There is a rather significant difference between forgiveness and trust. Forgiveness is simply a matter of releasing a transgressor from their debt. But when trust has been violated and thereby lost, it takes substantially more to rebuild a relationship. Transgressors are fond of thinking that if they’ve truly been forgiven, everything will return to the way it was, but that is not true. While God does command us to forgive, He does not require us to place our trust in those who have proven to be unworthy of it.
Archive for the ‘Thought for the Day / Quotes’ Category
Thought for the Day – Trust & Forgiveness
Posted in Commentaries, Opinions, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged forgiveness, transgressor, trust, trustworthy on January 24, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Thought for the Day – The Stubborn Nature of Time
Posted in Commentaries, Opinions, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged confusion, fear, indifference, indifferent, pain, time, unforgiving, unrelenting, unrepentant on January 23, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Time has no conscience. It is indifferent to our lack of preparation, our confusion, our fear, and our pain. It will not stop for us when we stumble, and it will not slow for us when we fall behind. It is unrelenting, unforgiving and unrepentant.
Thought for the Day – Sharing in Christ’s Sufferings
Posted in Commentaries, Opinions, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged sharing in Christ's suffering, sharing in Jesus' suffering, suffering for Jesus on January 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »
I believe that we as “Christians” like to think of our hardships as suffering for Jesus’ sake. But unless we are partaking of the “divine nature”, genuinely attempting to follow the leading of His Spirit, and/or manifesting the character of Christ, it is doubtful that we are actually sharing in His sufferings. More often than not, we are simply reaping the consequences of acting in our own strength, and doing what is “right” in our own eyes.
Thought for the Day – Silent Lucidity
Posted in Commentaries, Opinions, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged forced sobriety, learning from our mistakes, silent lucidity, victim of circumstance on January 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »
It seems to me that life is lived amidst the tension between who we were created to be, and who we’ve always been. And that in moments of forced sobriety, and silent lucidity, we are confronted by the sense that there must be more to life than what we are experiencing. Though we like to think of ourselves as victims of circumstance, we come face to face with the reality that we are far more responsible for the state of our condition than we’d ever care to admit. The fact that we make bad decisions does nothing more than qualify us as members of the human race. But a steady refusal to learn from those mistakes, or to change direction, will ultimately brand us a fool.
Thought for the Day – Christmas Memories
Posted in Christmas, Commentaries, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged Christmas memories, favorite Christmas memory on December 26, 2015| Leave a Comment »
If you ask a young person about their favorite Christmas memory, they will most likely tell you about the best present they ever got. But if you ask an older person that same question, you’ll almost always hear about the people they were with.
Thought for the Day – Game On
Posted in Entertainment/Music/Sports, Thought for the Day / Quotes, Word Pictures, tagged basketball, perseverance, tune out voices on December 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »
With our two youngest (Andrew and Bekah) playing for their respective high school basketball teams, we spend a lot of time courtside. As a matter of fact, we’re in the midst of a five day stretch where either the boy’s team, or the girl’s team, has a night-time away game. And when you frequently hang around such venues it’s not uncommon to encounter people who think that “basketball is life”. But from where I sit, it is life that is a lot like basketball.
Like basketball, life requires preparation. You may get by for a while on natural ability, but at some point you have to invest yourself in it, if you hope to have sustained success. Just like traversing the length of the floor, and getting to the rim, there will always be situations, scenarios, and obstacles, that stand in your way. It requires patience, perseverance, and some amount of skill, to negotiate those hurdles. It is only on rare occasions that you find yourself completely on the other side of these things, with a clear path to the goal. When those openings come, you must be ready; because such windows of opportunity close quickly. There are times when you need to press, and other times when you need to let the game come to you. Sometimes you can simply cover a zone, but other times demand one-on-one attention. Discerning those times is a significant key to victory. Likewise, you will find that there are often fouls in life that never get called, times when your teammates won’t pass the ball, and moments when you inexplicably dribble the ball off your own foot, or shoot it over the backboard. How you handle these moments of disappointment, frustration, and failure, will drastically impact your potential for future achievement. Finally, there is the noise that surrounds the game. The instructions of a coach, the cheers and jeers of the crowd, the call of a ref, the encouragement or chastening of a teammate, the trash talk of an opponent, and the little voice inside your head that responds to all of them. Knowing which voices to listen to, and which ones to tune out, is a crucial skill that every player needs to develop.
Thought for the Day – Ungrateful
Posted in Commentaries, Opinions, Parenting / Family, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged no family, Thanksgiving, unappreciative on December 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »
As the Thanksgiving holiday approached my heart was burdened to consider those who have no family to gather with; but as we emerged from the weekend, I was even more saddened by the number of those who have no appreciation for the families that they have.
Thought for the Day – Refuge
Posted in Commentaries, Opinions, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged forfeit, hideout, refuge on November 17, 2015| Leave a Comment »
A safe place to recover one’s strength, and/or to regain one’s perspective, and/or to make a plan, would rightfully be considered a “refuge”. A place to avoid one’s problems and/or responsibilities, would more accurately be referred to as a “hideout”. In athletic terms, it is the difference between a timeout and a forfeit.
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Thought for the Day – Facing Adversity
Posted in Commentaries, Opinions, Parenting / Family, Social / Political, Thought for the Day / Quotes, tagged adversity, preparing our children, raising grandkids, struggles of adult life on January 26, 2016| 2 Comments »
Back in October, my oldest son broke his arm while playing high school football; and what I thought would be a relatively quick run to the emergency room turned into days of hospitalization and multiple surgeries. Late on that first evening, while under the influence of some pretty strong pain medication, he said, “I wish this had never happened”. And as he drifted off to sleep, I thought about how often life presents us with situations that we wish had never happened. Sickness, injury, car trouble, divorce, unexpected bills, loss of a loved one, bad grades, getting laid off, missing the game winning shot, identity theft, unplanned pregnancy, a traffic ticket, betrayal, addiction… It seems that the fabric of our days has many such threads woven into it.
In light of that fact, I began to wonder how well we’ve prepared our kids to face that kind of adversity. Unwittingly, and in the name of protecting them, we can run out in front of our kids, removing every obstacle from their path, and at times, even going back to clean up their messes behind them. We rationalize that we’re trying to give them every advantage, and get them off to a good start. But too often they emerge from childhood totally unprepared to cope with the inherent struggles of adult life. While the instinct to protect our children, and to do for them, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it must be balanced with the need to prepare them to go out and make a life of their own. Too many people of my generation are raising their grandkids, and/or paying their adult children’s bills; and often times that is simply the fruit of seeds that we unintentionally planted along the way.
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