Living Nobly
To act well in the world, one must die within oneself. Man is not on this earth only to be happy, he is not there to be simply honest, he is there to realize great things for humanity, to attain nobility and to surpass the vulgarity in which the existence of almost all individuals drags on. –Ernest Renan
Infilling
The Scriptures often exhort us to be filled with various godly virtues—which means what? How do we know if we are “full of goodness” (Romans 15:14, for example? Think a moment about a water-saturated sponge. If we push down with our finger even slightly, water runs out onto the table. We immediately know what fills the interior pockets of the sponge. The same is true of ourselves. We can tell what fills us on the inside by what comes out under pressure.
Affirmation and Huggin’
In a world where people are finding themselves being rejected in so many ways, it is vital that they find the affirmation that is in Christ through the ministry of the Church. Personally, I’ve always believed in the power of positive hugging as a form of affirmation. Reader’s Digest mentioned Virginia Satir prescribing hugs for the blues. They quote her as saying: “Our pores are places for messages of love and physical contact. Four hugs a day are necessary for survival, eight for maintenance, and twelve for growth.” According to the report I read, she delivered this happy prescription to those attending an orthopsychiatric convention, whatever that is.
Fruit of the Spirit
Love is the key. Joy is love singing. Peace is love resting. Long-suffering is love enduring. Kindness is love’s touch. Goodness is love’s character. Faithfulness is love’s habit. Gentleness is love’s self-forgetfulness. Self-control is love holding the reins. –Donald Gray Barnhouse
Care for My Son
A wealthy man died, apparently without leaving a will. Consequently, according to law, the estate was to be divided among the several surviving cousins who were the next of kin. Also as prescribed by law, the deceased’s household goods and other items of personal property were to be converted into cash in a public auction. During the sale, the auctioneer held up a framed photograph, but no one bid on it, including the cousins. Later, a woman approached the auctioneer and asked him is she might purchase the picture for a dollar, which was all she had. She said it was a photograph of the deceased man’s only son. She went on to relate that she had been a servant in the deceased’s household when the boy lost his life trying to rescue a drowning person, and that she had loved him very much. The auctioneer accepted the dollar and the woman went home and placed the photograph on a table beside her bed. It was then she noticed a bulge in the back of the frame. She undid the backing and there, to her amazement, was the rich man’s will. The instructions in the will were simple: “I give and bequeath all my possessions to the person who cares enough for my son to cherish this photograph.”
The Rag Doll
My daughter, like the typical American girl, has had her share of dolls and stuffed animals. Today, through modern technology, a little girl need not be content with dull, lifeless dolls, but can experience the thrill of owning a lifelike replica of a baby that can walk and talk, drink and wink, slurp and burp, cry, sigh and laugh—almost anything a real baby does, including wet itself and get diaper rash. After ten years of buying these mechanical marvels, I wondered which of these dolls was my daughter’s favorite? To my surprise, I found her favorite was a small rag doll she had received on her third birthday. All the other performing dolls had gone, but this simple rag doll had allowed her to love it. The other dolls had caught her eye, but the rag doll had won her heart. To my daughter, the rag doll was real and was loved just the way it was, and the scars of love showed as the hair was nearly gone, the eyes were missing, and the clothes were soiled and torn. But, missing all these parts, it was still what it had always been, just itself. We are, too often, like the high-tech dolls of my daughter. We try to impress others with skills, talent, education, speech, or mannerisms when what they want is someone just being themselves. Within every man lies the innate desire to be loved and accepted. Don’t try to be something or someone that you are not. Just be yourself. Love is not won– a reward for performance or achievement. You don’t have to sing, teach, preach, or pray well to be loved. People will not love us for what we do, but rather for what we are. –Randy Spencer
Giving Love Away
One evening just before the great Broadway musical star, Mary Martin, was to go on stage in South Pacific, a note was handed to her. It was from Oscar Hammerstein, who at the moment was on his deathbed. The short note simply said:
“Dear Mary, A bell’s not a bell till you ring it. A song’s not a song till you sing it. Love in your heart is not put there to stay. Love isn’t love till you give it away.”
After her performance that night, many people rushed backstage, crying, “Mary, what happened to you out there tonight? We never saw anything like that performance before.” Blinking back the tears, Mary then read them the note from Hammerstein. Then she said, “Tonight, I gave my love away!”
Love or Infatuation?
Infatuation is instant desire. It is one set of glands calling to another. Love is friendship that has caught fire. It takes root and grows—one day at a time.
Infatuation is marked by a feeling of insecurity. You are excited and eager, but not genuinely happy. There are nagging doubts, unanswered questions, little bits and pieces about your beloved that you would just as soon not examine too closely. It might spoil the dream.
Love is quiet understanding and the mature acceptance of imperfection. It is real. It gives you strength and grows beyond you—to bolster your beloved. You are warmed by his presence, even when he is away. Miles do not separate you. You want him nearer. But near or far, you know he is yours and you can wait.
Infatuation says, “We must get married right away. I can’t risk losing him.” Love says, “Be patient. Don’t panic. Plan your future with confidence.” Infatuation has an element of sexual excitement. If you are honest, you will admit it is difficult to be in one another’s company unless you are sure it will end in intimacy. Love is the maturation of friendship. You must be friends before you can be lovers.
Infatuation lacks confidence. When he’s away, you wonder if he’s cheating. Sometimes you even check. Love means trust. You are calm, secure and unthreatened. He feels that trust, and it makes him even more trustworthy.
Infatuation might lead you to do things you’ll regret later, but love never will. Love is an upper. It makes you look up. It makes you think up. It makes you a better person than you were before. –Ann Landers
Communicating Love
Ole and Olga lived on a farm in Iowa. Olga was starved for affection. Ole never gave her any signs of love, and Olga’s need to be appreciated went unfulfilled. At her wit’s end, Olga blurted out, “Ole, why don’t you ever tell me that you love me?” Ole stoically responded, “Olga, when we were married I told you that I loved you, and if I ever change my mind, I’ll let you know.”
That is not enough. Daily we need to express our love for one another just as God does for us daily in His Son, Jesus Christ. Love is new each day.
No Grudging
You can give without loving, but you can’t love without giving.
A Child’s View of Love
Some children were asked, “What is love?” One little girl answered, “Love is when your mommy reads you a bedtime story. True love is when she doesn’t skip any pages.”
Unashamed Love
We have some friends who have a little boy who was born with a severe handicap that would cause him to go into very violent seizures without any warning. The father would usually be the one holding their son during worship services, and I remember on one particular occasion when the little boy started into a seizure, the father got up and with a strong yet gentle love carried the boy to the back of the sanctuary where he held him close to his chest and rocked him, whispered to him, and did all he could to help his son through. One thing I noticed most of all was that there was no hint of embarrassment or frustration in that father’s face—only love for his hurting son. I felt God speak to my own heart and in so many words say, “That’s just the way I love you through your imperfections. I’m not embarrassed to have people know that you are my son.” I have come to know that it’s in my times of greatest frustration that my Father draws me close and weathers the storm with me. How good it is that with all of our faults, we have a Savior Who is “not ashamed to call us brothers.” That’s love.
Love That Absorbs Suffering
This is supposed to be a true story from the time of Oliver Cromwell in England. A young soldier had been tried in military court and sentenced to death. He was to be shot at the “ringing of the curfew bell.” His fiancee climbed up into the bell tower several hours before curfew time and tied herself to the bell’s huge clapper. At curfew time, when only muted sounds came out of the bell tower, Cromwell demanded to know why the bell was not ringing. His soldiers went to investigate and found the young woman cut and bleeding from being knocked back and forth against the great bell. They brought her down and, the story goes, Cromwell was so impressed with her willingness to suffer in this way on behalf of someone she loved that he dismissed the soldier saying, “Curfew shall not ring tonight.”
Love, Whatever
Once, while riding in the country, I saw on a farmer’s barn a weather vane on the arrow of which was inscribed these words: “God is Love.” I turned in at the gate and asked the farmer, “What do you mean by that? Do you think God’s love is changeable; that it veers about as that arrow turns in the winds?” The farmer said, “Oh, no! I mean that whichever way the wind blows, God is still Love.” –Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Agape Love
Agape love is the love of T. E. McCully, father of Ed McCully, one of the missionaries slain by Auca Indians in Ecuador, who one night shortly after that experience prayed, “Lord, let me live long enough to see those fellows saved who killed our boys that I may throw my arms around them and tell them I love them because they love my Christ.” That is love of the highest kind.
Safe from Love
To love all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it safe in a casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is—hell. –David Watson
Love Observed
The world will not care what we know until they know we care. –Gene Barron
The Rationale of God’s Love
He loved us not because we were lovable, but because He is love. –C.S. Lewis
The Risk of Love
To love anyone is to hope in him always. From the moment at which we begin to judge anyone, to limit our confidence in him, from that moment at which we identify him, and so reduce him to that, we cease to love him, and he ceases to be able to become better. We must dare to love in a world that does not know how to love.
Love Never Gives Up
A New England girl had just become engaged when the Civil War broke out. Her fiance was called into the army, so their wedding had to be postponed. The young soldier managed to get through most of the conflict without injury, but at the Battle of the Wilderness, he was severely wounded. His bride-to-be, not knowing of his condition, read and reread his letters, counting the days until he would return. Suddenly, the letters stopped coming. Finally she received one, but it was written in an unfamiliar handwriting. It read, “There has been another terrible battle. It is very difficult for me to tell you this, but I have lost both my arms. I cannot write myself. So a friend is writing this letter for me. While you are as dear to me as ever, I feel I should release you from the obligation of our engagement.”
The letter was never answered. Instead, the young woman took the next train and went directly to the place her loved one was being cared for. On arrival she found a sympathetic captain who gave her directions to her soldier’s cot. Tearfully, she searched for him. The moment she saw the young man, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I will never give you up!” she cried. “These hands of mine will help you. I will take care of you.”
Testing
A man and a woman who had been corresponding solely by mail fell in love with one another. They agreed to meet at the airport. Since they had never seen each other, they devised a plan that would help them recognize each other. She was to wear a green scarf and a green hat and have a green carnation pinned to her coat.
When the man got off his plane, he immediately began looking for her. Suddenly he saw a woman with a green scarf, green hat, and green carnation. His heart fell. She was one of the most homely women he had ever seen in his life. He was tempted to get back on the plane without approaching her. Nevertheless, he walked over to the woman, smiled, and introduced himself.
Immediately the woman said, “What is this all about anyway? I don’t know who you are. That woman over there gave me five dollars to wear these things.” When the man looked over at the woman mentioned, he realized that she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. The man approached the woman, who later explained, “All my life men have wanted to be with me, to be my friend, because of my beauty. They consider me beautiful. I want someone to love me, not just for my outward appearances, but for what I am inside.
Love Defined
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction. –Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Whole Duty
Some years ago there was a shipwreck off the coast of the Pacific Northwest. A crowd of fishermen in a nearby village gathered to watch the ship as it was smashed on the rocks. A lifeboat was sent to the rescue, and after a terrific struggle, the rescuers came back with all of the shipwrecked sailors but one. “There was no room in the lifeboat for him, so we told him to stay by the ship and someone would come back for him,” shouted a young man.
“Who will come with me?” shouted a young man.
Just then a little old lady cried out, “Don’t go. Jim, my boy. Don’t go. You are all I have left. Your father was drowned in the sea; your brother William sailed away and we’ve never heard from him; and now if you are lost, I’ll be left alone. Oh, Jim, please don’t go.”
Jim listened patiently to his mother’s pleading, then said, “Mother, I must go! It is my duty. I must go!”
The onlookers watched as the men in the lifeboat fought their way toward the wreck. Anxiously Jim’s mother wept and prayed. They saw the boat start back, a frail little shell tossed about by the angry waves. At last it came close enough to hear, and they shouted, “Did you get him?”
And Jim shouted back, “Yes, and tell mother it’s William!”
Father Damien
In 1873, a Belgian Catholic priest names Joseph Damien De Veuster was sent to minister to lepers on the Hawaiian Island of Molokai. When he arrived, he immediately began to meet each one of the lepers in the colony in hopes of building a friendship. But where ever he turned, people shunned him. It seemed as though every door was closed. He poured his life into his work, erecting a chapel, beginning worship services, and pouring out his heart to the lepers. But it was to no avail! No one responded to his ministry. After twelve years, Father Damien made the decision to leave.
Dejectedly, he made his way to the docks to board a ship to take him back to Belgium. As he stood on the dock, he wrung his hands nervously as he recounted his futile ministry among the lepers. As he did, he looked down at his hands and noticed some mysterious white spots and felt some numbness. Almost immediately he knew what was happening to his body. He had contracted leprosy!
It was then that he knew what he had to do. He returned to the leper colony and to his work. Quickly, the word about his disease spread through the colony. Within a matter of hours, everyone knew. Hundred of them gathered outside his hut, they understood his pain, fear, and uncertainty about the future.
But the biggest surprise was the following Sunday. As Father Damien arrived at the chapel, he found hundreds of worshipers there. By the time the service began, the chapel was crowded, and many were gathered outside. His ministry became enormously successful. The reason? He was one of them. He understood and empathized with them.
Needed—the Personal Touch
A man stopped at a flower shop to order some flowers to be wired to his mother who lived two hundred miles away. As he got out of his car, he noticed a young girl sitting on the curb sobbing. He asked her what was wrong and she replied: “I wanted to buy a red rose for my mother. But I only have seventy-five cents and a rose costs two dollars.” The man smiled and said, “Come on in with me. I’ll buy you a rose.” He bought the little girl her rose and ordered his own mother’s flowers. As they were leaving, he offered the girl a ride home. She said, “Yes, please! You can take me to my mother.” She directed him to a cemetery, where she placed the rose on a freshly dug grave. The man returned to the flower shop, cancelled the wire order, picked up a bouquet and drove the two hundred miles to his mother’s home.”
The Great Decision
A little boy was told by his doctor that he could save his sister’s life by giving her some blood. The six-year-old girl was near death, a victim of disease from which the boy had made a marvelous recovery two years earlier. Her only chance for restoration was a blood transfusion from someone who had previously conquered the illness. Since the two children had the same rare blood type, the boy was the ideal donor.
“Johnny, would you like to give your blood for Mary?” the doctor asked.
The boy hesitated. His lower lip started to tremble. Then he smiled, and said, “Sure, Doc. I’ll give my blood for my sister.”
Soon the two children were wheeled into the operating room—Mary, pale and thin; Johnny, robust and the picture of health. Neither spoke, but when their eyes met, Johnny grinned.
As his blood siphoned into Mary’s veins, one could almost see new life come into her tired body. The ordeal was almost over when Johnny’s brave little voice broke the silence, “Say, Doc, when do I die?”
It was only then that the doctor realized what the moment of hesitation, the trembling of the lip, had meant earlier. Little Johnny actually thought that in giving his blood to his sister, he was giving up his life! And in that brief moment, he had made his great decision!
Offending the Little Children
One of the most arresting statements ever made by Jesus during His sojourn on earth was concerning the offending of children. He said it would be better for one to have a millstone tied around his neck and be cast into the sea.
An old woman was noticed to be picking up something in the street—a poor slum street. The policeman on the beat noticed the woman’s action and watched her very suspiciously. Several times he saw her stoop, pick up something, and hide it in her apron. Finally, he went up to her and with a gruff voice and threatening manner demanded, “What are you carrying off in your apron?” The timid woman did not answer at first, whereupon the officer, thinking that she must have found something valuable, threatened her with arrest. The woman opened her apron and revealed a handful of broken glass. “I just thought I would like to take it out of the way of the children’s feet,” she said. Oh, how we need people like this timid little woman who cared about what hurts “children’s feet.”
Going the Second Mile
A salesman called his wife from a coin-operated phone in a distant city, finished the conversation, and said good-bye, and replaced the receiver. As he was walking away, the phone rang. He went back and answered it, expecting to be informed of extra charges. But the operator said, “I thought you’d like to know. Just after you hung up, your wife said, ‘I love you.’”
Love That Must Express Itself
A man was trying to read a serious book, but his little boy kept interrupting him. He would lean against his knees and say, “Daddy, I love you.” The father would give him a pat and say rather absently, “Yes, son, I love you too,” and he would kind of give him a little push away so he could keep on reading. But this didn’t satisfy the boy, and finally he ran to his father and said, “I love you, Daddy,” and he jumped up on his lap and threw his arms around him and gave him a big squeeze, explaining, “And I’ve just got to DO something about it!” That’s it—as we grow in love, we aren’t content with small-talk love, or pat-on-the-head love. We want to get involved and “do something about it.”
The Capacity for Tenderness
There is a tragic story about Lenin that persists to this day, revealing much about his inner soul. Vladimir Ulyanov was born in 1870 to a family that would suffer many tragedies in the years to come. Later, he used the pen name Lenin to promote his revolutionary ideas. He wrapped himself in this revolutionary work until he lost almost all capacity for human tenderness. Those about him said he was a most miserable man.
Although married, Lenin gave little love to his wife, Krupskaya. One night she rose, exhausted from her vigil beside her dying mother, and asked Lenin, who was writing at a table, to awaken her if her mother needed her. Lenin agreed and Krupskaya collapsed into bed. The next morning she awoke to find her mother dead and Lenin still at work. Distraught, she confronted Lenin, who replied, “You told me to wake you if your mother needed you. She died. She didn’t need you.”