This is from the book The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey
Jesus did not say, “All men will know you are my disciples…if you just pass laws, suppress immorality, and restore decency to family and government, ” but rather”…if you love one another.” He made that statement the night before his death, a night when human power, represented by the might of Rome and the full force of Jewish religious authorities, collided head-on with God’s power. All his life, Jesus had been involved in a form of “culture wars” against a rigid religious establishment and a pagan empire, yet he responded by giving his life for those who opposed him. On the cross, he forgave them. He had come, above all, to demonstrate love: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son….”
And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. Romans 8:5 (KJV)
I was having lunch at a friend’s home recently, a wise Christian woman with discerning eyes. Before we ate, I had to borrow one of her spoons and have her bend and twist it in a contorted angle.
She then inserted the spoon in my hand splint and I was able to feed myself. But as we ate and casually talked, I noticed her eyes. She kept looking at the bent spoon. When lunch was over she pulled the spoon out of my arm splint, and set it by my plate. I was a little embarrassed that I had to bend one of her nicest pieces of flatware. With that ugly twist of the metal, it looked as though I had ruined the spoon.
I offered to have my husband straighten out the spoon-to return it to its original shape.
“Oh, no,” she said. “I want to keep this spoon just the way it is.”
“But it looks ugly like that.” I protested, “and besides, you won’t be able to use it.” By this time she had the spoon in her hand, gently fingering the twist in the handle, admiring it as though it were a thing of beauty rather than something bent and misshapen. To her, the spoon had a special meaning.
“You see, Joni,” she explained, “you can only use a spoon that’s been bent to your needs. A straight one just won’t do. A twisted tool in your hand can better accomplish a task.”
I’ve nicknamed my special utensil a “spork.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone into a restaurant and had busboys or a waitress spy it and try to take it away.
“Ugh! Where did this come from? It must have gotten mangled in the dishwasher,” they’ll say.
Or a busboy may pick it up and without saying a word, bend it back to its original shape, thinking he’s doing me a favor.
“Oh no, ” I tell them. “It’s supposed to look like that. It’s been perfectly so I can use it.”
Isn’t that the way God works in our lives? He knows He can better accomplish His unique plan when He bends us to suit His will. He can best use us when we’re molded and shaped for His special design. Now, certainly, this spork of mine isn’t very attractive. It’s obviously unlike the rest of the utensils in the kitchen drawer. And we might come to think that we, in our weakness, are unlike all the rest.
But in the hand of God we serve an express purpose. The metal of our souls may be hard and difficult to bend, but when we allow God the privilege of shaping or lives, we discover new depths of purpose and meaning. What a joyful thought to realize you are a chosen vessel for God–perfectly suited for His use.
Even a spork can be noble….if it’s placed in the Master’s hand.
In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. 2 Timothy 2:20,21
Me: I will be dogged, you going to the rodeo prodigal?
Prodigal: You never know what will come up next.
This is from the book Chicken Soup for the Country Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Ron Camacho
Even when he was hurt, Joe seldom missed a rodeo. Once, his wrist got caught in the rope, and he dangled on the side of the bull as it kicked him and knocked him unconscious. He was taken away on a stretcher, blood running down his face.
He came back from that injury and many others. But by now weeks had passed since he’d brought home a paycheck. Maybe I’m just not trying hard enough, Joe thought. The bills were all way past due.
Mesquite, on the outskirts of Dallas, is the site of one of the best-known rodeos in America. One day a Dodge Truck executive called rodeo owner Neal Gay with a promotion idea. If Gay would pick the meanest, wildest bull he could find, Dodge would put up a five-thousand dollar prize for any cowboy who could ride it for eight seconds. The pot would grow by five hundred dollars every time the bull shucked a rider. The bull would be named after a new truck, Dodge Dakota.
Gay liked the idea. He contacted Lester Meier, a rodeo producer who owned a nightmarish black bull that weighed 1,700 pounds and had a single horn crawling ominously down the side of its white face.
“You got Dodge Dakota,” Meier told Gay.
Of the thirty bull riders who competed at Mesquite every weekend, only one, assigned randomly by a computer, got a crack at Dodge Dakota. Week after week, the beast sent cowboys hurtling, even a former world champion. But Joe Wimberly was never chosen.
Joe was carrying a fifty-pound feed sack toward the horse pen at his ranch when he heard the screen door slam. Paula hurried over. “The rodeo called, Joe,” she said.
“You drew Dodge Dakota for Friday night.”
Joe dropped the feed sack. “You’re kiddin’ me.”
“No, Joe, I ain’t kiddin”. The pot had grown to $9,500.
Joe started riding the bull in his mind. Stay loose, he told himself. This is just another bull. But Joe knew Dakota was a vicious outlaw.
According to those who had studied Dakota, the bull started every ride the same way. It blew out of the chute, took one jump, kicked over its head, stepped backward and spun to the left, all in about two seconds. After that, it was anybody’s guess.
That Friday, Joe paced behind the chutes. He looked up in the stands and saw his family. When the spotlight flashed on him, he pulled himself over the rails and settled on the broad, humped back of Dodge Dakota. He wrapped the rope around his right hand; the other end was twisted around the belly of the beast.
Lord, I’m comin’ to you like a friend, Joe pleaded silently. You know how much I need this ride. Beads of sweat grew on his forehead.
The gate swung open. Dakota bolted, and Joe’s thighs squeezed tight. The beast bucked hard, lifting Joe into the air, then slammed down. The bull bellowed and twisted to its left. Foam spewed from its snout. The cowboy thumped back on his seat, the rope burning his hand. He shot in the air, his head snapping backward, hat flying off, but he hun on. The stands thundered–six thousand fans on their feet, screaming, shrieking, stomping. The clock flashed five seconds, six seconds….
Dakota groaned in a voice from hell and bucked violently, four hoofs in the air. Suddenly the bull ran alone.
Crashing flat on his back, Joe looked up to see the belly of the bull and its slamming hoofs. He scrambled away as the clowns chased Dakota back to its pen. Joe searched for Paula in the stands and slowly mouthed the words, “I am sorry.”
Late that summer, Joe was again paired with Dodge Dakota. In an instant this time, the bull slammed him and his dreams to dirt.
Now Joe was scrambling for money. He shod horses. He entered jackpot bull-riding contests, organized a rodeo school. But none of this put much of a dent in his debts. He was finally forced to place an ad in the house-for-sale section of the newspaper. “It’s only boards and paint and siding,” he told a tearful Paula. “If we stay together as a family, it doesn’t matter where we are.”
Joe paid another humiliating visit to the banker. “Can’t I have just a little more time?” the cowboy pleaded.
“You’ve had time, Joe,” the banker said flatly.
One Friday in September, Joe was riding at Mesquite. With all his troubles at home, Joe hadn’t been thinking much about bulls. The purse for Dodge Dakota had grown to seventeen thousand dollars.
They had stopped announcing ahead of time which cowboy would ride Dakota. Now they drew the name during intermission. Suddenly a rodeo official called out, “Hey, Joe Wimberly, you got Dakota.”
Neal Gay came by. “Third time’s the charm,” the rodeo owner said with a wink.
As Paula watched from the stands, her heart began to pound. Twice before, she had seen Joe’s hopes soar as high as the stars, and then sink to the depths.
Joe climbed up to the bucking chutes. The season was almost over. Twenty-four times a cowboy had boarded Dodge Dakota, and twenty-four times the bull had won. The pot was big enough to save his house, to pay the bills, even to have a little extra.
The cowboy pulled himself over the rails and straddled the bull that stomped inside its chute. The rope was wrapped around his hand as tight as a noose. One of his favorite phrases came to mind: “If you ain’t got no choice, be brave.”
The gate swung open, and the clock started counting the eight most important seconds of Joe Wimberly’s life.
The huge black beast bellowed. Nealy a ton of muscle and bone thundered by. Dakota’s head snapped violently. Its eyes flashed fire. Dust rose from its kicking hoofs. And the clock ticked-two seconds….three….four…..
Joe bounced on the bull’s hard back, straining for balance. Then another punishing buck. He dangled at the edge, fighting gravity. Six seconds……seven seconds….
Joe crashed to the dirt as the horn sounded. A sudden hush swept over the arena. The fans stared down at the rodeo boss, who was staring at the timekeeper, who was staring at the clock.
An excited official raised his arms in the air, the sign of a touchdown. Joe had made it by two-hundredths of a second.
The cowboy dropped to his knees. “Thank you, Jesus!” Joe cried.
Wherefore, If God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
This is from the book The Power of A Woman’s Words by Sharon Jaynes
I believe wisdom has little to do with intelligence. When it comes to applying wise principles to the words we speak of don’t speak, I like what Frank M. Garafda had to say: “The difference between a smart man (woman) and a wise man (woman) is that a smart man (woman) knows what to say, and a wise man (woman) knows whether to say it or not.”
And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. 1 John 3:22 (KJV)
This is from Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver
Regardless of how we do it, the ultimate result is the same. When we refuse to listen to the Lord, we shut him out. We refuse him the opportunity to teach us, to transform our lives, and to work through us to transform the world.
Surely that’s why Jesus put such a premium on listening. Over and over, Jesus’ clarion call punctuates the Gospels, echoing the words of the Shema: “He who has ears, let him hear.” And eight times the Revelation, Jesus instructs his Bride, the Church, to listen: “Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
And make no mistake, the Lord still speaks today. Through the Scriptures. Through our circumstances. In our heart, by the voice of the Holy Spirit. We can hear him if we give up our rebellion and our denial. We can hear his voice, and when we hearken to him, he will teach us.
We who have ears….let us listen and hear.
I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day; 2 Timothy 1:3 (KJV)
This is from the book The Soul Winner by C.H. Spurgeon
Ours is the miraculous method that comes of the endowment of the Spirit of God, who chooses His ministers to perform wonders in the name of the holy Christ Jesus. We are sent to say to blind eyes, “See,” to deaf ears, “Hear,” to dead hearts, “Live,” and even to Lazarus rotting in that grave, “Lazarus, come forth” (John 11:43). Dare we do this? We will be wise to begin with the conviction that we are utterly powerless for this unless our Master has sent us and is with us But if He who sent us is with us, “all things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:23).
If you are about to stand up to see what you can do, it will be wise of you to sit down quickly; but if you stand up to prove what the Almighty can do through you, then infinite possibilities lie around you! There are no bounds to what God can accomplish if He works by your heart and voice.
But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: yea, who knoweth not such things as these? Job 12:3 (KJV)
Me: Just read this. Turn to God’s light and your shadows will fall behind you.
Prodigal: Amen!
This is from the book Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray
And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil. It was when the now fallen angels began to look upon themselves with self-complacency that they were led to disobedience, and were cast down from the light of heaven into outer darkness. Even so it was, when the serpent breathed the poison of his pride, the desire to be as God, into the hearts of our first parents, that they fell from their high estate into all the wretchedness in which man is now sunk. In heaven and earth, pride, self-exaltation is the gate and the birth, and the curse of hell.
Hence it follows that nothing can be our redemption, but the restoration of the ‘lost humility, the original and true relation of the creature to its God. And so Jesus came to bring humility back to earth, to make us partakers of it, and by it to save us. In heaven He humbled Himself to become man. The humility we see in Him possessed Him in heaven; it brought Him, He brought it, from there. Here on earth “He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death”; His humility gave His death its value, and so became our redemption. And now the salvation He imparts is nothing less and nothing else than a communication of His own life and death, His own disposition and spirit, His own humility, as the ground and root of His relation to God and His redeeming work. Jesus Christ took the place and fulfilled the destiny of man, as a creature, by His life of perfect humility. His humility is our salvation. His salvation is our humility.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. Genesis 3:6 (KJV)
