The Burning of the Money

Two men were out drinking one night. The first man said to his friend, "Watch this." He placed a five dollar bill over a candle and burned the money up.

"Oh yeah!" his friend replied. "Well watch this." He took a ten dollar bill out and lit it on fire.

The first man took all of the money out of his wallet and burned it. Then the second man did the same thing.

Soon the two men were withdrawing money from their bank accounts and burning it as fast as they could, until both were broke and destitute.

This is how we treat our souls and the gifts God has given us. We become drunk on earthly pleasures. Then we start destroying what is most valuable to us, slowly at first, but soon we cannot destroy our souls fast enough.

And no man does so alone. Because evilness wants to be shared, so it is in pairs and groups that we conspire to destroy all that God made holy.

The Three Runners

Three runners were in the final moments of preparation for a race. Before the race began, a woman walked up to the first runner.

"It looks like you will lose this race," she told him. The man looked at his competition and his heart sank.

She said to the second runner, "You look like you will run very fast today." The man looked at his competition, and his confidence rose.

To the third runner she said, "The Lord is with you on this day. It is already decided that you will win, and that God will help you run faster than you have ever run before." The man did not look at his competition. Instead he looked to the heavens and his heart was filled.

The race started. The first runner ran slower than he had ever run before. The second runner ran fast because he was confident in his abilities. But the third runner ran faster than he had ever run in his life, because he knew for a fact that God had chosen him to win.

Criticism and degrading words can bring a man down, while encouragement will lift a man up. But the word of the Lord takes a man to new heights, allowing him to do things he never thought possible.

Today's Post

Today's post is up because of an inspiring story and blog I read today. Click Here for the story on Yahoo! Sports, and then click here to read Brian's Blog.

The Man in the Wheelchair

A disabled man had been refined to a wheelchair since birth. One day, a woman who had just lost her job was standing nearby him wailed, "I have lost my job! Now what will I do?" Then seeing him refined to his electric wheelchair, she said, "But I see the state that you are in, and I realize that things could be so much worse."

Being unable to speak, he typed into a computer these words, that were then spoken in an electronic voice.

"Ha!" the electronic voice said, as he typed. "Why do you pity me? When I was a small child, I received a wheelchair. 'I have legs!' I said to myself. Then when I was older, I received this machine that speaks for me. 'I have a voice!' I said to myself. Then when I was even older, I took my first ride on an airplane. 'I have wings!' I said to myself.

"Each day I wonder what new and wonderful gift God will give me.

"But you. You have real legs, but you don't use them. Instead of moving forward with your life, you stand there complaining. You have a real voice, but rather than using it to lift people up, you whine about your small problems. And you ignore the freedom that wings can give to you, to go anywhere and do anything is not a challenge to you. But you are ignorant of this.

"You stand there pitying me, but it is you whom I feel pity for. Because I have something you do not. I have eyes to see the blessings that God has given me throughout my life. But you are blind to all of your own."

After the Coma

A man woke up from a coma after ten years. It was an amazing thing, so friends, family, and reporters gathered around to ask him questions.

"Are you angry for having missed so much of your life?" they asked him.

"No, I am not angry," he replied.

"Then you must be very happy because of this!" they said.

"No, I am not happy," he responded.

The people were confused by his responses, so they asked him, "Then what are you feeling?"

"I'm scared," the man said. "Before the coma, I lived a selfish life focused only on myself. But now I have lost ten years of my life. God obviously wants me to live for some reason, but I do not know what it is. So I am afraid because I must find that reason and then pursue it with all of the days I have remaining."

This was not something that the media wanted to hear. Nor were his friends and family happy with the answer he had given, so they all left him, grumbling amongst themselves.

But one reporter stayed behind. He approached the man and said, "That was a wise answer you gave. I believe there is something that God wants to do with my life too, but I do not know what it is. I am willing to give up my career to join you."

The man said to the reporter, "Are you afraid too?"

"Yes," the reporter replied.

"Then we will certainly do great things together," the man said.

The King of the Jungle

The lion said to himself, "I am the king of the jungle. There is nothing greater than me."

Then one day he came to the edge of his jungle and saw that a huge number of trees had been cut down and that his territory was now considerably smaller. But he did not know why, so he did not worry about it. "There is still nothing greater than me," he said to himself.

Not too much later he heard some of the other lions talking about seeing some new animal off in the distance that walked on two feet. "Well, it can't be greater than me," the lion thought to himself.

Then a few weeks after that, he fell into a deep pit and became trapped. He did not know who or what had created this pit, but the lion became scared. And he did not realize that he was not the most powerful thing on earth until the human lurked over the side of the pit with a rifle and killed the lion.

In the same way, men walk around thinking they are lords of the earth. They ignore the way God shapes our environment, the people who talk about the Lord and His power, and it is not until man is trapped and punished for his pride that he finally realizes his prideful mistake.

The Three Sailors

"This rain is very heavy," said one sailor to his two friends. "I can barely see through it, but it looks as if the captain is yelling at us because he is angry."

His companion said, "I can't tell what the captain is saying, because the wind is too loud. But I do not think he is angry. I think he may be singing."

"No, no," said the third sailor, "Look at his face. It is hard to tell because this boat is moving so much, but I think he is afraid."

The entire time they debated, the captain yelled to them, "Hurry, men! Get down below where it is safe!" But the men focused so much on the small details of their captain that they completely ignored the storm raging around them.

It was not until the waves swept them all overboard and it was too late that they realized why he had been yelling at all.