Be Careful How You Talk to Your Loved Ones

A State Patrolman pulled a car over for speeding. The Officer said to the male driver, "Sir, you were doing 70 mph."

"I couldn't have been," responded the driver. I had my cruise control set on 55." "That's not true, honey," said his wife."You were driving 70 mph."

The Patrolman continued: "And I noticed as I walked up that you were putting on your seatbelt. I'll have to charge you for that, too."

"It can't be so," answered the driver. "I always put it on first when I get into the car." "You forgot this time, honey," his wife retorted.

By this time the driver was upset. "Will you please shut up?" he shouted at his wife. The Patrolman looked at the wife and asked, "Does your husband always talk to you like this?" "No," said the wife. "Only when he's drunk."

The moral is: be careful how you talk to your loved ones!

A Different Kind of Praying

I once participated in a prayer group with a fellow who cussed when he prayed. My friend had not been a believer for long and he had a lifelong habit of cussing. By the time I knew him, he had cleaned up most of his really bad words. He no longer talked about people's mother or intimate sex acts in his slang, but most of the four letter words were still there. And when his prayers would get into high gear and Spirit started flowing, out would flow those four letter words.

It used me make me laugh. To be honest about it, I don't think the Creator was embarrassed at all. According to the Good Book, the Holy One sees our hearts. My friend's tongue may not have been pure, but his heart was.

A Disturbing Report

According to a recently published report, people continue to believe initially published reports, even after retractions have been printed and the reports have proven the report was false. Researchers say our minds construct models of the truth and after facts are in our brains for a while they harden like cement. So that when they find out the original information they received was incorrect, their minds cannot receive it. The misinformation has become so integral to our thinking that to receive it would leave our worldview in shambles. In other words, we believe things that fit our view of the truth even if we know they are wrong.

I don't know about you, but that report disturbs me.

Friends, make a commitment that you will always search for and embrace the truth. And that when you discover it, you will hold to it without fear, even if it requires you to re-think what you have believed in the past.

Three Priorities

For a number of years, I attended the officer meetings of a large, public bank holding company every week. The reason I went was to hear the weekly presentations of a man named Jim Blanchard. Jim is the most effective leader I have ever known and during those years he became my mentor.

Over and over in dozens of different ways, I heard him say to the officers that their three priorities should be: your spiritual values, your family, and your job - in that order. He said, "If you get these three priorities out of line, sooner or later you will have so many personal problems that you will be of no use to us at work."

I've lived long enough to see that my friend was right. Our priorities should be our spiritual values, our family, and then our vocation.

Honesty and Humility

When my oldest son was a freshman in college, we bought him a ticket to come home from North Carolina for Thanksgiving. On Tuesday night we waited at the airport for him to arrive. No Jimmy. We called his dorm room and he answered the phone.

He naively thought that he had an airplane ticket that could fly anytime he wanted to. He had not noticed that his ticket had a date, an hour, and a destination.
I said, "Go out to the airport tomorrow. Explain to the people at the airlines that you are an ignorant, naïve freshman in college. Beg them to help you. Who knows, someone might feel sorry for you."

He flew in the next day. Most of the time nothing works better than honesty and humility.

Brave New World

When I was in college, we had to read Aldous Huxley's book, Brave New World. It was a prophetic vision of future utopia published in 1932. Huxley described the world that would be - the world we live in. He foresaw a world where we would face an internal threat rather than an external one. It would be a world that would be dominated by technology, which would be used to enhance our comfort, convenience and amusement. It would be a world where books were in abundance but fewer people would read. It would be a world dominated by the desire for freedom and yet one in which there would be greater enslavement and addiction. The world would simplify ethics and only two principles would matter: Kindness and tolerance. Truth would be sacrificed.

We live in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. But we can make a decision to place our priority on timeless values like truth, sacrifice and integrity.

All We Have To Do Is To Be Honest

I have a friend who grew up on a small farm in South Georgia. It was his boyhood responsibility to shell corn and feed the ducks every day. One day, for no apparent reason, he started throwing ears of corn at the ducks. One of the ears of corn hit a duckling in the ear and killed it. Terrified, he buried the little creature behind the barn and pretended nothing had happened.

That evening, he excused himself from supper and went to bed early. His mother asked him, "What's wrong, son?" He broke and started to weep, confessing, "I killed one of the ducks." His mother said, "I saw what happened today. I've been waiting for you to tell me, son. Don't you know that I love you more than 10,000 ducks? I forgive you. Thanks for being honest."

The One who made us, loves us and is eager to forgive us. All we have to do is to be honest.