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CAN'T WIN FOR LOSING
A man named Fred inherited a huge land grant, but the will provided that he could choose land in either Chile or Brazil. He chose Brazil. Unhappily, if he had chosen Chile, he would have received his inheritance in land on which they had recently discovered uranium, gold and silver. But he chose Brazil.
When he arrived in Brazil he had to choose between receiving his inheritance in a coffee plantation or land with Brazil nut trees. He chose the nut trees, and immediately the bottom fell out of the nut market, but coffee futures went up two dollars a pound. The government took control of the nut farm for back taxes, and Fred was left destitute.
Fred pawned his Rolex watch for the money he needed to fly either to New York or Boston. He chose Boston. When the plane for New York taxied up, he noticed it was a brand new super Concorde with red carpets. After several hours delay, the plane for Boston arrived. It was a 1928 twin engine plane held together with bailing wire, and it was filled with cigar smokers and unattended crying babies.
Over the mountains one of the engines fell off, and Fred, frightened by his earlier bad choices and fearing for his life, asked for two parachutes. He jumped. As he fell through the air, he tried to make up his mind which ripcord to pull. He pulled the cord on the left, but nothing happened. He pulled the cord on his right, but it broke.
In desperation the poor fellow cried out, "St. Francis, save me!" A great hand from heaven reached down, seized him by the wrist, and left him dangling in mid-air. Then a gentle but inquisitive voice asked, "St. Francis, Xavier or St. Francis of Assisi?"
(Source: Dick Meyer, An Anchor in a Sea of Change, Faith@Work, Spring 2000, p.23; www.PreachingToday.com)
The poor guy couldn’t win for losing, but that’s life sometimes. Life is risky, because it’s full of choices where we don’t always know the outcome.
It’s the same with choosing to follow Christ. There is great risk involved, because we don’t always know how people are going to respond to that choice. Some may appreciate the choice because of the changes it brings into our lives. But others may very well reject us for choosing to follow Jesus, because they resent those very changes.
(From a sermon by C. Philip Green, Take A Risk, 11/5/2009)
CAN YOU CREATE THIS?
It is a self-balancing, 28-jointed adapter based bi-ped with the following: Millions of warning signals, railroad and conveyor systems…crushers and cranes (of which the arms are magnificent 23-jointed affairs with self-surfacing and lubricating systems); A universally distributed telephone system needing no service for 70 years if well managed; An electrochemical reduction-plant, integral with segregated stowages of special energy extracts in storage batteries, for subsequent actuation of thousands of hydraulic and pneumatic pumps, with motors attached…62,000 miles of capillaries. And the whole, extraordinarily complex mechanism is guided with exquisite precision from a turret in which are located telescopic and microscopic self-registering and recording range finders, a spectroscope, etc., and the turret control being closely allied with an air conditioning intake-and-exhaust, with a main fuel intake. Within a few cubic inches that house the turret mechanism, there is room, also, for two sound wave and sound-direction-finder recording diaphragms. There is an expertly devised analytical laboratory large enough not only to contain minute records of every last and continual event of up to 70 years experience, or more, but to extend, by computation and abstract fabrication, this experience with relative accuracy into all corners of the observed universe AS WELL AS a forecasting and tactical plotting department for the reduction of future possibilities and probabilities to generally successful specific choice.
SOURCE: Autoillustrator.com, PERSPECTIVE.
My wife and were enjoying a cruise on a recent vacation. At the dinner table that second evening, that dreaded question came up regarding my occupation. (Now I am not ashamed of being a minister, but telling people I am a minister will erect walls that cannot be scaled) I replied that I would tell them what I did if they could answer a riddle that described my occupation. I stated that, “I am the captain of a ship that never leaves port, a shepherd of sheep that are not sheep, an educator of people that are not in school, and I work in futures that are not in the stock market.” Eventually, someone guessed I was a preacher.
SOMETHING FOR NOTHING?
Are you hoping for personal change this year? Are you planning to reach your goals by way of hard work or wishful thinking? Do your plans for growth in the New Year sound like this:
From the Desk of: Don Genereaux
Honorable Secretary of Agriculture
Washington, D.C.
Dear Sir,
My friend, Dan Hansen, over at Honey Creek, Iowa, received a check for $1,000.00 from the government for not raising hogs.
So I want to go into the "NOT RAISING HOGS" business next year. What I want to know is, in your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to raise hogs on? And what is the best breed of hogs not to raise? I want to be sure that I approach this endeavor in keeping with all government policies.
As I see it, the hardest part of the "NOT RAISING HOGS’ program is keeping an accurate inventory of how many hogs I haven’t raised. My friend Hansen is very joyful about the future of the business. He has been raising hogs for twenty years or so, and the best he has ever made on them was $422.90 in 1968, until this year when he got your check for the $1000.00 for not raising 50 hogs. If I get $1000.00 for not raising 50 hogs, then would I get $2000.00 for not raising 100 hogs? I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself to about 4,000 hogs not raised the first year, which would bring in about $80,000.00; then I can afford an airplane.
Now another thing - these hogs I will not raise will not eat 100,000 bushels of corn. I understand that the government also pays people not to raise corn and wheat. Would I qualify for payments for not raising these crops not to feed my hogs I will not be raising?
I want to get started as soon as possible as this seems to be a good time of the year for the "NOT RAISING HOGS" and "NOT PLANTING CROPS" business. Also I am giving serious con...
A 24-year-old man literally dreamed of the phone number of his future wife one night and then, driven by his instinct, sent her a text message. Random recipient Michelle Kitson first appeared confused when she saw a message on her phone from an unknown number that read, "Did I meet you last night?"
However, the 22-year-old woman chose to reply to David Brown’s text message and their romance kicked off. "It was really weird but I was absolutely hooked," Kitson told the Daily Mail newspaper.
After a couple of face-to-face meetings they fell for each other and decided to marry each other ending their long courtship period. Brown, who is six foot seven inches tall, took Kitson, who is just five foot four for a honeymoon in the Indian resort of Goa.
"I’ve no idea how I ended up with her number in my head -- it’s only a few digits different from mine," Brown told the British newspaper.
Fortune-Teller and the Frog
A fortune-teller gazes into crystal ball and says to a frog: "You are going to meet a beautiful young woman. From the moment she sets eyes on you, she will have an insatiable desire to know all about you. She will be compelled to get close to you - you'll fascinate her."
The frog said, "Really? That's great! Where am I? At a singles club?"
The fortune-teller answered, "Biology class."
As dads, we often say that we are doing things now for the good they will bring in the future. If you turn your young one over your knee, you say “I’m doing this for your own good”. When we teach our kids to save, we want them to be good stewards of what God gives, and teach them what they need to know for the future, the coming ages.
Regardless of his state in the present, the negative thinker finds disappointment in the future. The epitaph on a negative person’s headstone ought to read, “I expected this.” A sign that was read several years ago in an office building can best describe this type of thinking:
Don’t look – you might see.
Don’t listen – you might hear.
Don’t think – you might learn.
Don’t make a decision – you might be wrong.
Don’t’ walk – you might stumble.
Don’t’ run – yo...
The Talmud lists 7 kinds of Pharisees.
1) SHECHEMITE, who kept the law for what he could profit thereby.
2) TUMBLING, who, to appear humble, always hung their heads down & thus often fell.
3)BLEEDING, who, to avoid seeing women, walked with closed eyes & were often wounded,
4) MORTAR, who wore a motar shaped cap covering his eyes to avoid seeing impurities or indecencies.
5) WHAT-AM-I-YET-TO-DO, who, not knowing the law, often asked “What is my duty?”
6) FEARFUL, who kept the law because of fear of future judgment.
7) LOVE, who obeyed the law because he loved the Lord with all his heart (UNGER’S BIBLE DICTIONARY (1957), Chicago: Moody, pp. 854, 855).
ASK ME LATER
Clear-thinking people are often interesting people. One woman shares this story:
When my 88-year-old mother was called for jury duty, she had to submit to questioning by the opposing lawyers.
"Have you ever dealt with an attorney?" asked the plaintiff's lawyer.
"Yes. I had an attorney write my living trust," she responded.
"And how did that turn out?"
"I don't know," she said. "Ask me when I'm dead." (Reader's Digest)
