our friends

There is a definitive call to service as His student, His disciple.  You just might say that learning how to forget yourself is the major starting point for a real servant.  It’s like your new Cadillac Escalade, equipped with cameras and a computer on the dash.  You don’t need to ask for these, they just give them to you.  It is part of the package. Serving is part of the package that discipleship has when its delivered to your “apartment door.”

You will learn to serve someone else.  This tutelage takes a long, long time.  In all of these lessons we are free to leave, terminating our relationship with the person we are serving.  But I don’t advise this at all.  Jacob had Laban teaching him, and teaching him, for many years.  Scripture is jammed full of men and women learning by serving. And sometimes, that can take a lot of time– maybe years.

There was four men carrying the paralytic, two would’ve been a strain, and three awkward.  No–four is just right.  Let us be a serious people,  fulfilling our responsibility to our friend lying on the cot and to Jesus.  We are all in this together.  Now– it’s time to take your place and lift.

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