Why Polish the Gold?• It builds your confidence when you realize that your words have power and can positively influence. • As you seek to find the good in others, you will enjoy the ripple effect reminder for finding the good in yourself.• It makes a great ice-breaker to begin a conversation.• It helps you meet new people and make new friends.• It strengthens your relationships and builds mutual admiration.• It brings more happiness and joy into your life.• A little praise goes a long way to make others happy.
Jesus! it is the name which moves the harps of heaven to melody. Jesus! the life of all our joys. If there be one name more charming, more precious than another, it is this name. It is woven into the very warp and woof of our psalmody. Many of our hymns begin with it, and scarcely any, that are good for anything, end without it. It is the sum total of all delights. It is the music with which the bells of heaven ring; a song in a word; an ocean for comprehension, although a drop for brevity; a matchless oratorio in two syllables; a gathering up of the hallelujahs of eternity in five letters.
And what I thought most about was luxury. I had never realised before that it is more than just having things; it makes the very air feel different. And I felt different, breathing the air: relaxed, lazy, still sad but with the edge taken off the sadness. Perhaps the effect wears off in time, or perhaps you don't notice it if you are born to it, but it does seem to me that the climate of richness must always be a little dulling to the senses. Perhaps it takes the edge off joy as well as off sorrow.
Press Onward! We all make mistakes. It's time we stop dwelling on them and move forward. Ask for forgiveness from others, forgive yourself and then...full steam ahead. Darkness has no greater companion than a self loathing un-forgiven or unforgiving heart. Paul writes in Philippians: "…But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal..." Press on dear friends for life, love and joy await you! ~Jason Versey
“That's the big picture, your happiness. And health. You should never care what a man thinks of you -- until he demonstrates to you that he cares about making you happy. If he isn't trying to make you happy, then send him back from "whence" he came because winning him over will have no benefit. At the end of the day, happines, joy...and yes...your emotional stability...those comprise the only measuring stick you really need to have.”
“Find joy in existence. We live in good times. Now is somewhere between the beginning and the end of everything. . . . Collectively and individually, we must never stop exploring, imagining, experimenting, learning, and solving problems. This should not be difficult for any of us, because it is only human to do these things. This is who we are. It was the way of those remarkable Africans not so long ago in prehistory, and it can be your way now. The closer you look, the more you will see. The more you learn, the more alive and awake you will become.”
“Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.”
I am no theologian, and do not have the answers to these questions, and one of the reasons I enjoy the animals on the farm so much is that they don't think about their pain, or question it, they accept it and endure it, true stoics. I have never heard a donkey or cow whine (although I guess dogs do). I told my friend this: pain, like joy, is a gift. It challenges us, tests, defines us, causes us to grow, empathize, and also, to appreciate its absence. If nothing else, it sharpens the experience of joy. The minute something happens to me that causes pain, I start wondering how I can respond to it, what I can learn from it, what it has taught me or shown me about myself. This doesn't make it hurt any less, but it puts it, for me, on a more manageable level. I don't know if there is a God, or if he causes me or anybody else to hurt, or if he could stop pain. I try to accept it and live beyond it. I think the animals have taught me that. The Problem of Pain is that it exists, and is ubiquitous. The Challenge of Pain is how we respond to it.
Unless death is made a lesson for the living, the life lived is wasted.Why should life come into existence only to be destroyed? One dies and another is born—for what? A few miserable hours of life—then oblivion!With this recognition of the finality of death, no one should willingly withhold acts that would bring benefits, joy or happiness to others. In death, the hesitant act can no longer be performed—the word of praise is as impossible as yesterday's return.What perversity justified inflicting pain, suffering and death upon others who have done no wrong? If death ends all, why fight while we are living? Why shorten life with unnecessary pain and suffering? How futile are the petty problems of individuals, with their hates and jealousies, when all vanish with death? All the prayers in the world cannot wipe out one injustice.Every wrong is irreparable.The dead cannot forgive.All the tears and sighs are of no avail.Forgiveness cannot be granted when lips cannot move.Praise cannot be heard when ears cannot hear; joy cannot be experienced when the heart no longer beats; and the happiness of an affectionate embrace can no longer be felt when arms are limp and the eyes are forever closed.
The flesh resists this daily humiliation, first by a frontal attack, and later by hiding itself under the words of the spirit (i.e. in the name of 'evangelical liberty'). We claim liberty from all legal compulsion, from self-martyrdom and mortification, and play this off against the proper evangelical use of discipline and asceticism; we thus excuse our self-indulgence and irregularity in prayer, in meditation and in our bodily life. But the contrast between our behavior and the word of Jesus is all too painfully evident. We forget that discipleship means estrangement from the world, and we forget the real joy and freedom which are the outcome of a devout rule of life. As soon as a Christian recognizes that he has failed in his service, that his readiness has become feeble, and that he has sinned against another's life and become guilty of another's guilt, that all his joy in God has vanished and that his capacity for prayer has quite gone, it is high time for him to launch an assault upon the flesh, and prepare for better service by fasting and prayer (Luke 2:37; 4:2: Mark 9:29; 1 Cor. 7:5).