The Window

            One of the Seven Deadly Sins is lust. A friend emailed me the following story the other day, which I think illustrates some of the negative side effects of lust:

            A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning, while she and her husband are eating breakfast, the young woman observes her neighbor hanging the wash outside on a clothesline.

            “That laundry is not very clean,” she said. 
”She doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.”



            Her husband looked on, but remained silent. Every day when her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments. 



            One month later, the wife was surprised to see the wash that hung on the line nice and clean. She said to her husband, “Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her.”

            
The husband said, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”



            So it is with life. What we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look! 



            I would add that when one views the world through lustful eyes, he will see impurity in a lot of places where it is not present. The problem is the lens of his eyes are unclean.

            

Shop-keep Rivalry

            Envy is a bitter vice. Thomas Lindberg writes of the legend of the two shopkeepers. They were bitter rivals, and their stores were directly across the street from each other.

            Envious, one of the other, they would each day track the other's business. If a customer made a purchase in one store, the proprietor would smile in triumph at his rival.

            The feud ran so deep, that one night, when one shopkeeper had an angel appear to him, the shopkeeper responded in an unimaginable way. The angel told the shopkeeper, "I will give you anything you ask, but whatever you receive, your competitor will receive twice as much. Would you be rich? You can be very rich, but he will be twice as wealthy. Do you wish to live a long and healthy life? You can, but his life will be longer and healthier. What is your desire?"

            The shopkeeper, thought for a moment, and then said, "Here is my request: Strike me blind in one eye!"

“A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot” (Prov. 14:30.)

            

So Much To Do

            A preponderance of stories exists about Winston Churchill’s encounter with a group of ladies from the Temperance Movement. World War II had recently ended, and the women were clearly agitated about reports of his drinking.

            One version has the movement’s spokeswoman admonishing Churchill, “Mr. Prime Minister, we are advised that if all the brandy you had drunk during the war were poured into this room, it would come up to here?”

            The woman then held her hand at a point about halfway to the ceiling.

            The Prime Minister looked at her hand, then at the floor, then at the ceiling, and finally at her. “My dear lady,” he said, “so little have we done; so much have we yet to do.”

            I don’t know how strategic it is to join a temperance movement, but the thought of temperance is a healthy one. Take eating, for example. Eat too much, and we are guilty of gluttony. Eat too little, and we risk harming our bodies through self-starvation.

How do you Trace Your Family History?

            We live in such a cynical age.

            This was from the advice columnist “Dear Abby” several years ago:

            Dear Abby,

            I have always wanted to have my family history traced, but I can't afford to spend a lot of money to do it. Any suggestions?

            Sam

            Dear Sam,

            Yes. Run for public office.

Jimmy Kimmel “high-five’s” the President

             I am not a fan of Jimmy Kimmel. However, I do appreciate something that he said last week at the National Correspondence Dinner in Washington DC.

            Actually, it was at the close of what was basically his standup act. Having entertained and skewered politicians of both parties, and having joked to and about the president of the United States, Kimmel ended his monologue by saying, “I [also] want to think Mr. Mills, my high school tenth grade history teacher, who said I would never amount to anything if I kept [messing] around in class. Mr. Mills, I am about to high-five the President of the United States.” After Kimmel did indeed high-fived the President of the United States, he told the audience--and I am paraphrasing here--, “Take that Mr. Mills.”

            Good for Jimmy Kimmel. He does demonstrate the fact that all of us had better be careful as we watch young people file through our midst.

            I have the privilege of teaching high school seniors at a Christian academy. I teach them Bible. Today's “screw ups” may be tomorrow's bosses.

            For several years I taught freshman Bible a Christian university. Some of those classes had close to a 100 students. Enough time has passed for me to see a few of those freshmen, who seemed destined for failure, turn into successes.

            I have enormous respect for Kimmel, who has taken his disruptive and anti-educational behavior and turned it into an art form. Indeed, he does this so well that the national correspondents believed he would be the ideal entertainment for their annual dinner in which the President of the United States is the guest of honor.

The Day American Told the Truth about $ Ten Million

            Back in 1991, James Patterson and Peter Kim published a book entitled The Day America Told the Truth. In a scientific poll of American citizens, one question they asked was, “What are you willing to do for $10,000,000?” Here was the response:

Would abandon their entire family (25%)

Would abandon their church (25%)

Would become prostitutes for a week or more (23%)

Would give up their American citizenship (16%)

Would leave their spouses (16%)

Would withhold testimony and let a murderer go free (10%)

Would kill a stranger (7%)

Would put their children up for adoption (3%) 

“I am here to Fight, not to Run”

           Courage is a constant admonition of scripture. Thinking about that, I am reminded of the Athenian soldier, who was lame in one foot. The other soldiers laughed at him until he told them, “I am here to fight, not to run.”