Guidelines For Living Devotional

Annoyed by the fact that his company had to be closed for Christmas and Easter, a certain man who was an atheist was complaining that Christians seem to have all the holidays. He mentioned Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Good Friday and All Saints Day, adding, “We who are atheists have no holidays at all.” “Oh, yes you do,” rebutted a friend, “April Fool’s Day.”

There is a difference between expressing thanks for something and being genuinely grateful for it. For example, let's suppose you are a craftsman and you agree to do a certain amount of work for so much money, and you fulfill your obligation. The work is done within the prescribed period of time and you do it well. When you fulfill your contract you are paid. Common courtesy demands that you respond, saying, "Thank you!" as you pick up the check in the brown manila envelope and take your tools home.

The air was hot and heavy as the temperature and the humidity hovered around the 100° mark. A young politician, longer on rhetoric than good sense, droned on and on, wiping beads of perspiration from his forehead as he jabbed the air with his handkerchief to accent his point.

Amy Carmichael, a missionary leader in India, said that her mission--the Dohnavur Fellowship--had a rule for conversation: "The absent one must be safe among us." That was her way of reminding people that to talk about another person in a derogatory or degrading way in their absence when we would never say the same thing in their presence takes unfair advantage of the person. "The absent one must be safe among us..."

You never know what to expect when a child opens his mouth! He may embarrass you; he may amuse you; or he may say something that reveals wisdom beyond his years.

How far will an individual go just to get someone to listen? Take for example the man who robbed a bank near our office. He had no sooner asked for the money, which was placed in a brown paper bag, then he sat down on the floor and started to cry; and he kept on crying until the police arrived. You see, he has two children who needed physical help, and he was willing to go to prison for someone to hear his furtive cry for help.

"Dear Dr. Sala," writes a listener, "I'm 26 years of age, and at this point in my life, I have such an empty feeling. I'm a member of a Baptist Church (which I haven't been to for at least a month). I'm trying to reach for something but I don't know what!! I'm spiritually weak. Is there a time in our lives when we become stumped--you don't know which way to go? If you are able to answer these questions, please reply."

When he went to war in 1941, his brother told him, "Be strong!"  And for 30 years, Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier, was strong!  He refused to quit fighting. Even when the war was over, he kept on hiding, running, sabotaging the enemy, striving to be as strong as was humanly possible.

Frank Mihalic tells of a man with a deeply infected tropical ulcer who, hobbling on crutches, came to the local clinic asking for help. A nursing sister looked at the open wound, infected and enlarged with redness that reflected poison that could take his leg, or possibly his life. What should she do? Medicines were sparse but she also knew that his condition was serious.

After I had spoken in a church, I was standing at the door talking with people when a guest approached me.  "I suppose you are one of those people who believe God sends people to hell!" the person somewhat sarcastically directed to me.  "No," I said somewhat matter-of-factly, "I don't believe God sends people to hell at all," pausing for this to register and then added, "I think we send ourselves there when we refuse the life God offers us, the One who sent His son to save us from such a place."