In the cartoon “Peanuts” we see Lucy behind her desk. The sign over her head says, psychiatric help 5 cents. The sign below her desk says, the doctor is in. This young girl with an oversized imagination is waiting for a consumer of her advice to present himself. In the course of the cartoon’s run, enumerable souls seek her advice.

It always amazes me how many believe they can understand and solve other people’s problems when, in reality, they can’t solve their own. Do you want the best in counseling? Here it is:

John 16:13 

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

1 Peter 5:7 

Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Those are poor individuals who relied on the experience of Lucy’s couch.

Give it some thought.

Gary

One reporter talked to Ellis Vincent, a 76-year-old retired airline executive from Australia, who was on a cruise with his wife. When asked how they were spending their time in the tiny stateroom on the ship, Mr. Vincent made this comment about his wife:

“She has an excellent memory. She is able to bring up every transgression I’ve ever had. I believe she is not finished.”

Poor Ellis. I think he was in for a long cruise. His wife didn’t know about forgiveness and forgetting the past.

Ephesians 4:32 

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Philippians 3:13

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,

Give it some thought.

Gary

When 16-year-old Eliza married the 20-year old tailor, he had never been to school. Others might have written his education off as a lost cause, but Eliza didn’t. She taught him to read, write, and spell. Those days were difficult, but he proved to be a fast learner. In fact, he learned so well that years later he was elected president of the United States! When he ran for a second term, he lost, but refused to give up. Instead, he won a seat in the U.S. Senate. Who? He was our 17th president, Andrew Johnson.

We made it through life because there were others who believed that with a little help we could do better. This was a discussion that I had on more than one occasion with my high school principal. He helped me, and along the way, there were others, more than I can count. I am certainly not a self-made man. My greatest investor was God Himself.

Philippians 2:4 

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Galatians 6:2 

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Give it some thought and invest in others.

Gary

Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you; they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc.

Somebody is talking . . . Your “self” is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was this: instead of allowing this “self” to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says, “Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, Zondervan.

Romans 10:17

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Proverbs 25:28 

A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.

Give it some thought and give yourself a good talking to.

Gary

We Americans sure have a taste for French fries. Do you know that the average American eats 25 pounds of French fries every year? McDonald’s alone sells 9,000,000 pounds of fries globally every day. To keep up, its US supplier uses a massive fry-cutting machine that shoots potatoes through at 60 to 70 mph, 24 hours a day.

It’s just too bad we don’t have such a taste for the Word of God:

Psalm 34:8

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!

Hebrews 6:5

and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,

May you have a taste for truth.

Give it some thought.

Gary

My memories concerning thirty-five years of EMS are many and varied. Here’s one that I would rather delete. Before me was an old man lying there in his barn with his hunting rifle next to his lifeless body. I noticed a block used to split firewood not very far away. It looked like it had withstood a thousand cords or more from an old double bit ax. How many blows did he inflict on that block? My eyes wandered to all the varied farm implements he had probably used over six decades. I thought to myself, his life’s story is contained here in this building. That empty feeling came over me as I closed the door and waited for the state police.

Something’s wrong with this world.

Genesis 2:7 

Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Genesis 3:22-23 

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.

What Adam broke, only God can fix. We need to bundle up all that pain and disappointment and take it to Him. We can’t carry it forever.

Give it some thought.

Gary

Doctors got together to study the effects of alcohol on the way a person walks, and the results were staggering.

Readers Digest

Proverbs 20:1 

Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.

Proverbs 23:29-35 

Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who tarry long over wine; those who go to try mixed wine. Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things. …

That was my experience anyway.

Give it some thought.

Gary