| Prior Date | Back to Archive Index | Next Date |
|
WIT & WISDOM - November 20, 1998 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: "I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do." - Edward Everett Hale [1] ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: SATAN CALLED A WORLDWIDE CONVENTION. The huge crowd hushed as he stepped up to speak, "We can't keep the Christians from going to church. We can't keep them from reading their Bibles & knowing the truth. We can't even keep them from conservative values. But we can do something else. He paused, Everyone listened, "We can keep them from forming an intimate, abiding experience in Christ. If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken. So let them go to church, let them have their conservative lifestyles, but steal their time, so they can't gain that experience in Jesus Christ. This is what I want you to do. Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior & maintaining a vital connection through their day!" "How shall we do this?", shouted his angels. "Simple, keep them busy in the non-essentials of life & invent un-numbered schemes to occupy their minds," he answered. "Tempt them to spend & spend, then, borrow & borrow. Convince the wives to go to work & the husbands to work 6 or 7 days a week, 10-12 hrs. a day, so they can afford their lifestyles. Keep them from spending time with their children. Tell them they are doing it FOR their children, Hah, that one works well. As their family fragments, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work." "Over stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear THE still small voice. Entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive, to keep the TV, the VCR, & their CD's going constantly in their homes. And see to it that every store & restaurant in the world plays music constantly. This will jam their minds & break that union with Christ." "Fill their coffee tables with magazines & newspapers. Pound their minds with the news 24 hrs. a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, sweepstakes, mail order catalogues, & every kind of newsletter & promotional offering, free products, services, & false hopes." "Even in their recreation, let them be excessive. Have them return from their recreation exhausted, disquieted & unprepared for the coming week. Don't let them go out in nature. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, concerts & movies instead. And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip & small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences & unsettled emotion. Don't let them encourage or uplift each other, keep those who are the gifted encouragers, especially busy and worn out. And above all when they get together keep them from praying for one another." "Let them be involved in soul-winning. But crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from Christ. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family unity for the good of the cause." It was quite a convention in the end. And the evil angels went eagerly to their assignments trying to cause Christians everywhere to get busy, busy, busy & rush here & there. - Author Unknown ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: In March 1992 a man living in Newtown near Boston Massachusetts received a bill for his as yet unused credit card stating that he owed $0.00. He ignored it and threw it away. In April he received another and threw that one away too. The following month the credit card company sent him a very nasty note stating they were going to cancel his card if he didn't send them $0.00 by return of post. He called them, talked to them, they said it was a computer error and told him they'd take care of it. The following month he decided that it was about time that he tried out the troublesome credit card figuring that if there were purchases on his account it would put an end to his ridiculous predicament. However, in the first store that he produced his credit card in payment for his purchases he found that his card had been canceled. He called the credit card company who apologized for the computer error once again and said that they would take care of it. The next day he got a bill for $0.00 stating that payment was now overdue. Assuming that having spoken to the credit card company only the previous day the latest bill was yet another mistake he ignored it, trusting that the company would be as good as their word and sort the problem out. The next month he got a bill for $0.00 stating that he had 10 days to pay his account or the company would have to take steps to recover the debt. Finally giving in, he thought he would play the company at their own game and mailed them a check for $0.00. The computer duly processed his account and returned a statement to the effect that he now owed the credit card company nothing at all. A week later, the man's bank called him asking him what he was doing writing a check for $0.00. After a lengthy explanation the bank replied that the $0.00 check had caused their check processing software to fail. The bank could not now process ANY checks from ANY of their customers that day because the check for $0.00 was causing the computer to crash. The following month the man received a letter from the credit card company claiming that his check had bounced and that he now owed them $0.00 and unless he sent a check by return of post they would be taking steps to recover the debt. The man, who had been considering buying his wife a computer for her birthday, bought her a typewriter instead. [2] ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: One night a wife found her husband standing over their baby's crib. Silently she watched him. As he stood looking down at the sleeping infant, she saw on his face a mixture of emotions: disbelief, doubt, delight, amazement, enchantment, skepticism. Touched by this unusual display and the deep emotions it aroused, with eyes glistening she slipped her arm around her husband. "A penny for your thoughts," she said. "It's amazing!" he replied. "I just can't see how anybody can make a crib like that for only $46.50." [3] ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on the majority always vote for the candidates promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury, with a result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy and is followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years." - Alexander Fraser Tyler (1748 - 1813), The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic [4] ~~~~~~~ CONTRIBUTORS: [1] (Louise Maxwell) [2] (Sharon Hamel) [3] (Funny-Bone [4] (Daily Encounter |