Have You 101?: 101 Delectable, Devotional Nuggets for the Pilgrim's Soul

By L. Roo McKenzie

Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.
Archbishop Leighton

Some hearts, like evening primroses, open more beautifully in the shadows of life.
F.B.Meyer

Jesus is no security against storms, but He is the perfect security in storms.
Annie Johnson Flint

He never comes too late; He knoweth what is best; Vex not thyself in vain; until He cometh-REST.
Selected

Your desire for the thing you wish is perhaps stronger than your desire for the will of God to be fulfilled in its arrival.
Charles H. Spurgeon

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450233927

L. Roo McKenzie

L. Roo McKenzie, born in Jamaica and currently a resident of California, is the middle child of eleven children. As the “bridge” in his family, he grew up with a great sense of honoring his elder siblings and helping to care for his younger ones. He grew up with a passion for life and a love for people.

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Have You 101?

101 Delectable, Devotional Nuggets for the Pilgrim’s Soul

Copyright © 2010 by L. Roo McKenzie

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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iUniverse rev. date: 05/19/2011

Contents

Pre-Prayer

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

HAVE YOU A NUGGET?

HAVE YOU A SEASON?

HAVE YOU THE DEJA VU?

HAVE YOU A BUT GOD?

HAVE YOU A CLOUD?

HAVE YOU A LIFE?

HAVE YOU AN EXIT STRATEGY?

HAVE YOU A CUP?

HAVE YOU A RAINBOW?

HAVE YOU A SONG?

HAVE YOU A MAGNIFICAT?

HAVE YOU A MOMENT?

HAVE YOU A PICKER-UPPER?

HAVE YOU AN EXCUSE?

HAVE YOU AN ATTORNEY?

HAVE YOU A TREE?

HAVE YOU A LCM?

HAVE YOU A CITY OF REFUGE?

HAVE YOU A BOOSTER ROCKET?

HAVE YOU AN OFFERING?

HAVE YOU A FIRST OPTION?

HAVE YOU A SPEECH IMPEDIMENT?

HAVE YOU A CD?

HAVE YOU PDA?

HAVE YOU A HEART OF HUMILITY?

HAVE YOU A BOOMERANG?

HAVE YOU A RECIPE?

HAVE YOU UNFINISHED BUSINESS?

HAVE YOU A FAMILY?

HAVE YOU A JOY STICK?

HAVE YOU A MIRROR?

HAVE YOU A TEST?

HAVE YOU HOME-COURT ADVANTAGE?

HAVE YOU A SECOND FIDDLE?

HAVE YOU A MASTER KEY

HAVE YOU A SPOUSE?

HAVE YOU A TEMPER?

HAVE YOU A PREJUDICE?

HAVE YOU A FUNNY BONE?

HAVE YOU A GAME FACE?

HAVE YOU A MOTHER?

HAVE YOU A VENDETTA?

HAVE YOU AN IQ?

HAVE YOU AN ABUSIVE PAST?

HAVE YOU A JAIL?

HAVE YOU A VALENTINE?

HAVE YOU A GPS?

HAVE YOU A FAMILY FEUD?

HAVE YOU A BACKBONE?

HAVE YOU AN INN?

HAVE YOU A MOTIVE?

HAVE YOU AN EGO?

HAVE YOU AN APOLOGY?

HAVE YOU A BEREAVMENT?

HAVE YOU GOOD NEWS?

HAVE YOU A JOB?

HAVE YOU LFF?

HAVE YOU AN EMERGENCY?

HAVE YOU A SHACKLE?

HAVE YOU A TRANQUILIZER?

HAVE YOU A BALM IN GILEAD?

HAVE YOU A TEAR?

HAVE YOU A RESTRAINING ORDER?

HAVE YOU A RESET BUTTON?

HAVE YOU A HANDICAP?

HAVE YOU A FRIEND?

HAVE YOU A TATTOO?

HAVE YOU A MILLSTONE?

HAVE YOU AN INVITATION?

HAVE YOU AN APPOINTMENT?

HAVE YOU A SWAMMER?

HAVE YOU ANY COTTON CANDY?

HAVE YOU A VOID?

HAVE YOU SPIRITUAL ARTERIOSCLEROSIS?

HAVE YOU A BROKEN WINDOW?

HAVE YOU A GREEN LIGHT?

HAVE YOU A STRANGE ADDRESS?

HAVE YOU THE RIGHT GOD?

HAVE YOU A NEMESIS?

HAVE YOU AN IDENTITY?

HAVE YOU A DO-IT-YOURSELF KIT?

HAVE YOU A POTTER?

HAVE YOU A LULLABY?

HAVE YOU ODD?

HAVE YOU SPIRITUAL AUTISM?

HAVE YOU GOOD RELIGION?

HAVE YOU A THORN IN THE FLESH?

HAVE YOU A VOW?

HAVE YOU WINGS?

HAVE YOU A CURFEW?

HAVE YOU A CAVITY?

HAVE YOU A LOST SHEEP?

HAVE YOU A GOOD NAME?

HAVE YOU A CROSS?

HAVE YOU AN UNBELIEVABLE STORY?

HAVE YOU A HABIT?

HAVE YOU AN A GAME?

HAVE YOU ANY BAGGAGE?

HAVE YOU A DIFFERENT SPIRIT?

HAVE YOU A LADDER?

HAVE YOU A CROWN?

Bookends – Epilogue

An Autobiography In Five Chapters

Post-Prayer

Order Information

About The Author

Pre-Prayer

Listen To Me Under My Words

O God,

I come to you now,

as a child to my Mother,

out of the cold which numbs

into the warm who cares.

Listen to me inside,

under my words

where the shivering is,

in the fears

which freeze my living,

in the angers

which chafe my attending,

in the doubts

which chill my hoping,

in the events

which shrivel my thanking,

in the pretenses,

which stiffen my loving.

Listen to me, Lord,

as a Mother

and hold me warm,

and forgive me.

Soften my experiences

into wisdom.

My pride into acceptance,

my longing into trust,

and soften me into love,

and to others,

and to You.

Amen!

–Ted Loder

DEDICATION

I dedicate the nuggets in this book,

To all the people in the University Of Life (UOL)–

To the people who have made my life worth living.

To my God for the first and second birth,

And for my irreversible redemption;

To my beloved mom and dad

Whose investments in and vision for me

I can never repay or fully attain;

To my wife and daughters,

Who have taught me soooooo… many lessons

in the UOL

To my four brothers and my four sisters

for the blessing of growing up with such great siblings;

To my uncles and aunts, cousins,

My in-laws;

To my pastors and teachers,

To my students, from whom I have learned so much;

My friends and colleagues;

To my flower and vegetable gardens,

To my fruit trees and topiaries.

What great teachers you all have been!

And last but not least,

I dedicate this volume to you the reader–

My fellow pilgrim on the journey of life (JOL);

My fellow students in the University Of Life.

Take life by the horns and live it to the full.

Now is the time!

"God does not allow anyone or anything in our

lives from whom or from which we will not benefit."

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

"There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

Such is Paul Douglas, who is both

my brother-in-law and my friend.

He it was, who shared with me from across the miles,

via cell phone, the seed idea for this book.

In our across-the-ocean pep talks and prayers for each other one morning, he shared with me

a poem entitled,

Have You A Cloud? O how I needed it at that moment!

Right then, the seed for this book, Have You… 101? was birthed.

Paul also was the inspiration for many of the signature

nuggets in this book.

The seed was watered by God. It germinated,

and here we are, the fruits–McKNugets–sweet, satisfying, soul-food,

for my pilgrimage and wishfully yours.

Have You…101?

Thank you Paul.

Bookends - Prologue

None of us is responsible for all the things that happen to us in life. But we are responsible for the way we act when they do happen.

Living life has led me to come to a conclusion that sounds rather funny when you hear it for the first time. The conclusion is this: Life is life. By this I mean that life just happens! You clean a kitchen or wash a car to keep them clean. You do not set out to mess up what you have cleaned, but messes happen as life happens. So, you just clean up your messes all over again to be messed up all over again. You enter into a relationship with the intent of making it the best of the kind on the earth, but it doesn’t happen that way, always. You address your problems as best as you can, and hope for better as you grow and learn. Life, indeed, is life! Tires get punctured, dishes get broken, shoes get dirty, keys get lost, one foot of a sock disappears, and things are definitely not what they should be or even seem to be. Life happens! Sometimes humans tend to develop an anxious preoccupation with the situation of their lives, rather than with the condition of their personal lives. It’s a case of taking care of the symptoms rather than taking care of the root causes, for the closer we come to causation, the more capable we become in not only taking care of the symptoms, but uprooting the root causes of our problems. Most often, appropriately addressing the condition/cause will take care of the situation/symptoms.

Along the journey of life, you learn a few things that prevent life from just happening to you. You learn to make life happen instead. At least, sometimes! Maybe five percent of the time? There’s no doubt about it, some things in life just happen to you and you make some things happen. Either way, life is just for living. Don’t allow life to deprive you of having the good life that God planned for you, for at its best, life is like life!

Have You…101 is all about a basic course in life lessons along a pilgrim’s journey. Life delivers. It surely does! Life is sometimes like a university of hard knocks.

Life delivers even things you did not bargain for, and often in unwrapped packages.

Things that you never dreamed you would ever possess. Ever! If you have lived long enough, (to be twelve years or older) you could easily outline a laundry list of things that life has given to you. You did not consciously pay for them.

You did not ask for them, not even on credit until you could pay for them.

You did not go searching for them.

You did not include them on your A, B, or C list of gotta have things.

But here you are they are yours, and maybe for keeps. Maybe! Some of them!

Is that good or bad?

I hope you’ll find out as you unearth the nuggets in this book.

A friend of mine likes to say, We’ve only got one life to live, and if we do it right, once is enough. How true!

On the front cover of this book, I have the letters LLLL following my name. It is not as bad as it sounds. The L’s represent the highest degree of learning that I have ever achieved–earned from the university of life (UOL). Some call it the University Of Hard Knocks. Same difference! Is it true, (according to T.S. Elliot), that Humankind cannot bear much reality? Do we really prefer to pretend that life is a dress rehearsal, and not the real thing? Reality is life and life is reality! So why can’t we just get with it!

Life has matriculated you and me into its university, without our consent.

I have those 4 L’s behind my name for a good reason. You also have those 4 L’s behind your name. It’s just that you might not have known it, or acknowledged them before.

They represent the way I live my life now, especially since life delivered something to me that I did not have on my A, B, or C list, and neither did I have it on my X,Y, or Z list. For that matter, I did not have it on any of my shopping lists at all. I had to pay for it, although I did not order it. And I mean pay!

This ‘thing’ showed up on my big test, and the grade also showed up on my transcript from the UOL signed by Professor Dr. Life. When I awoke from the anesthesia, on April 1 in 2002, (and that was no ‘All Fools Day’ by the way) and the passing of time brought on pain, and I mean real pain, I realized that I was the recipient of a gift (if I can call that a gift, or better yet a test or grade) that I did not ask for, want, or desire to even know or take personally. Can we really learn from the experience of others? I hope so. But not in this case for me. It was a painful gift/test that turned out to be the motivation for the four L’s behind my name. Today, (2011) as of the writing of this book, I am a nine year survivor, and still counting. Praise the Lord! God will not allow anyone or anything in our lives from whom or from which we will not benefit.

The four L’s that decorate my name actually mean: Living Life from Lessons Learned. It is the degree of degrees from a school that is more prestigious than Harvard or Stanford or that prestigious school that you attended. I suspect that most people have such a degree, whether they know it or not. You can bet on it, life delivers! While recuperating from surgery for two months, I had enough time to reflect on the important issues in life. I experienced in this surgery what Morris Massey (the Values Clarification guru) calls a, Significant Emotional Experience (SEE). Without a doubt, I can ‘SEE’ the issues of life a little clearer now than before.

For me, life came down to two questions: who loves me most, and who do I love the most? That’s it! I realized that my religion is no better than my relationship with God and with those whom I live, work, and play with. Coming out of my SEE trauma has left me with a significant refocus and resolve: to out love, our care, out forgive, and out serve, out thank anyone within the sphere of my influence, even if to them loving and caring and forgiving and serving and thanking are not two-way streets!

I have found out since that surgical spring of 2001, I can answer honestly these two questions: Who loves me? And who do I love in heaven above an on earth below? And now, whatever life has to offer, I’m ready for it. Bring it on, I can handle it. Whatever my lot, He has taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul. In the words of a good, old gospel song, Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go… Up the rough side of the mountain and down into the valleys!

I am sure that as you digest the nuggets from these pages, you will be able to rearrange the words of that song for yourself, and sing, like I do now, Any test with Jesus, I can confidently take, I can patiently bear, I can boldly go through, I can definitely handle, I can victoriously overcome… Because you know who loves you, and who you love. Passionately! Vertically first, and then horizontally, the most!

It is out of this context that I am asking you the question in the title of this book,

"Have You…101?" If we are honest with ourselves, really honest, we are all life-long students–permanently matriculated into continuing education–living our lives from the lessons we’ve learned along life’s pilgrimage, and still learning as we travel along. And sometimes really hard lessons they are. Some of the nuggets will confront you with inconvenient truths (IT). But if truth is not sometimes inconvenient, (unsuited to one’s comfort), does not rattle our cages, jolts us from our comfort zones, we will be left to believe that we are doing just fine, when we really are not. God expects us to do more than just drift through life. In IChronicles 28:9, King David gave his son Solomon some principles to guide his life. And did Solomon ever need them!

"And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and

serve Him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind;

For the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive

behind the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you;

But if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.

Consider now, for the Lord has chosen you to build a temple

as a sanctuary. Be strong and do the work."

Here are the principles that David gave to his son Solomon, as recorded in the above passage:

1. Get to know God personally

2. Learn God’s command and discover what He wants you to do

3. Worship God with wholehearted devotion

4. Serve God with a willing mind

5. Be faithful

6. Be strong and don’t be discouraged

-NIV Study Bible, page 659

Aren’t they great principles to live by? As you read this devotional, your soul will sometimes, (most times I hope), resonate with the gotta have its, that I write about. Some of the nuggets, you definitely want to exchange for something better, thus revolutionizing and ‘evolutionizing’ your life for the better.

People who soar are those who refuse to sit back, sigh, and wish things would change. They neither complain of their lot nor passively dream of some distant ship coming in. Rather, they visualize in their minds, that they are not wishers and quitters; they will not allow life’s circumstances to push them down and hold them under. –Swindol

Your context might be different from mine or anyone else’s, but even as iron sharpens iron, so also may you be sharpened, quickened, and enlivened after reading these devotionals. May you be vitalized and energized to have and to hold abundant living, and more, much, much more of what God would have you possess on your pilgrimage from Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained. God promises to be right there with you all the way to graduation day and your commencement into eternity.

"But now, this is what the Lord says,

He who created you, O Jacob,

He who formed you, O Israel:

Fear not, for I have redeemed you

I have redeemed you by name;

You are mine.

When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you.

When you pass through the rivers,

They will not sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire,

You will not be burned;

The flames will not set you ablaze.

For I am the Lord your God."

Is. 43:1-3 (NIV)

There you are! You ordered neither floods nor fires. But have them you do, you will, and you must. Sometime, somewhere, somehow, somebody along the journey of life is going to either share their floods and fires with you, or they will create them for you and stand back to watch you drown or burn. Satan will see to that. One of my favorite preachers (T.D.Jakes) puts it this way, Satan may be in the fires and in the floods, but God controls the thermostat and the meter. Get engaged with life. Why allow life to happen to you. Why not make life happen? Seize the moment and live. In the words of Stephen Covey, Live, learn, love, and leave a legacy. Maybe you can create your own set of L’s while you, like me, live life from lessons learned. Try it. It makes life really interesting.

Each nugget that is offered on the menu in this devotional cafe will be introduced by a nugget from Scripture (Nugget to Stand on), the source of all true wisdom and nutritious nuggets, and also by a quote from lessons learned in the University of Life. Biblically speaking, we live in an age of interpretive chaos, where it seems that each person reserves the right to interpret Scripture the way he/she wants to, giving their own spin to the Word of God. The biblical nuggets (or if you prefer to call them, ‘vignettes’), shared in this book, are not intended to do scriptural interpretation for you, but to interpret life–where the rubber meets the road, as we live life from lessons learned. McDonald’s International has served billions with its famous, McNuggets. Will you permit me to share with you a more nutritious kind of ‘McKNuggets’ from the McKenzie menu as I share with you my lessons learned from living life.

Well now, dear friend, read on, and on, and on…Slowly taste, cogitate, digest each treasured nugget. Most of the nuggets are for keeps, and a few for exchange, all of them for your timely contemplation. Some of them are descriptions. Some of them are diagnostic, while some are prescriptions. Let the taste buds of your soul decide. There is no doubt about it; God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. May He now use ordinary ‘McKnuggets’ to do extraordinary things for your soul?

There is nothing more important that we can do in the morning, than to make our first appointment with God an unchanging priority. If our relationship with God is not a top priority 24/7, we are wasting our time living until tomorrow. Could it be that our souls are being short circuited because we are not taking time for the grounding? One of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as posited by Covey is, First Things First. I interpret that to mean, it must be God, whoever you conceive Him to be, for breakfast, God for lunch and God for supper. Ingest God in your mind first thing in the morning, for Who or what gets your mind, gets you. Always! Huddle with God in the morning and let him call the play for your day, then go out with God and play the call all day long! That’s victory!

Meet God in the morning when your attentional molecules are fresh, alert, sensitive, and most of all, available. A spiritual breakfast is not only a must. It is also life-guiding and life-giving. Don’t leave home without it! For every minute with God makes hours with men more efficient and effective.

Plumb your life with Christ’s, and live life to the full, in rhythm with God. The closer the connection of the Vine and branch, the more magical the experience will be. This kind of living enhances and strengthens vertical and horizontal connectivity–a must for living the life that counts. Enjoy delectable devotional nuggets for your breakfast, lunch and supper. Whenever! O, to taste Him again for the first time! Refreshing! Exhilarating! Thrilling! May your soul experience a renaissance of spiritual verve to behold Him and become like Him. And don’t forget to share or exchange nuggets. It makes them more delectable. It’s like a good bowl of chicken soup for the soul-for yours and for those you care about! And I pray, that as you unearth the nuggets in this book, that it will be a serendipitous experience for you–that you will find surprise treasures you did not set out to find. Treasures, however, that will bless your soul with pleasant surprises beyond measure!

All the nuggets in this book–unearthed from the sanctum of my devotional closet (my heart)–are but conversations with, and not sermons to you my fellow pilgrim. Enjoy! Eat Fresh! Bon appetit! With so much to enjoy, why should your soul be spiritually famished? Enjoy delectable nuggets and be soul rich! Life, just live it!

Nugget 1

HAVE YOU A NUGGET?

Nugget To Stand On

"By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of

Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with

the people of God, rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a

short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of

greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he

was looking ahead to his reward. By faith he left

Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; He

persevered, because he saw Him

Who is invisible.

Hebrews 11:24-27

Nugget To Digest

"In everyone’s life, there is something that

is more important than anything else."

Have You A Nugget?

Have you something that is much treasured? A something that is very dear and near to your very existence? A prized nugget? A small, solid lump, especially of gold? That’s the dictionary’s definition of nugget. I have a gold nugget that I treasure dearly, found while panning for gold with some of my students in northern California many years ago. I also found some of what my tour guide called ‘fool’s’ gold. It looked like gold, but was not the real thing. Thankfully I also found some of the real thing.

But that’s not my most treasured nugget. There is something in my life that is more important than that. While growing up, my parents taught me about the most important thing in life. It is found in the text below. I also taught it to my children, and now it is the key text of our family. It is indeed a nugget to have and to hold, from this day forward.

This nugget is embedded in Hebrews 11:24 – 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

Someone adroitly stated, Moses was a basket case. However, this baby (who cruised the Nile in a basket) grew up to become one of the greatest Jewish leaders ever. He set the Exodus in motion, was a law giver of great renown, and was the writer of the Pentateuch. Did he know that all this greatness was to come? Did he know something then that we do not know about our lives now? Maybe it was the magnification of the contact lenses he was wearing, just maybe. He looked ahead and saw…!

As a young man, Moses had every earthly reason to treasure his special nugget-to be the son of the great Pharaoh’s daughter. That meant instant wealth, instant celebrity status - a guaranteed legacy of luxury for life. But Moses had something different in mind, something that would not pass away with time like all earthly gold nuggets tend to do. The Egypt of Moses’ day was like unto the Paris or Las Vegas of our day-glamour and glitz that would dazzle the stars themselves. There was temptation galore!

It took faith for Moses to give up his place in Pharaoh’s palace, but he could do it because he saw the fleeting and transitory nature of great wealth, popularity, and prestige. Like Moses, we all need and seek security, success and significance, but at what price? Moses was smart enough to grab the telescope of life and peer into the distant future, seeking for a different kind of nugget. He looked beyond the world’s sure-to-perish value system and saw the eternal value system of God’s kingdom. That is the nugget he would not trade for anything else. No nothing! (Pardon the double negative, it makes my point).

A colleague of mine shared with me the following quote from an address George Mueller, (a Christian evangelist and director of orphanages in 19th century England), gave to ministers and workers after his nineteenth birthday:

I was converted in November, 1825, but I only came into full surrender of the heart four years later, in July, 1829. The love of money was gone, the love of position was gone, the love of place was gone, and the love of worldly pleasures and engagements was gone. God alone became my portion. I found my all in Him; I wanted nothing else. And by the grace of God, this has remained, and has made me a happy man, an exceedingly happy man, and it led me to care only about the things of God. I ask affectionately, my beloved brethren, have you fully surrendered the heart to God? Or is there this thing or that thing that you have taken up irrespective of God? God has become unspeakably blessed to me, and I can say from my heart, God is an infinitely lovely Being. Oh, be not satisfied until in your own inmost soul you can say, God is an infinitely lovely Being.

The George Mueller epiphany of experiencing God as an infinitely lovely Being should be a coveted thing. It is an experience that is a Christian imperative. It cannot be bought or sold, inherited, forced or faked. It is a choice like unto the choice that Moses made. Will you choose to make Him your Nugget Extraordinaire?

Thinking It Over

Have I a nugget?

A something so special that I am clinging to it until life leaves my body?

A something that I value so much that I will trade for nothing else, no matter how inviting and enticing that something is?

A nugget that I would rather suffer ridicule for, than to give up?

A something that I know will not tarnish nor vanish with time?

A nugget that I know will live in eternity and I with it?

Like Moses, is the most important nugget in my life, a treasured relationship with Christ, now and into the future–even for an eternity?

Life Lessons Learned

The things of this world only have value as they

relate to the kingdom of God.

You cannot make your life embrace what your heart does not treasure.

Nuggets that have a ‘timed value’ are worthless.

Good Day Lord:

Grant me today the wisdom, the insight and foresight to know

the difference between fool’s’ gold and the real thing–the nugget of a forever friendship with You, and as a bonus, life eternal.

Amen!

Nugget 2

HAVE YOU A SEASON?

Nugget To Stand On

There is a time for everything, and a season

for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time of war and a time of peace.

Ecc. 3:1-4, 8

Nugget To Digest

We have only one life to live,

and if we do it right,

once is enough.

Have You A Season?

Thank God for the seasons–the seasons and the reasons of nature.

But I am not so sure I want to thank Him for the seasons of life. I don’t know about you, but I would like to laminate one season of my life and keep it that way forever. It was the season when I was 40 years old, somewhere between the spring and summer of my life. Strength, vigor, visions, achievements, children, the world before me…what a season! But the seasons of life are not for you and me to control. Ready or not, here they come and go, and come…

The Serenity Prayer, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, has taught me to do just as it says. As seasons come and go I’ll use the lesson from the Serenity Prayer to adjust my life appropriately.

There is a time to be born and a time to die, and everything else will also happen on schedule–a time when we plant and uproot, mourn and dance. I have come to learn in life, that it is not the things that happen that really matter, but my attitude toward those things that really counts.

How do you relate to the truism of this poem?

The Seasons Of Life

There are four seasons in the life of you and me,

Each season with a plan of what we were meant to be.

Take time to observe them and get on the ball,

For the length of each season varies for one and all.

Spring is a time to be born–a time of beginnings,

A time to grow, blossom, and learn to deal with feelings,

A time to explore, pursue goals, a time to even cry,

And for some, there comes a big surprise, a time to die.

Summer is a time to mature, excel, to shine,

To serve humanity with love while there is time.

A time to go steady with God, through joys or sorrows,

Remembering always, there may be no tomorrows.

Fall is a time when deeds and fruits begin to ripen,

When with grace and dignity, the world we begin to brighten.

The gaze must be fixed on God, with a heart full of mirth,

For before long, we’ll all ‘go the way of the earth.’

Winter is a time that can be bitter and cold,

It’s a time when all men grow weak and old,

Get ready, get set, for ready or not here I come,

And pray that the next voice you hear will say, ‘well done.’

Live your life then, for each season and not for the next,

For each season of itself can be very complex,

Live each day to its fullest, never expecting another,

Remembering always to treat each man like a brother.

So teach us, dear Lord, to number our fleeting days,

And help us to be Christ like in all our ways,

For to every man it is appointed by the One up on high,

That there is a time to be born, and a time to die.

©L. Roo McKenzie

Thinking It Over

If today is all I’ve got to spend, how shall I spend it?

Am I trying in my living to change the seasons, or to change me?

Life Lessons Learned

Live today as if you are dying,

so that you may die as if you are living. Eternally!

Good Day Lord

Teach me, O God, to number my days,

So that I may indeed, apply my heart unto wisdom. Amen!

Nugget 3

HAVE YOU THE DEJA VU?

Nugget To Stand On

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am

unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do

not understand what I do. For what I

want to do, I do not do, but what

I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not

want to do, I agree that the law is

good. As it is, it is no longer I myself

who do it, but it is sin living

in me. I know that nothing

good lives in me, that is, my

sinful nature. For I have the

desire to do what is good,

but I cannot carry it out.

For what I do is not the good

I want to do; no the evil

I do not want to do–

this I keep on doing.

Romans 7:14-20

Nugget To Digest

Until you deal with the inside of the cup,

It will always have an outside that you

fear to face, and face with fear.

Have You The Deja vu?

O no, not again! That was my cry as I bumped my head the second time on the same object in my garage. It not only hurt, it was embarrassing. And I have the evidence in a permanent scar on my forehead. Deja vu! The dictionary defines it as, the illusion of having already experienced something actually being experienced for the first time; dull familiarity.

Paul had an acute case of the déjà vu-doing the same thing over and over again–the very thing he did not want to do. I could imagine him hitting himself in the forehead with his palm, exclaiming as he does so, O no, not again, I’m embarrassed. Can you identify with that? Have you ever set out to do something noble and good, only to end up doing the very thing you planned not to do? Welcome to the human experience. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, it has been one continuous case of deja vu for every human being who opens the womb, For we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory,(Rom. 3:23) over and over, and over, and over again! And it is embarrassing. Isn’t it? The devil made you do it? Have you ever felt that you are not making any progress with your good intentions, that you are taking one step forward and three backward?

Having an acute case