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Daily Archives: June 6, 2016

Live like you love yourself

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If you spent all the money in your bank account, would you be then surprised that you had nothing left? Then why are people surprised when they have spent a lifetime of inactivity and eating badly and then get sick? It is exactly the same thing.

Are we so divorced from cause-and-effect?

Or perhaps we have had our power taken away from us and been told too often that others have to do things for us – by teachers and politicians and ministers.

But perhaps even that isn’t fair to say. Nothing can be taken away from us that we aren’t letting happen.

We have given our power away. We have let others take it away from us. Rather than get angry about that, realize it is time to take it back. It is time to take back your health and your life. It’s time to eat like you love yourself. It’s time to treat yourself as a valued guest in your own life.

It is time to remember that our bodies are temples of the living God. We need to treat them like that and not as garbage dumps.

We have to share the message

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I once met a lady who was surprised that her son didn’t know anything about Christianity. She was a lapsed believer and her ex-husband mocks those who do have a faith. She was surprised to learn that her son did not know the Lord’s Prayer. She was also surprised that he had never heard the stories of Jonah and the whale or of Noah for instance. She also is dismayed when her son admits that he doesn’t believe in God.

The problem is that she’s never taught her son about God or any of the stories in the Bible. Her ex-husband certainly wouldn’t. She never took her son to church so he never would have heard the stories from someone else. Public schools do not teach Bible stories either.

How could anyone like something they have never been introduced to? For instance, how can you know if you like to eat pizza if no one has ever given you a slice of pizza to eat?

Teaching children about the stories of the Bible and the love of God isn’t something that we can take for granted. It is better for them to hear this message twice rather than not at all. It is incumbent upon us to share with them the things that have helped us in our faith journey.

In the same way that we would teach them healthy things to eat and share insights on exercise or ways to save money for retirement, we should share the stories of our faith with our children. We share the things that we know to be good. We know God is good, and we know the message of God’s love for us through Jesus to be good. This is something that we can’t leave to chance.

The starfish story

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While walking along a beach, an elderly gentleman saw someone in the distance leaning down, picking something up and throwing it into the ocean. As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, picking up starfish one by one and tossing each one gently back into the water. He came closer still and called out, “Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young man paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.” The old man smiled, and said, “I must ask, then, why are you doing this?” The young man replied, “The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”

Upon hearing this, the elderly observer commented, “But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!” The young man listened politely. Then he bent down, picked up another starfish, threw it into the back into the ocean past the breaking waves and said, “It made a difference for that one.” (author unknown)