Sow Peace, Harvest Righteousness

Believers often repeat these words to each other:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

-- Numbers 6:24-26

Why? ...and, where would you look for an answer?  How about above?

But the wisdom from above is first pure,
then peaceable, gentle, open to reason,
full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

-- James 3:17-18

We make peace from the peace given to us by God. And, when we are committed to this peace of the Lord, we sow a 'harvest' - a harvest of righteousness.  Fascinating how peace and righteousness are connected - seeds and fruits of each other.  Consider the opposites and how they work....

What Wisdom!  And, what Bounty we have in Him!

"I Need Thee Every Hour"

Shrink or Expand

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

-- Anais Nin

The Only True Disability

After watching this, this post seems even more true.

Stronger and Weaker

You are stronger than you think you are, and you are weaker than you know.

Why People Will of Won't Remember You

I heard this story about Bill Murray once. Apparently he was alone in an elevator at a hotel when a guy got on and recognized him. The man stood uncomfortably quiet as the elevator made its way down to the lobby. Finally, the man looked over at Bill Murray and said he was a fan and it was a pleasure to meet him. Bill just nodded and smiled and then continued to look forward. The fan looked rather apologetic and when the doors opened in the lobby walked sheepishly out of the elevator. The two of them walked out of the hotel, the fan one way and Bill Murray the other. Then, suddenly, Bill Murray turned and ran toward the man, tackling him into the flower bed. Murray sat up, pointed at the man and said You will never, ever forget this and then got up and ran away.

How do they value me as a human? They listen. They ask questions. They do not want anything in exchange...Continue Reading

-- Donald Miller

Only He Who Listens Can Speak

The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you hear what is sounding outside. And only he who listens can speak.

-- Dag Hammarskjold

Growth

Part of the opportunity to grow is to decide each day whether or not you want to.

Remembering

It is important to remember.  It is important to make time to remember.

To remember:

• things past, things that have been done
• things present, things that are being done
• things future, things that will be done

Remembering is like an usher, it walks you to the door - the door of Gratitude.

Nurtures A Wise Appreciation

Higher education should be equipping students to answer these four questions:

    What is worth knowing?
    What is worth doing?
    What makes for a good human life?
    What are my responsibilities to other people?

College is not the only place in which answers to these questions can develop, but it is an important place. And siloed, specialized training in a discipline—any discipline—will answer none of them.

Liberal arts training, done well, appreciates and exposes students to the many different forms that good thinking takes, that truth takes, and that evidence takes. It nurtures a kind of wise appreciation of the complexity of the world and it’s problems. It makes clear to students that not everything is a nail, awaiting their hammer.

Specialized training can teach that. But we also need people capable of recognizing big problems and articulating them in a way that can move scholarly disciplines and professional practices in a whole new direction. I’m pretty sure that specialized training will not teach that...continue reading.

-- Barry Schwartz

Albert: On Genius and Education

A caricature of the difference between education and learning:

 

Writ Personally

True religion is always a deep intuition that we are already participating in something very good, in spite of our best efforts to deny or avoid it.

We are here to give back fully and freely what was first given to us - but now writ personally - by us!

-- Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

Shares the Sufferings

A Christian is someone who shares the sufferings of God in the world.

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Share Your Time

If you want to live a longer, happier, and healthier life, take all the usual precautions that your doctor recommends, and then...get out there and share your time with those who need it. That's the caring cure.

-- Sara Konrath

Feedback Is An Invaluable Mirror

Feedback of any kind is an invaluable mirror.  If we're fortunate, we grew up surrounded by a lot of mirrors -- and they reflected important truths that we might have otherwise ignored.

The older we get and the farther we move 'up'...the more those mirrors tend to get tossed in a closet.

Unhealthy things start to happen...continue reading.

- John Ryan

Remind yourself...feedback is an invaluable mirror. Remind yourself.

If you don't, you might not work through the feedback you receive and reject it, with a number of justifications for doing so. You might quit at points along the way and reach conclusions about yourself, not to mention others, with phrases like...

I Will Not Let You

I will not let you have life on your own terms.

-- God

Life Worthwhile

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

-- Albert Einstein

His Own Utility

No one can live happily who has regard for himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own utility.

-- Seneca

They Still Separate Us

The seven deadly sins are still deadly, because they separate us from other people. They are all about putting 'me' first and that is maladaptive for social creatures like us.

-- Paul Zak

Blur is the Enemy of a Well-Lived Life

 

No one can deny that today’s technology is fun. It’s loaded with eye candy, which is an addiction. It’s loaded with social media, which is an addiction. It’s loaded with text messaging, which is an addiction. It’s loaded with incoming calls, maybe even incoming video calls, which is an addiction.

I say “addiction” because people do indeed get addicted to these things. There are many times when we know we shouldn’t answer, but we do. We know we shouldn’t reply, but we do. We know we shouldn’t check status updates, but we do. It’s almost like the priority is not what we’re doing or who we’re currently with. The priority is whatever’s happening through the device.

Of course, deep down, we know that’s not true. But is our behavior reflecting...continue reading.

-- Daniel Burrus

Disguised

God comes to you disguised as your life.

-- Paula D'Arcy

The Difference

What’s the difference between you and God?  God never thinks he’s you.

-- Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow

Ignorance

Ignorance of God and ourselves is the great principle and cause of all our disquietments; and this ariseth mostly not from want of light and instruction, but for want of consideration and application.

-- John Owen

Wisdom

Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.

-- John Calvin

Sitting Is Killing You

 

Read more here about how sitting may be killing you...

It Doesn't Matter

It doesn't matter how slowly you go, as long as you don't stop.

-- Confucius

How Little Can Be Done

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

-- Florence Nightingale

Killing Our Kids With Kindness?

One of the best books I have ever read is The Logic of Failure, where Dietrich Dorner demonstrates through real life case studies how often what seems to be the logical solution can turn into disaster. For me, this is exactly what is being played out with modern parenting. Yes, it seems logical in theory to give our kids more attention than we received; to give them the best opportunities for development with a plethora of extra-curricular activities. And because we love them, we wrap them in a cloud of cotton wool protection.

Logical measures. Well thought out plans. There is no doubt we are acting out of care and love. But are we in fact slowly killing our kids with kindness? Are we producing a generation who not only don’t know how to think for themselves, but expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter and require constant stimulation to keep them amused? We seem to be developing a world in which, despite ultra-competitive alpha parents, children are taught that ‘you don’t have to succeed to be a winner’.

In a work environment, this translates to employees who aren’t prepared to do the tedious jobs, and don’t understand they need to earn the right to greater responsibility and progression. Churning out employees who aren’t risk takers and can rarely think for themselves – who constantly need to be told what to do when. Where will we find the risk-takers, the innovators – those who will future-proof our planet – if we don’t allow children to fail and learn to do things the right way, not the easy way?

-- Creel P.

Continue Reading

Health

...our western notion of body-mind duality is entirely false. The study shows that we are a whole organism, and when we get healthy that means our body and our mind get healthy.

-- Dr. Kathryn Kotrla

I have become increasing convinced that we cannot be healthy in just one area of our lives. When we are unhealthy in one area, we are in the others as well...and vice versa.

It Is Doubtful

It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.

-- A.W. Tozer