Choosing Wise Words

The Preacher sought to find delightful words and to write words of truth correctly.

Eccles. 12:10



Words have power. They can hurt or heal, soothe or irritate, stir or incite. Words can be spewed out of anger or carefully crafted in love. They can be tossed about carelessly or shuffled to make a salad of reason. Words are complex and have the ability to jar long forgotten memories. Words can make us cry, laugh, or think. Like the old knight who stands before the contemplative Indiana Jones, we are cautioned that our flowery words can be misleading. Simple words can lead to truth—a truth that is seated in knowing God. Let us choose our words wisely.

IS THERE LIFE AFTER THE OOPS?

“Oops,” I said as I took the scissors to my mother’s hair.

“Somehow that doesn’t give me a lot of confidence,” she said.

Some days it seems like the oops keep coming like lava from a volcano, one right after the other. Days like that don’t fill me with a lot of confidence.

Oops I wish I hadn't spent all that money. Oops, I wish I had stuck to my diet. Oops, I wish I hadn't said that hurtful remark. I chastise myself and wallow in the mounting failures. Will I ever learn to do it right?

There is hope.

Wallowing in our oops is counterproductive. For the believer, God has promised that the oops of sin need not overcome us spiritually. With the oops, He has provided us with a means to escape condemnation.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9 NIV).

What You Are Is What You Read

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it (P.J. O'Rouke).

I wonder what people would say about my reading habits when I'm dead and gone. As they sift thrugh my stuff, what will be revealed about me? Will my children find my Bible marked and tattered from use, or will they be able to resell it as hardly used? Will they look over the books I bought to read and never did? What will be in the pages of those I did read and kept? Does what I read reflect thought or selfish desires? Everything we do, including reading, shapes who we are. That being true, I hope my books written and read will be a reflection of the God I love.

Linda Rondeau