9.5.12

Ecclesiastes 10:10 Using a dull ax requires great strength, so sharpen the blade.  The value of wisdom; it helps you succeed.

 

My Thoughts

I love how the Bible gives us advice about everything!!!  How we learn from it's history. How the wisest king ever to live, Solomon, wrote down so much for us to learn from. How God gave him that knowledge and made sure that it lasted for the ages so that we could learn from it. I love how that even though this Book was written so many, many years ago we still benefit from it today!! I love that each time I read through the Bible I learn more and more and more!! 

 

I love that right here it tells me that getting prepared saves me time and energy!!  It tells me that if I will seek wisdom I will succeed. I love that all that we need to know is written down, it is right at our fingertips... it is ours for the taking.  We just have to pick it up and start reading!! 

9.4.12

Ecclesiastes 7:29 But I did find this: God created people to be virtuous, but they have each turned to follow their own downward path.

My Thoughts

If God created us to be virtuous it is possible, with God's grace.  It may not always be easy but it is always possible.  This verse also tells me that when we act in a way that is not virtuous it is our own doing...we can not be pushed, led, dragged... we do it ourselves. We make the choice.  We can't blame anybody else.  We have God's grace to make the right choice no matter what anybody else chooses.  It tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:13 that God will not let us be tempted by more than we can bare and that God always gives us a way of escape. God gives us His grace always to make the right choice.  Only we can make the choice.  Only we are responsible for the choice we make.   

9.3.12

Ecclesiastes 4:4-6 Then I observed that most people are motivated to success because they envy their neighbors.  But this, too, is meaningless--like chasing the wind.  "Fools fold their idle hands, leading them to ruin." And yet, "Better to have one handful with quietness than two handfuls with hard work and chasing the wind."

 

My Thoughts

So often we are motivated by our need to "Keep up with the Jones'" when our motivation needs to be the needs of our family.  We often look over emotional needs because we are trying to give our children what "everybody else has."  We are always chasing "happiness" when happiness comes when we slow down and give each other love. When we give each other time.  When we give each other ourselves.  We are so much more able to do that when we give ourselves to God, so that He can take care of us while we take care of each other. 

9.2.12

Ecclesiastes 3:22 So I saw that there is nothing better than for people to be happy in their work. That is why we are here! On on will bring us back from the death to enjoy life after we die.

 

My Thoughts

Here King Solomon is pondering life...trying to figure out the meaning... he is not finished pondering yet.  But this verse made me think, "We don't get a do over on any day we have, we need to find the things in our day to enjoy!"  Some people live whole lives and never enjoy more than a few hours of that life.  The only way to enjoy life is to be thankful for what God has given us...to see each good think in our life as a gift from God.  To do that we have to remember, make an effort, to be aware of the good.  When we become aware of the good around us, and how much it is a gift from God our life changes.... even though our it will looks much the same from the outside on the inside we will be different.  We we see life through new eyes and we can go for miserable to happy.  The choice is ours.. to look for what we don't have and never see what we do have... or to look at all that we do have and recognize the blessings from heaven when they fall down on us. 

10.23.11

2 Timothy 2:16-17a Avoid worthless, foolish talk that only leads to more godless behavior. This kind of talk spreads like cancer.

My Thoughts
We so often talk to be heard... just to be heard.  All of us have been guilty of thinking about what we can add to a conversation instead of really, actually listening to the conversation.  We all want to be heard... we all need to be heard. But, we don't always need to be talking.  Oh, and I do love to talk!! I am learning to listen, to stop and think "Do I really need to be adding to 'this' conversation?" If the conversation is about somebody, or about how people act I am learning to keep my mouth shut. To just be a listener. If the conversation is complaining, complaining about anything and everything I am learning to keep my mouth shut.

In my quite I have noticed how conversations of complaining just spread like wildfire.  People jump on those conversations like they are a new roller coaster at the amusement park.  Before you know a happy room full of people have traveled down the tracks at a breakneck speed and before you know it they are at the end of the ride with a changed attitude.

When the talk is about people the ride seems to take a turn into dark places ... a lot like haunted houses getting worse with each turn of the ride.  Before you know it somebody that was having a bad day and didn't speak to somebody, has become somebody too stuck up to ever speak to anybody. 

Now that I am learning to keep my mouth shut when I see that a conversation is going in a direction that would make God shake his head I hear so much of what happens to to those kind of conversations.  It is amazing to watch and listen when you are not intent on being heard. Now I am not saying it is always easy!!  But in the end I am finding it so worth it. I am learning when I don't add to conversation about people I feel better about me!! When I don't add to conversation about how lousy our government is... I feel better about me.  I have also noticed how my thought pattern has changed when I know I am just going to keep my mouth shut.  So often I see how I can improve.  For instance the other night I was at a place where people just keep talking bad about our government.  Mind you our government could use some improvement... but this conversation just lead to unhappiness and grumbling and complaining. Then a room full of women who were having a good time up until this point lost all their joy and people started going home.  They were having fun!! I thought as I sat there about how the Bible says that we are not to talk about our leaders ( Ecclesiastes 10:20).  I also though about how the Bible says that we are to pray for our government. Jeremiah 29:7 says  "Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” I knew that I would never change what I didn't like about our government by sitting there complaining... in fact I could add to the destruction of our nation by compiling and speaking destruction over our country.  Instead of complaining about our government I needed to be in prayer about our government. Right then and there I knew that each time I heard people complain that my job was to say a prayer, to ask God for help.

Our words have the power to destroy peoplem lives and cities. Or our words have the power to build each other up.  To compliment, to encourage to teach. Our prayers have the power of God behind them... and there is nothing more powerful than God. I am learning that I want my words to add strength to the people around me...I want my words to make my country stronger... I want my words to make people feel loved.  I must avoid worthless, foolish talk, God tells me to avoid worthless, foolish talk. God wants only good for us!!  When we learn to be quite and listen he tells us so much!

9.4.11

Ecclesiastes 8:1 How wonderful to be wise, to analyze and interpret things. Wisdom lights up a person's face, softening its harshness.

My Thoughts

I love this verse!!... I know I say that all the time... but, God's word is so full of wonderful tidbits of information that can just change us!! 

This verse reminds me of my grandmother, my maw-maw.  She loved God, she studied God's word all the time!!.. My Grandmother didn't graduate high school...I am not even sure of the grade she finished. But, that didn't matter, she was always studying upon what God wanted.  She was always asking questions of the pastors that came in and out or her life.  She knew all the Bible stories and told many of them to me as a child.  She lived a hard life, picking cotton up into her 40's I think. She worked at plants, she was the mother of 8 living children. You could look at her face and her hands and tell that she had lived a hard life. But she was always pretty to me. She had this softness about her, when she talked her eyes smiled. I could listen to her for hours on end. The wisdom she handed out, lovingly in the stories she would tell were priceless.  When she hugged me I felt loved to the bone. There was just something about my maw-maw, and I believe it was the wisdom she had in her heart, wisdom she got from loving and seeking after God.

We have all know people like that in our lives.  Those people that glow, those people that you want to be around because they are so gentle in spirit that their mere presence makes you feel loved. If wisdom can make me like my maw-maw then it is something well worth seeking after.

8.4.10

Ecclesiastes 7:14 Enjoy prosperity while you can, but then when hard times strike, realize that both come from God.  Remember nothing is certain in this life.

My Thoughts

It is so hard to realize that hard times do sometimes come from God... in the hard times we need to remember to praise God and thank God... and ask God what he wants us to learn from our situation... because what we learn in the hard times prepare for our lives in the future... the hard times make us strong... we may be going through a hard time now... to be strong enough to handle something bigger that is coming... and if we learn from the hard time we are in now...maybe what we learn will keep the something bigger from defeating us... it's is probably much like when we spank our child for getting in the road (now that spanking is a hard time for them)... but this spanking prepared them for when the transfer truck would be coming down the road... and that little bit of a hard time... saved them from something much bigger than a spanking... We have no idea when a bad time comes along if its one of those times God is preparing us... but God knows... so we need to stop and say "Okay God, I am listening, what do you need me to learn form this... thank you so much God for preparing me for what lies ahead."... Just like a child may never understand that you saved them from that truck... we may never know what God saved us from... but you better believe that God is constantly saving us from dangers that we had no idea were there... and for this we need to be very, very grateful... Today my prayer will be "Thank you God for preparing me for bigger things, thank you God for saving me from the dangers that I never saw coming.... and that I never knew passed."

9.3.10

Ecclesiastes 6:11 The more words that you speak, the less they mean.  So what good are they.

My Thoughts

Have you even know one of those people that hardly ever talk... they walk around so quite you hardly know they are there...but at the same time their presents is almost overpowering... they are always there.... then they speak... in a quiet tone... just a quick sentence and you so hope you heard it all because when they talk they always say something wise... Then never talk to break the silence, in fact they seem to enjoy the silence... but when they do speak  you realize that they have always been listening ..... they know everything that is going on... they never speak out of turn... they never interrupt....  then finally they speak .and their wisdom moves mountains somehow...wow if we could all be like that.

William Penn, the American colonist who Pennsylvania was named for, gave this list of rules to regarding conversation:

  "Avoid Company where it is not profitable or necessary, and in those occasions, speak little and last."

"Silence is wisdom where speaking is folly, and always safe."

"Some are so foolish as to interrupt and anticipate those that speak instead of hearing and thinking before they answer, which is uncivil, as well as silly."

"If thou thinkest twice before thou speakest once, thou wilt speak twice the better for it."

"Better to day nothing than not to purpose. And to speak pertinently, consider both what is fit, and when it is fit, to speak."

"In all debates, let the truth be they aim, not victory or an unjust interest; and endeavor to gain, rather then to expose, they antagonist."

I bet William Penn knew this Bible verse, and I bet he was one of those quiet people that people listened to when he did speak.... I should really work on this!!!