Proverbs and sayings: May 2012

20120519

Time

Guard your mornings - and your evenings too

Thankfulness

Be thankful for what you have
You may soon have less

Grace and sin

As kind and gracious as God may be
We can still commit sin, so easily.

Things to remember

Remember your duty; Remember your call.
Remember the judgement; remember it all.

Fasting again

You cannot fast if you lack self-discipline
Fasting helps self-discipline

You live and learn ... well, you live anyway.

(I've been saying this for years and was quite prepared to believe that I'd thought it up myself. Checking it on Google, though, I find some references to the phrase or similar so either I picked it up from elsewhere without realising or great minds think alike)

20120517

Prayer and theology

The elements of true prayer
Match the elements of true theology

Self-centredness

Self-centredness is probably more deep rooted in most of us than we realise

Outward and inward

In this life, often it's true,
Our outward and inward lives do not match up.
It's only up in heaven,
When the inward life will rule, we'll finally catch up.

Mundane focus

It is staggering to think of the extent to which our lives
focus on men and what they think
rather than on God and what he thinks.

Observation by Joni Mitchell

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone (as in her song Big Yellow Taxi)

20120515

Greed and need

Don't be greedy and don't forget the needy

The poor

There should be no poor
There could be no poor
There would be no poor
If not for sin in this world.
But while it remains there will be people who are poor.

Responsibility

If you fail with a little responsibility, you will probably fail with much.

Ten minutes

It's amazing what can be achieved in 10 minutes well spent.

A retreat

Never fail to reckon with the restorative power of a brief retreat

20120514

Repetition

It is a mistake to underestimate the power of repetition

Repetition Repetition Repetition

It is a mistake to underestimate the power of repetition

Babies

Babies - an endless source of fascination

The delight we have in babies is, maybe, akin

To God's delight in us.

When other men laugh

When other men laugh at what you hold dear
It fills you with wrath and dreadful fear.

To do - Prayer

How come prayer is always bottom of the "to do" list?

Reading and Prayer

Reading is feeding
And prayer is air.
Miss one you're bleeding,
Miss both, you're in a snare.

20120512

Back up

It always gets my back up
That I don't get your back up
(But you do!)

20120510

A difficult chair

I have a chair that's difficult.
Difficult - why difficult?
It's wooden - not soft but rather hard,
Not an easy chair at all.

Wisdom

True wisdom is to discover how little you know

Bible Knowledge

None of us know the Bible enough

Fear

Fear can so grip a person that mere words will not calm them.

Ministry Visiting

If you can at least visit one person a week may be you'll get somewhere

Crisis

When there is a crisis to be dealt with
One comes bounding out of bed.
Every day is a crisis.

The Book of Genesis

Ignorance of the Book of Genesis
Is worse than ignorance of your own family history.
Not to get to know its teaching
Is like tying both hands behind your back.

Tidiness

Tidiness saves time and is more efficient
But requires constant effort

20120507

Hymnody

Our English hymnody forms a rich heritage and store

One we can easily and usefully explore

One we'd be mad to ignore.

Before and after worship

What to do immediately before or after corporate worship
It is not easy to know.
It is worth giving thought to, nevertheless.

The means of grace

When we feel dead in making use of the means of grace*
That is the very time when we should especially seek to make use of them.

* ie prayer, Bible reading, the Lord's Supper, etc