ENDURANCE – PATIENCE
Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.
—William Barclay
A faith that fizzles before the finish had a fatal flaw from the first.
—R. K. Kendall
Endurance is the queen of all virtues.
—Chrysostom
ENEMIES – FRIENDS
President Lincoln was once asked about his attitude toward his enemies. “Why do you try to make friends of them? You should try to destroy them.” “Am I not destroying my enemies,” Lincoln replied gently, “when I make them my friends?”
The early morning racket was so loud that I rolled out of bed and went to the front door to see what was happening. I knew about their longstanding argument. But I had never heard them go at it like this before. There in the trees in front of our house it appeared that the crows and the blue jays were quarreling again. Their war of words and wings had escalated beyond anything I’d ever seen before. I watched the “reserves” fly in and take positions in the branches. The actual bombing and strafing was concentrated in the upper regions of a big oak.
But I saw something I hadn’t expected. A pair of huge brown wings made a tactical retreat to a nearby branch. There was no crow, and this was not the usual spat between the blacks and blues. They weren’t even fighting each other on this Sunday morning. They had found a common enemy. They had located an owl, and their mutual dislike for one another was lost in a conflict of greater proportions. Together the crows and the blue jays had combined forces against the owl.
—M. R. De Haan II
An old man was being interviewed by an admiring reporter, “Sir, what exactly is your age, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“I’ll tell you. I’ll be ninety-seven years old tomorrow.”
“That’s wonderful. You appear to be in marvelous condition.”
The old man beamed. “Oh, yes, I’m doing fine. And, you know, I don’t have an enemy in the world.”
“Well, that’s a beautiful thought, but how do you explain it?”
“I’ve outlived every one of them.”
—Bits & Pieces
When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.
—Dale Carnegie
You should really cherish your enemies. At least they don’t try to hit you for a loan.
—Lou Erickson
Your enemies make you wise.
A hundred friends are not enough, but one enemy is too many.
One good enemy can do more harm than ten friends can do good.
In order to have an enemy, one must be somebody.
—Anne Sophie Swetchine
Just as all tall trees are known by their shadows, so are good men known by their enemies.
—Chinese proverb
Martin Niemoller came out of Hitler’s prison saying, “It took me a long time to learn that God is not the enemy of my enemies. He’s not even the enemy of His own enemies!”
ENGLAND
“The national sport in Spain is bullfighting and in England it’s cricket.”
“I’d rather play in England.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s easier to fight a cricket.”
ENGLISH
Some sentences can understandably end with several prepositions. When a boy’s mother went upstairs to read to him at night, he asked, “Why did you bring that book that I didn’t want to be read to out of up for?”
When Sir Christopher Wren first walked into the St. Paul’s Cathedral in London which he had designed, he said, it’s amusing, artificial, and awful. In other words, he meant it’s a place to muse, full of art, and full of awe.
This is a situation up with which I will not put.
—Winston Churchill
Sam Goldwyn, the movie producer, used to mangle the English language so badly that his malaprops and mixed metaphors came to be known as Goldwynisms. Some that have become classics are these:
A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper its printed on.
Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is named William.
Now, gentlemen, listen slowly …
For more information, I would like to ask a question.
Include me out.
Don’t talk while I’m interrupting.
I may not always be right, but I’m never wrong.
—Bits & Pieces
Horace Greeley, who always insisted that the word “news” was plural, once wired to a reporter in the field, “Are there any news?”
Back came the reply, “Not a new.”
ENTHUSIASM
The world belongs to the energetic.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Lord, let me live until I’m dead.
—Will Rogers
The worst bankrupt is the person who has lost his enthusiasm.
—H. W. Arnold
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
—Charles Kingsley
The orator who wishes to set the people on fire must himself be burning.
—Quintilian
Without enthusiasm there is no progress in the world.
—Woodrow Wilson
Management Dimensions, Inc. surveyed 241 executives and asked what traits make workers succeed. Executives could select more than one trait. The most important trait was enthusiasm—80 percent of the executive listed it. Second was a can-do attitude, with 63 percent.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
—Wrigley
Charles Schwab, the man to whom Andrew Carnegie paid a million dollars a year because of his ability to motivate people, once said, “A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.”
A group of self-made millionaires were asked to list the qualities that had contributed to their success and to rate the importance of each. The final tally looked something like this:
Ability
5%
Knowledge
5%
Discipline
10%
Attitude
40%
Enthusiasm
40%
—Marlene LeFever
An Easterner who walked into a western saloon was amazed to see a dog sitting at a table playing poker with three men. “Can that dog really read cards?” he asked.
“Yeah, but he ain’t much of a player,” said one of the men. “Whenever he gets a good hand, he wags his tail.”
Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
ENVY – JEALOUSY
The water is the same on both sides of the boat.
—Finnish proverb
There are many roads to hate, but envy is one of the shortest of them all.
Envy shoots at others and wounds itself.
—Swedish proverb
Envy Went to Church
Envy went to church this morning.
Being Legion, he sat in every other pew.
Envy fingered wool and silk fabrics,
Hung price tags on suits and neckties.
Envy paced through the parking lot
Scrutinizing chrome and paint.
Envy marched to the chancel with the choir
During the processional …
Envy prodded plain Jane wives
and bright wives married to milquetoast dullards,
and kind men married to knife-tongued shrews.
Envy thumped at widows and widowers,
Jabbed and kicked college girls without escorts,
Lighted invisible fires inside khaki jackets.
Envy conferred often this morning
With all his brothers;
He liked his Sunday score today
But not enough;
Some of his intended clients
Had slipped an antidote marked Grace
And wore a fragrant flower named Love.
—Elva McAllister
There’s a legend about a Burmese potter who had become envious of the prosperity of a washerman. Determined to put this man out of business, the potter convinced the king to issue an order requiring the man to wash one of the emperor’s black elephants and make it white.
The washerman replied that according to the rules of his vocation he would need a vessel large enough to hold the elephant, whereupon the king commanded the potter to provide one. So the potter constructed a giant bowl and had it carefully delivered to the washerman. But when the elephant stepped into it, it crumbled to pieces beneath the weight of the enormous beast. Many more vessels were made, but each was crushed in the same way. Eventually it was the potter who was put out of business by the very scheme he had devised to ruin the man he envied.
ETERNAL SECURITY
An Irishman was being kidded about his continual preaching of the doctrine of eternal security by one who said, “What if, after all your preaching of this doctrine, you would actually lose your salvation?” The answer immediately came, “God would lose much more than I would. I would lose only my salvation, but God would lose his reputation.”
Someone has said there will be three surprises in heaven. We will be surprised that some we thought will be there won’t be, that some we thought wouldn’t be there will be, and that we are there. Actually the first two are true, but not the third.
An old lady, full of joyous confidence, was asked, “But suppose you should slip through Christ’s fingers?”
She replied at once, “But I am one of His fingers.”
If an earthly judge imposed a prison term or an alternate fine and a third party paid that fine, it would be unjust after the penalty had been paid, to imprison the one who had been found guilty.
ETERNITY
High up in the North, in the land called Svithjod, there stands a rock. It is one hundred miles high and ten miles wide. Once every one thousand years a little bird comes to this rock to sharpen its beak. When the rock has thus been worn away, then a single day of eternity will have gone by.
—Hendrick Willen VanLoon
Eternity is the length of time it would take a bird to take one speck of dirt at a time, flying with it to the sun, until it had moved the entire earth. After having done this back and forth a dozen times, eternity would have just begun.
I have only just a minute,
Only sixty seconds in it,
Forced upon me—can’t refuse it,
Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it,
But it’s up to me to use it.
I must suffer if I lose it,
Give account if I abuse it,
Just a tiny little minute—
But eternity is in it.
Life with Christ is an endless hope; without Him, a hopeless end.
A new clock has been so accurately constructed that it will lose or gain only one second in thirty-three million years. But no matter how accurately we measure time, we cannot create time nor extend time. Each of us will have only one lifetime to spend on this earth. That’s why eternity is so appealing.
—Robert C. Shannon
A cathedral in Milan, Italy, features a remarkable entrance in which you pass through three doors in succession. Each door has an arch with an inscription. Over the first one, stone-etched and wreathed in roses, it says, “All which pleases is but for a moment.” The second one pictures a cross with the engraving, “All which troubles is but for a moment.” The climax comes with the third and largest doorway into the sanctuary. The inscription reads, “That only is important which is eternal.”
A father decided to have a serious talk with his young son, who was inclined to be lighthearted and irresponsible. “Jimmy,” he said, “you are getting to be a big boy and ought to take things more seriously. Just think: if I died suddenly, where would you be?” Jimmy answered, “I would be here; but where would you be?” It gave the dad something to think about.
EVANGELISM
On a certain ocean liner, a passenger was lying in his cabin seriously ill. One dark night he heard a cry, “Man overboard,” and, while sensitive to all the excitement and hurry, he was too sick to give any help. One of the difficulties was that they could not see the man. Suddenly, however, a light shone out through the glass of a porthole. It happened to fall full on the struggling man in the water, so that they were able to throw him a lifebelt and then go to his rescue. Where did the light come from? From the sick man, who, feeling so distressed at his incapacity to help, managed to crawl out of his bunk, take the lantern down from the wall, and place it where it could shine forth.
At 7:49 A.M., December 7, 1941, Fuchida signaled the attack on Pearl Harbor by 360 planes. Today Fuchida is a Christian evangelist and head of a five-member evangelistic association. He is the only living officer out of seventy in the attack on Pearl Harbor. He missed being in Hiroshima on the day it was bombed, but was one of the twelve who inspected the damage. The other eleven men have died from radiation. In his youth he was a Buddhist and Shintoist. Today he is a Presbyterian.
He credits his being led to salvation through the forgiving spirit of a nurse who is the daughter of martyred missionary parents and after reading a tract by Jacob DeShazer who survived capture and torture and returned to Japan with the Gospel. Fuchida purchased a Bible and learned the secret of how this nurse and soldier could forgive the treatment they received during the war. He opened his heart to Jesus Christ and has dedicated his life to serving God.
Luigi Larisio was found dead one morning with scarce a comfort in his home, but with 246 exquisite violins, which he had been collecting all his life, crammed into an attic, the best in the bottom drawer of an old rickety bureau. In devotion to the violin, he had robbed the world of all that music all the time he treasured them; others before him had done the same, so that when the greatest Stradivarius was first played it had had 147 speechless years.
Many Christians are like old Larisio. In their love for the church, they fail to give the Good News to the world.
The sinking of the “unsinkable ship,” the Titanic, caused the death of approximately 1,500 people. The nearest ship was miles away, but it was off duty. It could have rescued all the passengers if it were on duty. Similarly many Christians are “off duty.”
An evangelist is a nobody who is seeking to tell everybody about Somebody who can help change anybody.
—Michael Gott
In a disastrous church fire a beautiful painting of Christ was endangered. Two men went inside and rescued it. People came and watched the fire, but stayed long after to look at the painting.
The church leaders were amazed because people had never before been interested in the painting, which had hung for years in the church. Finally one man explained, “When the church caught fire and moved Christ into the streets where people could see Him, then they were interested.”
C. Sumner Wemp tells that at the beach near Jacksonville, Florida is a sign for the lifeguards that reads, “If in doubt, go!”
Every Saturday evening for over forty years a servant of God stood on a certain street corner handing out gospel papers to the passerbys. And then he stopped. Discouraged because he saw so little fruit, he abandoned his post. Some years later he happened on the spot and a young man stood there and gave him a gospel tract. He stopped, and addressing the young man he said,
“How is it that you are here tonight?”
“Well, sir, it is like this. An old man occupied this corner for years; I was saved by means of a tract he gave me. Evidently the old man is in heaven now for I’ve missed him here, and so I am seeking to fill his place.”
Tears filled the eyes of the older Christian as the young man thus spoke.
“I am the man who gave you that tract,” he said, “and by the grace of God I mean to stand my place until Jesus comes.”
—Peter J. Pell
We’ve drifted away from being fishers of men to being keepers of the aquarium.
—Paul Harvey
I recently read about an old man, walking the beach at dawn, who noticed a young man ahead of him picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Catching up with the youth, he asked him what he was doing. The answer was that the stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun.
“But the beach goes on for miles, and there are millions of starfish.” countered the old man. “How can your effort make any difference?”
The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it to safety in the waves. “It makes a difference to this one,” he said.
—Hugh Duncan
EVIL
Is He [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent? Is He able, but not willing? Then is He malevolent? Is he both able and willing: whence then is evil?
—David Hume
A small cotton field south of the Mason-Dixon line was the home of two boll weevils. Though they were not brothers they became fast friends early in life. Whatever one boll weevil did the other did too. However, when they were full grown, one was a big, husky boll weevil while the other was sawed-off and scrawny. He was the lesser of the two weevils