Human Condition: Modern Proverbs

Learning makes the wise wiser and the fool more foolish.
- John Ray

Human Condition
Modern Proverbs

David's Psalm 139 hit the nail right on the head. Particularly in regards to our being "fearfully and wonderfully made." A more compete revelation provided by modern science and the New Testament might put it more succinctly still:

We are “as a mist, here in the morning and burnt off by mid morning.” Thinking, feeling, often sinful reeds to whom a little water added or withheld can mean life or death. Soulish spirits in bloody meatcycles on skeletal sticks. Most “fearfully and wonderfully made.” In a fearful and wonderful place. Living fearful and/or wonderful lives. Facing fearful and/or wonderful futures. And a most fearful or wonderful eternity. Yet with little or no concern over the true demands placed on us by our Maker to be obedient, productive and thankful. And this, even though for the most part we’re born between urine and feces and for all our pomp will die as dogs. Never really knowing where we come from, who, where and when we are or where we are going. Being as it were twisted sideways, backwards and upside down. Nevertheless, it is written that even we might become beloved stardust. Heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Made in the Imago Dei or image of God, mankind possess glorious wonder and potential. Marred by the Fall, humanity is harried and entranced by rebellion and sin. Quantum beings such as we do well to consider the reasonableness of Divine faith as juxtaposed against the irrationality of human behavior.

Mere man is as likely to be wise as a wild donkey’s colt is likely to be born a man! Before you turn to God and stretch out your hands to him, get rid of your sins and leave all iniquity behind you.

- Job 11:12-14 TLB

Human Condition
Modern Proverbs
by Robert R. Pennington

Two things seem knowable. There is a God. We're not Him. Odd that these very issues are so hotly contested.

I know neither what I am or shall be; neither in form or in destiny. Glimpsing His judgment and glory; I fear, do I please Him who Created me?

Allow the complexities of your mortal body to permeate your thoughts and consider this. As the spirit excels the flesh, might its wonders eclipse that of our fallen physical bodies? Yet how few invest half the time caring for the eternal dimension of their lives.

The Fall's gathering darkness, eroding Creation's glory, leaves us living by Twilight. The question that begs asking, "Is this the dark before the Dawn or Midnight?" Most hope for Daybreak, few fear Nightfall, yet most run towards the latter and few hurry the former.

Educated modern society sometimes seems to be comprised of brilliant nitwits being led by halfwits.

Many are more tuned into NASCAR and NAZDAQ, than honest science or religion.

People are born ignorant by necessity. There is no excuse for dying stupid.

"A fool speaks his whole mind" and oddly may be repeatedly paid to do so.

There are many various forms of foolishness, some more immediately lucrative than others.

Our experience of goodness, like beauty, is largely in the eye of the beholder.
Human life, as governed by limited yet free will, is as curious as it is frustrating. A thousand options set daily before us, yet we choose life in monotonous grooves warn by habit. "Routine" is from the root rut.

While anything is possible far too many good things are astronomically improbable.
"As recent remakes of the movie "Joan of Ark" suggests, neither Popes or priests, Kings or Lords hear from heaven very well.

Like a busy bee, man, offered nectar marries a single flower. This blessing and challenge provides continual joy and sorrow, not the least of which is the next generation of bees and flowers.

Human nature, schooled by modern culture, rarely mourns and praises deeply much less simultaneously. Eyes opened by their Creator, Redeemer and soon coming Judge, find the extremes of even everyday human existence constant occasions for both. As with Ezra's rededication of the temple where those who had seen its intended glory wept bitterly while others praised for what had been raised from the rubble. This quantum balance each Christian should possess.

The human condition within, without and above conspires to create complicated desperation. Creatures caught and/or carried by time, our development physically, mentally, spiritually and socially is slow and uncertain. Circumstantially individual channels, some rapid some lazy, join life's immense river, as we all are born along an incredible journey who's end is Niagara Falls.

A perquisite for our precarious existence is denial. Along maturation's timeline, information is relegated, stored or rejected. Even vital truths, particularly those unpleasant, become active or inactive files, often, rarely or never used.

The wonder of Lips oft go unsung though all melodies sing through them. Evidence of a tender Creator, they:
• Soften the face
• Pillow kisses
• Are expressionists
• Provide Intimacy for lovers
• Provide Intimacy for friends
• Give Uniqueness of individuals
• Add Decoration
• Are amazingly soft yet resilient

Consciousness, housed in a human matrix (spirit, soul & body), interfaces through time (past, present & future) with creation's (1st of 3 heavens) matrix. This while struggling for and/or with Christ's kingdom matrix's (power, love & discipline) design to reset the Godhead's (Father, Son & Spirit) program parameters by Christianity's (faith, hope and love) debugging these systems. Interacting in managed chaos since the fall, these matrices conceal or sometimes reveal each other by competition and/or cooperation. Particularly challenging is the creation matrix's event horizon between the 1st heaven (time, space & matter) and the 2nd (angels, fallen angels & demons). All matrices collide here as time draws God, Devil and man towards an eternal system integration. Deceived by evil (sin, self & Satan), beguiled by lust (eyes, flesh, ego) mankind nears the Architect's final reset of judgment, heaven or the lake of fire.

Oddly, time is both shackle and lifeline, a chain binding us to the pain of an unfulfilled present while securing most of humanity from plunging into a future of eternal torment.
Time stands as guardian and warden, friend and foe. It fly’s and crawls.
Why will men will risk all they have accomplished in a thousand hours for a single hour of sex?

Why does sex elicit gowns rather than laughter?

Life is subjective souls housed in objective bodies experiencing a concrete universe which we interpret subjectively. Death presses us against and into an Omni dimensional reality were, waking from the slightest dream, the singularity of eternal consequences explode.

When do we treat our friends as enemies? When failing to allow time for friendship to develop. Entropy happens but so do miracles. Today's hurdles may become tomorrow's track of Glory!

Lapping waves hardly do justice to an ocean's depth. So men's words, even the best of them, are small things.

On your bed in the stillness of night, lie on your left and listen. What do you hear? The rhythmic pounding of your heart. So quiet as to be missed but one time in a thousand yet so vital, it's violent contractions provide your single tether to all known and loved in life's universe. Little wonder we're commanded to work out our salvation with fear and trembling for truly we are "fearfully and wonderfully made."

Our lives, as short as morning midst, are as a single day. Who among us is not living in our 25th hour. Let us so labor and spur one another on to love and good deeds.

Mankind: Six and a half billion soulish bloody meat sickles on skeletal sticks wrapped in wafer thin skin, with nearly all in unison denying our mortality and defying His divinity.
Fallen man is a consummate gambler, risking God's blessing and heaven itself for another pull on sin's slot machine.

Health is an interesting aspect of Glory. Radiant health liberates the soul while bodily pain localizes ones awareness in both space and time. The summit no longer exits to the mountaineer in his sickbed. Nor net quarters schedule to the high power executive.

The Atom known only by microscope...
The Body known only by skin...
The Earth known only by crust...
The Sun known only by daylight...
The Cosmos known only by starlight...
God known only by sinners...
From DNA to Death, who has KNOWN anything?

Relentless as the surf, nearly every thought, word and deed of man is in hope of happiness. Ironically, how few have serious defined it...

Doesn't Jesus' choice of "Blessed," best translated "filled" in the Be-attitudes, speak volumes in regards to the human condition and our pursuit of happiness?

Beauty begets limited happiness, so often hindered by duration and intensity. Who has not thrilled to the beauty of nature or man, only to find it "outside" us and/or fleeting...

Many equate love with happiness and each of the four loves can certainly be "filling" in its own way.

Being "In love" may be a misnomer better rendered, having "eros" (romantic love) fill or be "in us".

If the answer to happiness is being "filled" the question is, "with what?" The answer... GLORY.

The addict, the immoral, the rich, the ascetic, etc... Who among us doesn't long for an altered state of consciousness?

Biblically, man's original state was glorious, might our pursuit of happiness be evidence of a collective unconscious?

Happiness or Blessedness is the attaining and retaining of Glory.

Subjected to futility all God's Glorious Creation groans... Man groans after Glory without Groans.

Few gifts are as glorious and vexing as eyesight!

Truly we are, "Dust in the wind." But hopefully Beloved Dust…

Should it not be painfully obvious to the reader my view of my own nature, both old and new taken together, let me assure you I have no illusions of either holiness or greatness. I'm fully persuaded by observation and instructors from Paul to Pascal that at any moment, all that I am, have and have done could be as easily destroyed by the least agent of God or the devil as I might crush an annoying gnat between my fingers. Even more, without the Lord's infinite Mercy and Grace, I'm as likely to be consumed in the fires of Sin as a moth toying with a flame. All the more so should any of these words be by inspiration, seeing that of he who is given much more is required.

The Theology of the human body is no mean study, yet in practicality it concerns itself with our "Earth Suits." Consider their self contained head to toe skin, muscle groups, sinus, bones, organs, nerves... all in a constant state of flux, growth, repair, aging... fully animated by sentient will! Who could imagine their equal? As a sci-fi fan I find the wonder of such a miraculous apparatus second only to our preoccupation with them over the spirits and souls they house, not to mention our neglect of and even disdain towards their Awesome Creator...

"The Sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite heart." Can a contrite yet sinful heart be an acceptable sacrifice? Is there another kind? Might such an offering make up by broken contrition what is lacking in perfect obedience?"

The Words of the LORD are Pure Words, like Silver tried Seven Times...Spirit and Truth, Multidimensional, remaining until Heaven and Earth Pass Away... Our Words...?

What a Faithful Friend and Fierce Foe are Emotions? Who knows their origin? Biological, Chemical, Spiritual, Circumstantial...

Have you considered the limited nature of language and worrisome restrictions inherent in words? Are they truly any more revealing than shadows of the TRUTHS they represent? Small wonder Paul explains "I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. 1 Cor. 2-5

Dwelling under the Shadow of Death, physical (3/4 aborted, etc.) and spiritual (3/4 of those not aborted), beauty yet abounds! As flowers buried in snow, silently watched over by majestic Firs, each in turn standing under a twinkling canopy of a trillion stars.
Man's heart so naturally longs to be filled that having squandered the riches of his inheritance, free will, he quickly turns to the husks addiction.

Men crave to glory in beauty; of women, nature, art, strength, wisdom, success... yet circumstance, like Eden's flaming sword, oft bare these gates. Might Earth's paradise lost provide the impetus for entrance into Heaven's?

How odd our existence... Knit from that which does not appear, we emerge as tiny spirit creatures of solids, liquids and gas immersed in a vast creation of the same. From not being to beings of matter, groaning with Creation, we yearn for freedom from subjection to futility. Swept into the solidness of time and soon thrust into an eternity that will dissolve the very elements with fervent heat as Creation is rolled up as a scroll. Well does David say, "I am wonderfully and fearfully made."

How are we, ""in the world?” Are we our bodies? If I loose a limb am "I" less "me?" If I'm blinded am "I" less "me?" If when blinded I'm still me then do "I" really "see"" or does the program of optical physics run so "seamlessly" I'm convinced "I" am a seeing person "seeing" others "in" this world? Miraculously, we are integrated seamlessly in bodies, Temples or Tombs, by which we experience reality in a virtual way, in programs that are timing out. Does understanding the nature of our "Matrix" matter? Could anything else matter more?

How do heaven's angels view our piteous state? Quasi developed spirits with semi-conscious souls temporarily encased in meat bodies. Daily foraging to feed a fallen nature, prodded and afflicted by their fallen brethren. Adrift and tempest toasts upon behemoth waves of a aroused sea of sin, a hundred thousand drowning daily. Fitfully asleep a third of our lives while passing the rest blindly ignorant of the true nature of all things. Grasping the temporal, ignoring the eternal, we exchange an eternity of heaven for hell, dragging family, friend and foe down to perish beneath sin's foaming waves.
Christ's Sermon on the Mt. reflects all humanities upside down state, anxious and unconcerned in reverse order. A billion Bibles mirror our condition yet after beholding our image how quickly we turn to forget.

Habit chains free will.

Considering the average Westerner through technology has the equivalent of over 1,000 full time personal slaves, are addictions the results of "numbing the pain" or just the emptiness of unrestrained pleasure?

“We have this treasure in Earthen vessels." A truly comforting verse given, we not only sleep away much of our lives, we snore! And upon awaking must proceed were we go in tiny steps.

Our children fail from practicing Ungodliness. Save them from their parents failing to practice Holiness.

Should "familiarity breed contempt" Spirit filled intimacy may spawn compassion, commitment and love.
Our self conception is revealed by our attitude towards the useful to us. True friendship IQ is apparent in our treatment of those who do our cause harm.

When everything is said and done, all will be His-story. When will I learn it's not about me.

Oddly, critiques of others self absorption inevitably are raised on the foundational inference or phrase: 'Well, I would never...!'

Proof that words are poor communicators and largely “fall on deaf ears” is this: “When everything is said and done there's a lot more said than done.”

We were born yesterday and die tomorrow! Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

Jesus' observation that we know neither where we have come from or where we are going is telling. This goes a long way towards explaining our confusion at who, when and why we are.

Sin Happens.

Those who can-do, who can't-write, who can't write-teach, who can't teach-journal, who can't journal-speak, who can't speak- listen. Those never mastering the art of listening divert themselves with small dramas making "much ado about nothing."

Who are we really? On an eternal scale, given time and opportunity, freedom and choice, what might we do and become as individuals and corporately?

"If wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets" and so we should! Wanting is the path to receiving! Only not wanting for ourselves but OTHERS!!! 1Cor 13, Beatitudes, James 4.

In light of the depth of man's deception, his mental failures may out way his moral ones, which would be saying a lot.

Though indisputably true that "knowledge puffeth up" ignorance seems to reek the greater havoc.

Exuberant awards for sport figures, entertainers, and litigants reflect the flood of paper money governments print at will. Before dishonest global banking, an athlete's sweat was worth an honest day or two's pay. Today it's weighed as liquid gold. Perhaps it is, but if it's 'fool's gold' who are the fools?

Though we speed about carried in car, ship and plane who can out run self?

Oh the Evil avoided had we heeded the Spirit's command, be "QUICK to Hear, Slow... to Speak and Slow... to become Angry?"
I'm lost. Knowing one's lost doesn't make one found (though it's a step in the right direction). Fathers warn their children to be still and wait for them if they become lost. Very good advice except I'm not very good at being still... I'm a fool. Knowing one's a fool doesn't make one wise (though it's a step in the right direction). It's written even a fool who remains silent may be considered wise. Very good advice except I'm not very good at being silent…

Often Wounds look their worst just before they heal completely!

7 Theological Questions
1) Does God exist?
2) Can He be known?
3) Is He Holy and Good?
4) Has He revealed Himself?
5) Who is He?
6) What does He require?
7) Do l/we meet His requirements?

Four Categories of Demands
1) Demands made from Weakness
-Babies' demands on Parents
2) Demands made by Companions
-Co-Workers, Teammates
3) Demands made by Compassion
-God's on man
4) Selfish Demands
-Lucifer's Entitlement issue
-Our Entitlement issues

How quickly we succumb to puny temptations & ultra light afflictions! How criminal in light of the Glory, which eye has not seen, ear has not heard... About to be revealed!
As in Life, Golf is increasingly difficult the fewer clubs one carries.

From a strictly Hebraic point of view, might modern Americans, minimalist with short coifed hair, bare faced or sharply cropped beards, casually dressed and at ease (in Zion), appear much like classical Egyptians?
One believes there should be a point to the journey, another believes the journey should be the point, others believe both, while still others neither.
Pascal gives a primer for understanding philosophers and prophets. A codex for embracing the dualism or quantumness in their messages, God's revelation and man's nature.

We've Chosen/Yet YOU ARE
Lies/TRUTH
Sin/HOLY
Fear/FAITH
Sorrow/HOPE
Anger/LOVE
Hate/FORGIVENESS
War/PEACE
Death/LIFE
Pride/MEEK
Self/SACRIFICE
Lawlessness/GRACE
Darkness/LIGHT
Hell/HEAVEN
Satan/GOD

Cite a single technology that, once sighted on the horizon, man hasn't pursued, subdued and subjugated. Enchanted by the Unicorn of Knowledge, will he rests a single moment till he possesses its magic and has drunk from its horn?

If I were a leader with a day of clarity, knowing I would revert to my normal self deceptions tomorrow, I would counsel my friends this way:
-Forgive my sins against you.
-Help those around us I'm hurting.
-Don't let my faults deter your calling.
-Be wise as a serpent and keep arms distance from my destructive habits.
-Learn and help others to learn from my mistakes.

The bodies complement and/or lack of redundant systems are interesting. Two eyes, two ears (importance, back up and depth perception) two nostrils, two arms, legs, hands and feet..... yet only one mouth?

Though warned the kingdom of God is not words, our hopes of salvation and discipeling are largely based on them. This is doubly dangerous today with the constant bombardment of words, ideas and pictures; as it were the rare and flawless Diamond of God's Word buried among thousands of glimmering pieces of worthless ice.

What do we KNOW? Physical phenomena, while quantifiably measurable, are unstable and 'passing away' the Bible warns. Spiritual phenomena, while inherently subjective, remain, 'though heaven and earth pass away'...

Torn by the extreme contrasts of this life, it's infinitely important and difficult to learn, understand and remember, much less embrace one's place.

Living in a culture given every reason to believe, obey and be thankful how often we find every reason not to...

How incrementally slow seems the, "sudden destruction" of the wicked. Passing through millions of moments full of pregnant pauses we chose or decline Heaven as the titanic train of Life inches us at 1/2 mile an hour to our final destination.

On the downside of man's dualism is this: we are less than nothing, being Nothings with, 'an attitude! 'Worse, we're Nothings created and redeemed at great price by the Everything to be made into glorious Somethings. Worse still, being Nothings which think and feel, we reason the Everything into myth while charging Him for our pain. And finally, living but a moment, immoral Nothings die awaking immortal, ablaze in fiery agony eternally longing for the heavenly embrace of the Everything they maligned.

Having a corrupted nature, every natural craving of devil and man is to ascend; in power, position, prestige and pleasure. The Kingdom of God, in opposition, works by this law: "for every action there is a greater and opposite reaction." Hence: he who looses his earthly life finds a heavenly one and a widow's mite turns into great eternal treasure. One sin, Adam's, fell all creation and one sacrifice, Christ's, redeems it infinitely. It's the humble God exalts in heaven and the meek who inherit the Earth. As the chorus proclaims: "You came from heaven to earth to show the way, from earth to the cross my debt to pay, from the cross to the grave, from the grave to the skies, Lord I lift your name on high."

In a, "Star Trek Voyager" episode, "Bellana" a half Human and half Klingon is captured and through DNA manipulation is split into two genetically pure individuals. To her surprise, the human Bellana, though superior intellectually, finds herself weak and needing the strength she had come to rely on. Oddly enough, she came to prefer the struggle she had previously disdained.

I've found parental love may be unconcerned as to the content of a question or comment while taking great exception as to tone.

Since Y2k, some scoff that preparing was a waist. I wonder. Christians, on the average, spent less than 1% of their income towards preserving the lives of family and friends, largely in the form of consumables, tools, etc. Hardly a waist. Others object, finding the cause unworthy. I wonder. Once a widow gave a corrupt priesthood 100% of her wealth, men in the very act of plotting the torturous death of God the Son, who looking upon her heart, applauded the woman's action. Looking upon our hearts, what does Jesus think of our small preparation and shame at that, our hardening against further preparing and our squandering much of the time we've been given, while the very date seems to say we've been living every day since 1/1/00 on borrowed time!

Jesus' parable of the kingdom of heaven being like a mustard seed; though among the smallest of seeds it grows incredibly large, pinpoints an important aspect of human existence. Even small beginnings can yield glorious results. Might this principle, however, work both ways. What may, "small sins" yield and grow into? Small wonder we're warned to, ""work out our salvation with fear and trembling...

Those who serve well must feel well served.

How are we, "in the world?”Allow the complexities of your mortal body to permeate your thoughts and consider this. As the spirit excels the flesh, might its wondrous complexity eclipse that of our fallen physical bodies? Yet how few invest half the time caring for the eternal dimension of their lives.

The Fall's gathering darkness, eroding Creation's glory, leaves us living by Twilight. The question that begs asking, ""is this the dark before the Dawn or Midnight?"" Most hope for Daybreak, few fear Nightfall, yet most run towards the latter and few hurry the former.

Like a busy bee, man, offered nectar marries a single flower. This blessing and challenge provides continual joy and sorrow, not the least of which is the next generation of bees and flowers.

Human nature, schooled by modern culture, rarely mourns and praises deeply much less simultaneously. Eyes opened by their Creator, Redeemer and soon coming Judge, find the extremes of even everyday human existence constant occasions for both. As with Ezra's rededication of the temple where those who had seen its intended glory wept bitterly while others praised for what had been raised from the rubble. This quantum balance each Christian should possess.

The human condition within, without and above conspires to create complicated desperation. Creatures caught and/or carried by time, our development physically, mentally, spiritually and socially is slow and uncertain. Circumstantially individual channels, some rapid some lazy, join life's immense river, as we all are born along an incredible journey who's end is Niagara Falls.

A perquisite for our precarious existence is denial. Along maturation's timeline, information is relegated, stored or rejected. Even vital truths, particularly those unpleasant, become active or inactive files, often, rarely or never used.

Oddly, time is both shackle and lifeline, a chain binding us to the pain of an unfulfilled present while securing most of humanity from plunging into a future of eternal torment.

Time stands as guardian and warden, friend and foe. It fly’s and crawls.

Why will men will risk all they have accomplished in a thousand hours for a single hour of sex?

Why does sex elicit gowns rather than laughter?

Life is subjective souls housed in objective bodies experiencing a concrete universe which we interpret subjectively. Death presses us against and into an Omni dimensional reality were, waking from the slightest dream, the singularity of eternal consequences explode.

When do we treat our friends as enemies? When failing to allow time for friendship to develop. Entropy happens but so do miracles. Today's hurdles may become tomorrow's track of Glory!

Lapping waves hardly do justice to an ocean's depth. So men's words, even the best of them, are small things.

"On your bed in the stillness of night, lie on your left and listen. What do you hear? The rhythmic pounding of your heart. So quiet as to be missed but one time in a thousand yet so vital, it's violent contractions provide your single tether to all known and loved in life's universe. Little wonder we're commanded to work out our salvation with fear and trembling for truly we are "fearfully and wonderfully made."

Our lives, as short as morning midst, are as a single day. Who among us is not living in our 25th hour. Let us so labor and spur one another on to love and good deeds.

Mankind: Six and a half billion soulish bloody meat sickles on skeletal sticks wrapped in wafer thin skin, with nearly all in unison denying our mortality and defying His divinity.
Fallen man is a consummate gambler, risking God's blessing and heaven itself for another pull on sin's slot machine.

How often in testifying of Him do I exalt My testimony? Is there a single "I" in Jesus..?

Isn't the answer to the age old question of wither the cup's half empty or half full, BOTH? Yet, have we been taught to embrace a healthy Dualism?

So how do we address what we perceive as the half empty issues of life in others and ourselves? Isaiah 42:1-4 also Fire from Heaven, Greatest as least, suggests a strategy....

It's said we're not so much Human Beings as Human Becomings. How true this is of we Christians...

Though all ""Spend Time"" who among us Invests it Wisely?

The picarity of man's position is perilous. All his support systems time out into an apocryphal end. His world being devolved by atom or microbe, his life ended by random violence or injury, his frame betrayed by famine or disease. Swallowing down his fears with gulps of denial he's a drunk clutching for courage at the bottom of a bottle of denial. Stumbling through his only chance for life; worries and work, pleasures and problems all distract or divert him as his timed exercise runs out. Treating the symptoms with self medication worsens his case until he's both intoxicated and terminal. In such condition, were he to turn a blurry eye to his soul's state, he finds today's religious philosophy of self esteem holds little cure for a dying drunk. Detoxing is so unpleasant it's rarely prescribed, much less lived therapeutically, so the root of man's ills is at best self medicated and masked.

Addictions, like harsh taskmasters, all eventually demand bricks without straw. Who is not addicted to self?

How resplendent the glories of sight yet how many trillions of sins begin with a glance?

My scoughts are very thattered today Lord!

How important today seems until tomorrow.

When we ministers have nothing we gladly offer our Lord everything. When He gives us something how quickly our prayers change, lessen or disappear.

Sad but true, rarely do we appreciate what we have till it's gone and no longer have it to appreciate.

If, "familiarity breads contempt" what might "success" breed?

The difference between open mindedness and double mindedness may lie in the former's use of varied reasoning to clarify purpose while with the latter purpose is in a constant state of flux.

Lord, how I wish recognizing the Truth were the same as Living it! How different history would be... How different our present, future and eternity.

Man's primary mistake, yesterday and today, failing to "tend and keep" the Garden.

Two identical yet opposite pitfalls, counting Something as either Everything or Nothing.
Might God use enemies to confront us because most our friends fear to and the few who do become enemies.

Speak less say more.

Aren't we like time bombs, as sin within, without and above hastens us on towards critical mass? Religion, at best may delay the sequence and at worse synchronizes our individual explosions. Only Christianity, in it's fullness, cuts the right wires, (fear, anger and sorrow) disabling the trigger. Only the Holy Spirit can remove first fuse and then explosive, causing old things to pass away and all things to become new!

Lord, break the power of self deception and procrastination.

Man’s advice often does just that, "add-vice."

Mans 3 supreme tasks: Find, serve and know God (hence the 1st great commandment). Spirit's 3 vehicles: Prayer, scripture and experience.

God's 3 supreme requirements: Save self and mankind (hence Love neighbor as self).

Man's 3 vehicles: Ask, seek and knock

3 practices enabling both: Silence, Study and Action

Minutes are like dollars and all we millionaires.

How much of God and His kingdom be found before a video screen? Time spent interfacing with TV, computers, handhelds etc. vs. Creator and creation.
Few people take the time to discern how they really feel. Fewer still know why.

Interesting with whom we feel affinity and to what extreme. Also telling is under what circumstances attachments form and for how long. Parents' can spend hundreds of thousands of hours and dollars directly and indirectly "caring" for each of their children only to later in life be estranged, to a lessor or greater degree, for a variety of reasons. Marriages, business churches, siblings and friendships likewise frequently suffer similar fates.

Pascal noted that all things tend to tempt or vex man. More susceptible than most, I find both constant fuels for prayer and reflection.
In his book "A Grief Observed" Lewis is surprised to find sorrow so akin to fear. The reverse is also true.

Aren't those afraid to admit and face their fears the most fearful of all?

Lord why so silent and distant that I walk with my head down in shame when my face could beam with such beatific vision that all others would want the same?

Some say, "when God closes a door He opens a window." That could explain all the jumpers.

Real optimist are rare. Most are philosophically self medicated realists or pessimists. The genuine can be as pleasant as they are naively foolish insisting the cup's half full. These fail to consider which half, for how long and to what end? In school as in most aspects of life, 50% is failing.

Sadly, with such friends I've little needed enemies.

I don't know if I'm blessed or cursed, neither or both.

If "behind every great man is a great woman" who is behind failures?

Unfortunately foolishness as well as hope springs eternal. Each often appearing as the other.

Among the war torn, impoverished and imperiled disappointment is a stark reality.

Among the rest of us it's more a point of view. Sadly, decades of building this awareness has done little to slack incessant feelings of entitlement.

While undesirable or even tragic it is neither rare nor always unprofitable to reach one's goals by lowered expectations.

When considering all that is at stake, enduring the constant irritant of foolishness seems the least one can do.

Earth is a time-space generational ship with many varied habitats and billions of crew on course to collide with the Awe-full Tri-Omni God of eternity.

Interestingly, though not surprising, there are many layers of truth. Ironically, surface layers often do as much to conceal as reveal deeper hidden ones. A little understanding of anatomy quickly reveals how true it is that beauty is only skin deep. This is no unfortunate coincidence but rather an integral piece of the strategy of both our great Adversary and our great Ally.

Those that can do. Those who can't, think. Those who can't think, talk, on and on saying nothing. Many of these now text, sometimes at the same time…

As a general rule humanity, like electricity, seeks the path of least resistance. This being the case, without contemporary evidence of an afterlife, people living in relative comfort or better will rarely do any hard work investigating spiritual matters. Such a state of disinterest could be explained by human nature alone. Matters are made far worse by the ubiquitous presence of advanced spiritual malevolence interested in perpetuating and exacerbation the situation. Little wonder the Gospels and the Book of Acts are crammed full of the miraculous. And little wonder costly Biblical Christianity has been reduced to a fire sale status form of Churchianity without them.

In light of eternity, even a lifespan of 90 years is less preparation than 9 months gestation is for life on earth. Most "eternal embryos and fetuses" learn as much about life after death as their temporal counterparts of life after the birth. Such a pity, seeing in earthly life we pick one of eternity's two birthing rooms.

Teeth are the only part of the human skeleton, the universal symbol of death and decay, to show. Try remembering that when flossing, brushing or flashing a toothy grin.
Creation may be as filled with irony as it is with atoms. Including the relevance of noting as much.

People are very nice, when they are. A fact that, undoubtedly, makes Heaven twice as wonderful. Unfortunately, the corollary of these two points is also true.

Shaving without a mirror offers 2 choices. Eyes open or closed. Open: hand movements are somewhat visible. Closed: the sense of touch is slightly increased. Even so I find a hesitancy to shave with eyes closed. Perhaps this is the brain performing risk/benefit analysis and objecting to the use of a sharp and potentially dangerous object being wielded under circumstances compounding danger( closed eyes). This raises a question. Are the millions of experiences stored in the physical brain, such as those used to calculate risk benefit, part of the personality likely to survive the death? Within a Biblical world view of the afterlife, is that which is stored in the brain any more likely to emerge into eternity than that stored in the stomach or intestines?

Modern life is at best a beautiful waking dream about the beginning of the end of the beginning.

What could be more wonderful or terrible, freeing or limiting than our six senses? These senses and more heightened throughout eternity.

Many of our principal complaints to and/or against God arise from lack of control. Death, war, disease, violence and various maladies of mind, body or soul within ourselves and others create pressure to find release. When genuine remedies seem unavailable placebos that at least momentarily mask the pain are employed too often making matters worse.

Better to endeavor to learn to trust the silent and distant God for we are all on a collision course with death, the ultimate loss of control. For better of worse, cognizant or not, we shall each follow Christ’s example who cried, “Father into your hands I commit my spirit.”

We would do well to emulate Paul who invested much to be able to say, “I know him who I believe in and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed to Him against that day.”

A major impediment to facing the disappointments and trials of life arises is determining their origin. Discernment becomes more difficult should multiple sources contribute, perhaps in various ways, to a given problem. Is the challenge before us simply a random occurrence of life or does the crisis originate from our own bad behavior or that of others? Might God be counted on for deliverance or could our dilemma be the result Divine disciple? What of passive or active demonic resistance?

James suggests welcoming all difficulties, regardless of origin, gladly knowing that the trying of our faith creates the patience needed for completeness. Yet for most this approach alone proves dissatisfactory. As the quantity and quality of unanswered questions mount up the way of faith can become hidden as God is often partially or totally eclipsed by confusion and regret, fear and anger.
At this point, without intervention, our relationships become strained even to the breaking point. Further deterioration of primary and secondary relationships and/or goals often follows, in turn fueling the fires of loss.

This downward spiral is such a universal human experience it spares few if any. Rich and poor, healthy and sick, religious and pagan feel the flames of unanswered sorrows licking at our souls.

Human beings are so frail and foolish that it would be miraculous indeed if adults could discover and continue on the straight and narrow way of salvation leading from here to eternity…

Many live life in obscurity. I'm praying God appreciates the difference between hiding ones "talent" under the bed and having it repeated shaved under one.

Character is the skill of correctly identifying that which is most important, dedicating oneself to it and seeing the decision through to the end.

Imagination can be a tool of reality and/or delusion. On the one hand, saturating ourselves in truth allows for a panoramic insider view. Conversely, creating parallel realities and mind castles we risk moving in. Fleeting micro realities existing for nano seconds, forming and popping like bubbles against the surface of time and eternity.

While there may seem to be similarities, in the end what a vast difference there is between being open minded and double minded.

Other Modern Proverb topics include:

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