WARS
When General Dobey, British commander of Malta during World War I, was stationed in the Holy Land in 1916, an aide approached him and said, “Sir, this is a funny war we’re fighting. The Muslims won’t fight on Fridays, the Jews won’t fight on Saturdays, and the Christians won’t fight on Sundays.”
With Solomonlike wisdom, Dobey replied, “Well, if you can find four other world religions that refuse to fight on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, because of their holy days, you have solved the problem of world peace.”
From 2,678 wars in the twelfth century, the total increased to 13,835 in the first quarter of this century. Wilbur M. Smith estimated that “up to the close of the nineteenth-century … 14 billion people have been killed in the wars of the human race.”
From 1496 B.C. to A.D. 1861, the world knew 3,130 years of war and 227 years of peace. In the last four hundred years European nations have signed more than eight thousand peace treaties. In this century 37.5 million died in World War I, and 45.4 million died in World War II. In the Vietnam conflict 57,605 U.S. lives were lost and 304,000 U.S. military personnel were injured.
WARNINGS
A man who lived on Long Island was able one day to satisfy a lifelong ambition by purchasing for himself a very fine barometer. When the instrument arrived at his home, he was extremely disappointed to find that the indicating needle seemed to be stuck, pointing to the sector marked “Hurricane.” After shaking the barometer very vigorously several times, its new owner sat down and wrote a scorching letter to the store from which he had purchased the instrument. The following morning on the way to his office in New York, he mailed the letter. That evening he returned to Long Island to find not only the barometer missing, but his house also. The barometer’s needle had been right—there was a hurricane!
—E. Schuyler English
WEAKNESSES
The first step toward growing up is learning to like ourselves. More than half the hospital beds are filled with people who haven’t been able to come to terms with themselves. Granted, it isn’t always easy to do, because it involves taking a good look at our weaknesses as well as our strengths. Few of us like to do that, but there is nothing wrong with having deficiencies. It’s what we do about them that counts. Better expend our energies improving, rather than deploring. To work at overcoming weaknesses and reinforcing strengths is the way we grow.
—Doris Dickelman
Winston Churchill once referred to his opponents in the British Parliament as those who were “decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.”
—Edward L. Hayes
WEALTH – MATERIALISM
Perhaps the most famous gold strike in American history occurred in January 1848 when a man named John Marshall found gold at Sutter’s Mill in northern California. The find set off a gold rush that reached a frenzied pitch and even attracted prospectors from Europe—but it ruined Marshall and John Sutter, the man who owned the land where gold lay for the taking. Sutter’s land was overrun by gold seekers, his cattle were stolen, and he was driven into bankruptcy. Marshall died penniless. Although both men had access to untold riches, neither one possessed them.
—Today in the Word
In 1917 the British liner Laurentic was sunk in one hundred fifty feet of water by a German submarine. This ship carried the largest treasure that any ship up to that time had ever carried. It was loaded with 3,211 gold bars worth twenty-five million dollars.
Because of the shallow water and the amount of treasure, the British Navy kept drivers going down into the hulk for many years. Diving in those days was not what it is now, and often operations had to stop because of a storm. Seldom could a diver stay down longer than one hour at a time. But the project was very successful, for the divers were able to recover all but 154 gold bars. The cost of the program was only a half a million dollars.
Those remaining 154 gold bars are still there. The Navy gave up because the cost of recovery was more than the treasure is worth. For all practical purposes, the treasure in the Laurentic is exhausted. This is typical of all human treasure.
Why snatch at wealth
And hoard and stock it?
Your shroud, you know,
Will have no pocket!
—Barbara Elizabeth Gluck
In the opening pages of Russell H. Conwell’s inspirational classic, Acres of Diamonds, the well-known preacher and educator tells a story he learned from an old Arab guide in Persia. It is the story of a rich man named Ali Hafed, who was content with his riches until he learned about diamonds. He had never thought about diamonds before—he did not even know about them. But now he began to aspire to the kind of wealth they would bring. Eventually, he left home in pursuit of them. Over a period of years, Hafed used up his money in searching and at last died a poor man on the shores of the Bay of Barcelona. Meanwhile, back in Persia, the man who had purchased Hafed’s farm found an unusual pebble in the brook where the former owner had often watered his cattle. It turned out to be a diamond. Soon more were discovered. In this way, said Conwell’s guide, the world-famous Golconda mines developed, from which have been taken many of the most famous jewels of the crowned heads of Europe.
—James M. Boice
If you want to feel rich, just count up all the things you have that money cannot buy.
—Daniel Webster
A wealthy industrialist leaped from the ninth-story room of a Chicago hotel leaving behind this note: “I am worth ten million dollars as men judge things, but I am so poor in spirit that I cannot live any longer. Something is terribly wrong with life.” He was right. Something was terribly wrong with his life—because he had been born only once.
WEATHER
It’s so cold here that two politicians were seen with their hands in their own pockets.
WEDDINGS
Apart from other blessings
That formal wedding means
Is the chance to see your daughter
In something else but jeans.
—Rosemarie Williams
When he requests my daughter’s hand
In marriage, I won’t block it.
I only hope he takes the hand
That’s always in my pocket.
—Roger W. Dana
Many women marry men just like their father, which may explain why many mothers cry at weddings.
“Will you stand with us at our wedding?”
“Why? Won’t there be enough chairs for us to sit?”
Henry Moorhouse always enjoyed preaching on John 3:16. When he came to the word “whoever,” he would emphasize its all-inclusiveness. That term, he would point out, makes it clear that everyone and anyone who trusts Christ will be saved.
He said he was glad the word “whoever” appeared in John 3:16 instead of the name Henry Moorhouse, because if that name were there he could not be sure it meant him. He would then explain how he arrived at that conclusion.
“I once bought a typewriter that was shipped mistakenly to another man named Henry Moorhouse at a different address. If John 3:16 had said that God loved Henry Moorhouse, I could have thought it meant the other Henry Moorhouse. But since it says ‘whoever,’ there can be no mistake!”
WILL OF GOD
When he was crossing the Irish Channel one dark starless night, F. B. Meyer stood on the deck by the captain and asked him, “How do you know Holyhead Harbor on so dark a night as this?” He said, “You see those three lights? Those three must line up behind each other as one, and when we see them so united we know the exact position of the harbor’s mouth.”
When we want to know God’s will, three things must always concur: the inward impulse, the Word of God, and the trend of circumstances.
An individual’s highest fulfillment, greatest happiness, and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with His will.
—John D. Rockefeller Jr.
The question is not whether we know the will of God but whether we are willing to do the will of God. If so, God will then make His will clear to us.
A Sunday school teacher asked her pupils how they thought the angels of heaven do the will of God. The first child replied, “They do it immediately”; the second, “Diligently”; third, “They do it always”; fourth, “With all their hearts.” Then a small child arose and said, “They do it without asking any questions.”
The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you.
If you are not willing to be used by God, ask God to make you willing to be willing.
—F. B. Meyer
Most people don’t want to know the will of God in order to do it; they seem to want to know it just in order to consider it!
—William L. Pettingill
There is only one way to bring peace to the heart, joy to the mind, and beauty to the life; it is to accept and do the will of God.
—William Barclay
An old Scottish woman traveled around the countryside selling housewares. Whenever she came to a fork in the road, she would throw a straw into the air; and when it dropped to the ground, she would proceed in the direction it indicated. The residents of the area knew her strange custom, but one day a friend saw her tossing the straw several times before choosing the path she would take. He inquired, “Why did you do that more than once?” “Oh, it kept pointing to the road on the left.” she replied, “and I wanted to go the other way because it looks so much smoother.” She had continued casting her straw to the wind until it fell in the direction she wanted.
A dear old lady once prayed, “Lord, we’re afraid of our wills. If we follow our own inclinations we fear the consequences. Teach us Thy will!”
A young woman was talking to an evangelist about total commitment to God. “I don’t dare give myself wholly to the Lord,” she said. “I’m afraid He’ll send me to the mission field, where I’d be miserable.”
The evangelist replied, “Suppose that some cold, snowy morning a small bird came half-frozen, pecking at your window. Imagine that the helpless little creature would let you take it in and feed it, thereby putting itself entirely under your control. Tell me, what would you do? Would you grip it in your hand and crush it? Or would you give it shelter, warmth, and care?” Immediately the young woman’s eyes brightened as she saw the application.
—Our Daily Bread
In September 1952, David Young and I were attending our college’s camp at Catalina Island. We went hiking one sunny, hot afternoon to the top of a ridge of mountains. We were thirsty and didn’t have any water with us, so we were glad to see a beautiful, blue lake in the valley a few hundred yards below us. We hiked down the mountain very fast to get a drink, but when we got to the bottom of the hill and walked to the lake, the whole shore was muddy and hundreds of green slimy frogs jumped into the water. We saw that it wasn’t such good water after all; it was very muddy. So we went without our drink.
Sometimes we see something that looks so good that we believe it must be God’s plan for us. But it is not always what it seems to be. We need the guidance of the Spirit to show us if it is really God’s plan for us.
—Roy B. Zuck
George Mueller of Bristol, England, was an example to all believers of the life of faith, as he trusted God for the care of hundreds of children in his orphanages. His walk with God was also marked by his ability to discern the will of God, “in matters,” as he used to say, “both trivial and important.”
When asked about this he replied, “I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord’s will, whatever it may be. When one is in this state, it is usually but a little way to the knowledge of what His will is.”
—The Pilgrim
WILLS
When a will is read, heirs listen with probated breath.
——Farmers’ Digest
Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.