Taming Tribulation Podcast

By George Matthew Adams

Every thought you think either builds or tears down.

Positive thought builds, negative thoughts tear down. Here is a positive thought for you — just for today —"I am not afraid!"

Fear for the things that never happen has kept this great big world asleep, and groggy, and trembling fully half the time.

Say this — right now — "I am not afraid!"

Life is a thing of problems — little ones, big ones, funny ones, strange ones, mysterious ones.

But all of them may be solved aright if you will but say, as you look each one squarely in the face: "I am not afraid!"

No harm can possibly come to you so long as you feel that you are not afraid - so long as you can say: "I am not afraid!"

Jesus once said something like this: "Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away." For two thousand years the words and works of this Man have lived. Jesus knew how to say: "I am not afraid!"

So you say this today: "I am not afraid!"

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By George Matthew Adams

Are you ever thrilled by some fine thought in a book or newspaper, or from some speaker?

Haven't you felt like going right to the author and telling him how much you appreciated the thrill?

Well, you just do it.

The man never lived who did not appreciate appreciation. No man ever gets so great or famous that he does not long for this very thing.

If you read a book or article anywhere that helps you, or that makes you happy, tell it to the author. If you do not know his address, write to the publisher of the book or magazine or newspaper and he will gladly forward your appreciation.

I sat talking in the study of a very famous writer and he said: "Just listen to this wonderful gem." As he read it to me, I thought to myself, how wonderful if the author could but hear and know.

The story is told of Richard Harding Davis that he had a habit of writing, or even of wiring, an author whose story or book he especially liked.

There is not a writer or publisher in the land who does not welcome, with a wide open heart, every expression of appreciation from his readers. It's this that keeps him going.

If anybody or anything helps you, tell it — far and wide. Give it the wings of a dove, or of an eagle. But tell it.

And "after many days" (maybe just a few) renewed knowledge and happiness is sure to come back to you.

https://linktr.ee/questorpods

By George Matthew Adams

"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,

The eternal years of God are hers;

But Error, wounded, writhes with pain, And dies among his worshippers."

William Cullen Bryant

I learned these lines when but a boy. They made a great impression on me. They have inspired me a thousand times. They have taught me that only one thing is permanent — the thing that is right and good.

There is always one consolation, even in utter failure, to a man of spirit, and that is that such a failure is but temporary. The lower such a man is thrown into failure, the higher he may aspire to climb.

And the longer one trains and prepares, the mightier is one's strength.

My friend, do they tell you that you are "down and out"? Prove to them that you may be down — but out — never!

Rise again, over the dead past, with your mistakes as the ladder-rounds upon which you climb to a higher goal. Honest effort is eternal.

At the very moment you feel tempted to quit— don't. For that is the point at which you should determinedly decide to begin again. Rise again, my friend, rise again.

A great spirit never can be beaten. Many an iron soul has been broken, only to be molded anew into something greater and stronger than before.

Suppose you are "kicked down." Smile! Then — rise again!

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By George Matthew Adams

He is kind and gentle. Truth plays within his yard during the hours of sun and light, and comes at nightfall to add laughter to the sound of voices that interchange in tales of work and thinking.

Being just, he is strong. Being human, he is sometimes weak. But he is always a master!

That is why folks of all sorts hunt out his house and like to come and spend hours underneath his roof.

Observant, keen, full of ripe intelligence, his knowledge is that of the world much more than that of books. So that his ideas and reflections are always such that the simplest minded may easily understand, and grow in richness therefrom.

Often, of an evening in winter, have I seen, with my mind's eye, this master, sitting quietly beside his hospitable fire amongst those whom he loves. And in the dusk of summer have I seen him play with happy children along the singing creek, just a little back of his home.

For the master of the house is a father, brother, boy — friend! So all may look to him in love, happiness or sorrow. For interwoven within his experience are all the elements that go to make up a man.

The master of the house, whom I have in mind is he whom you may be. The house is the body where you live.

https://linktr.ee/questorpods

By George Matthew Adams

Under the glass of my work desk is a little phrase that has helped me not to mind, when things looked dark and people misjudged and mis-understood, or when some have proved disloyal.

Here it is: "The dog barks, but the caravan passes on." After all, there is a world of sense and philosophy to be gained from animate things that "move and have their being" but which do not talk.

Horse sense? Well, dog sense is pretty helpful, too.

Have you never seen a great dog meander its way through a street, followed by a troop of small dogs, barking and snapping at the big dog? Such an incident has given me many a thought and many a smile. For the big fellow just walks on - and doesn't mind. And soon the little snappers drop away.

Never mind!

There is one big principle that counts in the formation of character and a life success, and that is to stick to the "main chance." To swerve neither to the right nor to the left, but to do the things at hand that bear upon the greater things to be — and then to pass on.

Mind not the little daily irritations. They come to us all. "The dog barks, but the caravan passes on."

Gossip is poisonous? Oh, yes — very. But it poisons the other fellow infinitely more than it poisons you. And besides, you are able to be so big that the poison is soon thrown off, and forgotten.

"The dog barks, but the caravan passes on."

https://linktr.ee/questorpods

By George Matthew Adams

The face that you carry everywhere with you is the only one you will ever get. But it is possible for you to give it a lot of change.

Your face is a sort of publicity agent for you. It tells people a great deal that you do not imagine it tells. Also it publishes volumes of things you are glad to have known.

Your face is the most important "ware" that you exhibit. Usually you pass for your "face value."

So do you see how important it is not to spoil your face?

Here are some of the things that rebuild faces. First, smiling at every stage of your day makes a wonderful face. It can never be spoiled by smiles. So learn the art of smiling.

Believe in better things. A face grows in beauty and power under the working of a mind that sees the good in everything. Change not your expression in the front of defeat; look for victory and you are sure to see it.

Worry not. More faces are lined and creased and folded up through worry than any other thing. Worry is a worse disease than the small pox and leaves deeper scars.

You are no older than your face. Clean thoughts and purposes made plain, stamp a rainbow of youth and promise across the planes of your face that nothing can erase - least of all, mere years.

It's a good thing to believe in your face.

And if you do, it's not liable to spoil.

https://linktr.ee/questorpods

By George Matthew Adams

Owen Wister, in his novel "The Virgin-ian," tells of how every man carries around within his heart a baby!

We really never "grow up." Age is simply relative, anyway. And since reading that wonderful truth, I have come to the feeling that none of us, after all, may be cheated of greatness and happiness — save only by being childless in heart.

For it's the baby in his heart that drives a man to work and service in the world, and that leads him on — hardly knowing how or why.

It's the baby in your heart who is ever trusting, believing and, in openness, taking to the simple, natural ways — the baby that is so easily hurt, so quickly made happy, so ready to forget injury.

But the baby, nevertheless, always is wanting to be loved, always seeking encourage-ment, always inspired by kindly correction.

However, since there are babies and babies — what kind of baby are you carrying around in your heart? Are you bringing it up in the way that it should go (you being so much wiser)? Are you imitating its life of laughter and play?

Millions of lives sleep today in silent places — that the baby in the hearts of men might never be crushed out.

Great aspiration is not a thing to be brought about through might - but through right.

And it's the baby that is the rightest of all!

https://linktr.ee/questorpods

By George Matthew Adams

There is an infinite tenderness about an unseen form in the world that compels us to be led — whether we wish or not.

As a child, we enter into this following of leadership - because we do not know. And yet, even in our blind following, there is that beauty of rightness, that inexorable fierceness of unknown knowledge, that compels us to follow.

And then, as life steps on a little more, our development causes veil after veil to be taken from our eyes. We still feel that we must follow, not knowing, yet surer than ever that there is in that Unseen Leadership something great and definite.

And so, while we stumble here and there, and rebel -sometimes resisting and often, in a sort of despairing bitterness, asking that we be freed from this leadership that so ties us to our fate — still there ever lurks within us that almost unconscious consciousness that we must not stray too far.

Through childhood and youth and far into manhood, we are led. For our Inflexible Guide has a will and a directness so superior to our thinking, that we could not resist if we would!

So to that Unseen Form who knows so much of pain, so much of tears, so much of joy, so much of - All, we unconditionally surrender.

For that which leads is — Love! And only those who know it, are able to step apace.

https://linktr.ee/questorpods

By George Matthew Adams

Nearly a century ago, in a rural cabin in southern Indiana, a mother lay dying. She knew that her last hour was at hand and asked for her ten-year-old boy. She pressed him close to her and whispered: "Be somebody, Abe!"

The mother was Nancy Hanks. And the boy did become somebody. For he was Abraham Lincoln and he became not only President of the United States but, eventually, one of the most deeply loved figures in all history.

Throughout the years of struggle, and later when honors came fast to him, Lincoln often remarked that those last words of his "angel mother" came to lead him on.

It matters very little who you are or what you do, so long as you decide to be somebody and carry through your determination with honor.

The main thing is to be somebody.

"The world will little note nor long remember what we say here," said this immortal Lincoln at Gettysburg, "but it can never forget what they DID here."

What we say is easily forgotten. But what we do remains as a monument to what we were.

Just do something worth while.

Just be somebody.

https://linktr.ee/questorpods

By George Matthew Adams

First, it's very individual, this Me of mine. It eats, it walks, it plays, it works, and it sleeps. Also it plans and thinks and dreams and loves.

This Me of mine gets lonely, too, even in the midst of work. It looks around itself and marvels at time and space and things. And grows into a warm ecstatic mood at the feel of life and all its tasks.

I like this Me of mine, because it is understandable. Good and bad both — but honestly abreast, for true things are passing by at every hour of every day.

I talk to this Me of mine. And it talks to me. And the world of action all around stirs the blood in this Me of mine. For it is wakeful and alert.

I run errands for this Me of mine. I risk, I work, I sorrow, I sympathize with this Me of mine.

This inside one, this outside one, this everywhere one — this Me of mine — it's all that I may keep and call my own. But I shall stick, with loyal pride, and gladly strive to better make, to stronger wield - the brain, the heart, and the soul of this Me of mine.

So that to serve may prove the end of all that there is to this Me of mine.

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