Lessons for Living

Olympics: Any Lessons So Far?

That’s Life

Michael Phelps held his arms aloft on Sunday after surpassing Mark Spitz as the most successful swimmer and Olympian of all time, relief written on his face after he won an unprecedented eighth gold at one Games.

[…]

Phelps hugged his team mates after a world record-breaking 4×100 meters medley relay win, a relatively comfortable race compared to two finger-tip finishes in Beijing.

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Constantina Tomescu had time to relax and wave as she entered the Bird’s Nest stadium to claim a surprise win in the women’s marathon that began in Tiananmen Square.

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The furious chief of Greece’s Olympic Committee told Reuters the “golden girl” of the Athens Games should have stayed home instead of dragging the country’s name through the mud.

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The U.S. team got some cheer when the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, put their tennis singles disappointment behind them to pick up a second consecutive gold in the doubles.

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After firing at the wrong target in Athens, a nervous Emmons this time squandered a huge 3.3-point lead on his final shot when he pulled the trigger by mistake while lining up, to register a mere 4.4 after scores mostly above 10 before that.

Those paragraphs have elements that so clearly show what life is.

And what Christianity is.

  • Even the strong fail.
  • Only the overcomers are rewarded.
  • Get up and try again.
  • We’re in this together.
  • It’s not just about you.
  • The little things can make a huge difference.

There are more, of course, but I have to move to other things, of course.

Tonight is our monthly Hymn Sing at church. I’m supposed to have a brief devotional. I think I’ll talk a little about some of these Olympians. And the life lessons for the Christian.

Like this one:

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.

And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:

But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (King James Version)

Nukes for Radicals?

Brace yourself: Pakistan’s Musharraf said ready to quit

Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf is ready to resign rather than face impeachment but is seeking immunity from prosecution and agreement on a safe place to live, coalition government officials said on Friday.

Speculation has been mounting that the former army chief Musharraf and firm U.S. ally would quit since the ruling coalition, led by the party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, said last week it planned to impeach him.

A spokesman for the president has repeatedly denied media reports that he was about to quit, and he did so again on Friday, saying “baseless and malicious rumors” about the president’s plan to resign were damaging the economy.

“They” have said for the last several years (or longer) that if Musharraf goes, Pakistan will likely become a radical Muslim nation. And it already has nukes.

Maybe “they” will be wrong.

Either way, enjoy today. And make today enjoyable for others.

Oh, and where is this verse fragment found?

“I will trust and not be afraid.”

Welcome to Today!

Putin

Oooops! 😯 Maybe that’s not such a good photo to go with the title!

Here, this next one is better:

Apply our hearts to wisdom

Today is our daughter Dora’s twentieth birthday. So I made the above wallpaper with her in mind because of this transition from her teens to her twenties. Of course, it’s a good verse for all of us.

Now…two news items to start out your day….

Happiness is key to longer life

“Happiness does not heal, but happiness protects against falling ill” says Ruut Veenhoven of Rotterdam’s Erasmus University in a study to be published next month.

After reviewing 30 studies carried out worldwide over periods ranging from one to 60 years, the Dutch professor said the effects of happiness on longevity were “comparable to that of smoking or not”.

That special flair for feeling good, he said, could lengthen life by between 7.5 and 10 years.

The finding brings a vital new piece to a puzzle currently being assembled by researchers worldwide on just what makes us happy — and on the related question of why people blessed with material wealth in developed nations no longer seem satisfied with their lives.

And this less happy story:

Russia vs Georgia

A fragile cease-fire appeared even more shaky as Russia’s foreign minister declared that the world “can forget about any talk about Georgia’s territorial integrity.”

The declaration from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov came simultaneously with the announcement that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was meeting in the Kremlin with the leaders of Georgia’s two separatist provinces.

“One can forget about any talk about Georgia’s territorial integrity because, I believe, it is impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree with the logic that they can be forced back into the Georgian state,” Lavrov told reporters.

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Russian troops also appeared to be settling in elsewhere in Georgia.

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The scene underlined how closely the soldiers Russia calls peacekeepers are allied with its military.

I said two news items, but here’s a third one to end on a more positive note:

Anything into oil

“Working with the USDA we’ve identified enough waste material around the country, we truly believe we can make the United States totally energy independent of foreign countries in about five years,” he said.

WND originally reported on the project in March as Bell, an agricultural researcher, confirmed he’d isolated and modified specific bacteria that will, on a very large scale, naturally and rapidly convert plant material – including the leftovers from food – into hydrocarbons to fuel cars and trucks.

That means trash like corn stalks and corn cobs – even the grass clippings from suburban lawns – can be turned into oil and gasoline to run trucks, buses and cars.

Make it a good day today!

Peace

Last week I indicated I’d post a bit on this subject. So . . . .

Peace — three definitions from Dictionary.com:

3. a state of mutual harmony between people or groups, esp. in personal relations: Try to live in peace with your neighbors.

6. freedom of the mind from annoyance, distraction, anxiety, an obsession, etc.; tranquillity; serenity.

7. a state of tranquillity or serenity: May he rest in peace.

All three of those sound so…peaceful:

  • a state of mutual harmony
  • freedom of the mind
  • a state of tranquillity

Alas, the sample sentence for Number Seven could suggest that we only find such peace in death. 😯

How do we attain inner peace as well as peace in relationships?

Jesus “made peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20).

The wisdom from above “is first pure, then peaceable” (James 3:17).

Peacemaking in the church is an effort to rejoin that which has been severed. Thus peacemaking isn’t merely patching up our differences and settling our disagreements. Peacemaking is restoring our union.

To be at peace with God isn’t something so trite as “being on God’s good side.” To be at peace with God is to be one with Him! That doesn’t come through clearly in our English term peace as it surely did in their Greek term eirene. In hearing that word they may well have naturally thought of eiro, which is a verb — “to join.” From that it seems rational to conclude that peace results from and is the condition of being joined.

Peace be with you. Amen.

Good News…

…followed by bad.

Potential Leukemia Breakthrough

Australian scientists said Monday they had mapped a blood cell structure which could hold the key to improved drug treatments for diseases such as leukaemia, asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.

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“We hope that this discovery will lead to targeted therapies, more specific to the malfunctioning cells seen in diseases such as leukaemia.”

Lesbian, Atheist, Muslim to “Attempt” Christian Life

A new television program being broadcast this month follows a group of 13 non-Christian volunteers, who, on camera, attempt to “live by the teachings of the Bible for three weeks.”

“Make Me a Christian,” broadcast in a three-part series, asks the participants to be mentored by four pastors from a variety of backgrounds – Anglican, Catholic, Evangelical, and Pentecostal – as they attempt to live like Christians, an effort that runs in stark contrast to many of the participants’ backgrounds.

The 13 volunteers who will make the effort include a tattooed militant atheist biker, a man who converted from Christianity to Islam, a lesbian schoolteacher, a lap-dancing witch with a lust for expensive shoes, a middle-class yuppie couple that can’t find time to spend with their children and a party animal who claims he’s slept with over 150 women.

Whether people can be made into Christians by a three-week crash course in discipleship, however, remains a matter of debate.

[…]

The show’s website concludes with the teaser line, “All this is just the start of their three hard weeks. Can they embrace Christian ideals and learn to live in a different way or will their old lives prove just too strong to resist?”

You cannot live the Christian life without Jesus.

There is no Christian life without Christ. Not in real life. And certainly not in for-TV life.

Help Us

As a Russian jet bombed fields around his village, Djimali Avago, a Georgian farmer, asked me: “Why won’t America and Nato help us? If they won’t help us now, why did we help them in Iraq?”

A similar sense of betrayal coursed through the conversations of many Georgians here yesterday as their troops retreated under shellfire and the Russian Army pressed forward to take full control of South Ossetia.

Note to other countries: Who will go to war against Russia for you? 😯

US-Russian Tensions “Worsen”

Dozens of Russian warplanes staged air raids in Georgia on Monday, officials said, but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States of trying to undermine Russia’s mounting military offensive.

[…]

Russia and Georgia pursued their attacks as diplomatic tensions worsened. US President George W. Bush, Georgia’s biggest western ally, said he had told Russia’s influential prime minister that its bombing of Georgia was “unacceptable.”

Putin responded by accusing the US of trying to disrupt the Russian military operation by transporting Georgian troops from Iraq into the “conflict zone.”

“I regret that some of our partners are not helping us but in fact are trying to impede us,” Putin said directly referring to the US flights of Georgian troops.

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The UN refugee agency said up to 80 percent of Gori’s population of 50,000 have fled the city because of Russian attacks.

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Russia, which has already moved battleships to the Black Sea and said it has sunk a Georgian navy vessel, is preparing to deploy 9,000 troops to bolster its forces inside a second separatist Georgian region, Abkhazia, a military spokesman was quoted as saying by Interfax.

It will send more than 350 armoured vehicles to add to what is officially a Russian peacekeeping force in the breakaway region, the spokesman said.

“What is officially a Russian peacekeeping force” highlights a concept I’ve found difficult to grasp for years. Look at Russia’s track record through fairly recent history and who wouldn’t consider their “friendly” military presence anywhere without at least some trepidation?

PS to Putin: So some of your partners aren’t helping you? Well, what’s the US to do when it’s also partners with your adversary? Ah, the strange world of geopolitics. And of plain ole politics. 🙄

Well, may the good news from Australia result in new and effective cures for leukemia. Amen.

Above all, love God!