27.7.04

Purpose

Why is it the ship beats the waves when the waves are so many and the ship is one?  The reason is the ship has a purpose.
-Winston Churchill

In our day and age we are constantly baraged with conflicting opinions, that which one person believes to be true and another believes false and vice versa.  There is a constant antithesis in our culture on every issue, whether your left or right, wrong or right, and on and on.  Some people may see this as a negative force in this world, yet to me at least those people believe in a cause, believe that what they are saying is right and they have some purpose behind what they do.  Sadly, there exists a passive majority of the population of the world, who don't care because they don't believe it affects them personally.  Who daily cry out, "Why should I care, I'll never have to deal with that?"  As people, I believe, that we were created to stand for something, we were created to have a purpose, to believe in something, because we were created with a destiny and calling on each of your lives.  God created us with a sense of purpose, because He himself is a purposeful God.  We do not wander aimlessly without direction, we are guided by the One who created us.  God created us to have a specific purpose in life, even those who do not know God enact that drive that He placed within us, whether we use it to bring us closer to Him or not is our decision.  May we seek God for our purpose, our destiny, and our calling, that we may live a life, a noble sacrifice of praise to the One who is worthy of our praise. 

16.7.04

A Thought...

    Verbally, we seem to be committed to the idea that man is created in the likeness of God.  But are we committed to it intellectually?  If the divine likeness is our premise, then the question arises: How should a being created in the image of God act, think, feel?  How should we live in a way which is compatible with our being a likeness of God?
-Abraham Heschel
 
    A mind-provoking thought...Do we truly live our lives in the way that we should?  Do we fully comprehend the fact that we are created in the image of our Creator?  Do we understand that the Creator of the Universe, the One who put the stars in the sky, the One who filled the oceans, who molded the land, who created the living creatures that roam the earth, who breathed life into our beings is on our side and will give us all that we seek if we merely surrender our being to His will?  Considering we are only here because He chose to give us life, giving our life back would be a small price to pay, don't you think?  May we surrender all that we are and all that we have to the One who is worthy, since all that we have was given by Him alone. 

14.7.04

Advice...

I thought that I might post one of my favorite poems...A poem that has words of advice that span all time, age, and situation...

If - by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

13.7.04

The Beginning....

And so I begin...This is my first venture in the "blogging" world and will thus be an experiment, in the beginning, but I hope will develop into much more. This will be a place purely for thoughts, musings, quotes, news, anything that I might be thinking about at the present moment. I hope that anyone who views this (if anyone does) that they enjoy it!