Billy Graham: A Quote for Mothers

Too many women have too much leisure time for their own good. They have time for criticism, gossip, faultfinding, and complaining. They have time for idle games and lay too much attention to things of the flesh. There are other women who have too little time for the enduring things of life. They are too busy flitting about doing this and that. They have great activity and much doing, but they lack time for building Christian characters.  Both kinds of women — the too-idle and the too-busy need to take time for meditation and quiet repose in prayer to God. They need time to cultivate their souls that in turn they may cultivate their children’s lives.

~ Billy Graham

Quote Collection

Thanks for this quote, Dori:

…read this quote I found in my Bible. It is from Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest on February 8:

“The resounding evidence of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life is the unmistakable family likeness to Jesus Christ, and the freedom from everything which is not like Him.”

 

Thomas Jefferson Quote

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
  – Thomas Jefferson

Interesting thought.  What are yours regarding this quote?  How does it relate to spiritual freedom.  Are their inconveniences to liberty that cause us to stay in legalistic tendancies?  What are they?

Weighing Bill Gate’s Thoughts On Sunday

Today on iGoogle, this was one of the quotes: 

Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.
  – Bill Gates

At first, there is the smile toward a hard-working ga-zillionairre.  “Ah-ha!  He just WORKS harder than we do.  HE is EFFICIENT!” 

I have a great respect for efficiency.  Things in my kitchen cabinets have been re-organized over and over again through themselves toward greater efficiency.  I time myself with a cup of tea heating in the microwave set for 1 minute 25 seconds to see if I can unload and reload the dishwasher in that amount of time.   Many days, for a cup of tea, all my dishes are cleaned and I have a treat in the process. 

If my husband comes home for the day and I still have not unloaded the dishwasher, I strive to unload it from the time he pulls in the garage until he plants a typical kiss on my expectant lips.  There’s a great reward!

On the tails of efficiency and productivity comes this thought, “God longs to give us rest, but we would have none of it.” (Hebrews).   Hard work does increase productivity, as does efficiency.  But there is a limit.  True success is measured by hard work balanced with true soul rest, not just recreational activities of the rich and famous.

I turned toward some men and woman I consider “great” and “balanced” in their approach to life, whether rich or poor.  I don’t know Bill Gates.  He may be perfectly rested, balanced, at peace, and content.  I’m just using his quote as a jumping board for thought to challenge myself to grow.

~~~~~~~~~ 

The greatest thing anyone can do for God and man is pray.  It is not the only thing; but it is the chief thing.  The great people of the earth today are the people who pray.  I do not mean those who talk about prayer; nor those who say they believe in prayer; nor yet those who can explain about prayer; but I mean those people who take time to pray.
     ~ S.D. Gordon
~~~~~~~~ 

Too many women have too much leisure time for their own good.  They have time for criticism, gossip, faultfinding, and complaining.  They have time for idle games and lay too much attention to things of the flesh.  There are other women who have too little time for the enduring things of life.  They are too busy flitting about doing this and that.  They have great activity and much doing, but they lack time for building Christian characters.  Both kinds of women — the too-idle and the too-busy need to take time for meditation and quiet repose in prayer to God.  They need time to cultivate their souls that in turn they may cultivate their children’s lives.
     ~ Billy Graham
~~~~~~~~ 

An unschooled man who knows how to meditate upon the Lord has learned far more than the man with the highest education who does not know how to meditate.
     ~ Charles Stanley
~~~~~~~~ 

Work, work, from morning until late at night.  In fact, I have so much to do that I shall have to spend the first three hours in prayer.
     ~ Martin Luther
~~~~~~~~ 

I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord.  The first thing to be concerned about was not how I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man may be nourished….  I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation of it.
     ~ George Mueller of Bristol

Easter Quote of the Week

 I didn’t do Thursday Thoughts this week because, well, I wasn’t in the mood. 

Now, I am.  I found one worthy of backing up.

This from Beth Moore on the LPM blog:

God cannot – will not – leave well enough alone. His business is life and life at its liveliest. Loveliest. May He roll away every last thing that is stifling His effervescence in us. He never promised that life here would always be fun but He mighty well promised that life here could always be full. Every single ounce of power expended on the Cross is yours in Jesus’ Name. Ask Him what that means. How you draw from it. 

Amen!

(Read entire post…)

Thursday Thoughts–Join In!

Okay, it IS Thursday, despite the weight of my last post.  I promised to get this meme started.  We’ll give it a roll. 

Just put your inspiring quote on your site, copy your post address (as opposed to your blog address) in a comment here along with your subject.  Your comment should look like this:

Topic of Your Quote:

Link of Your Post, like this: 

http://5purposedriven.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/thursday-thoughts-home-of-the-meme/ 

Hint: To get your POST link, all you have to do is RIGHT click on the title of your published post (it will be underlined) and select “copy shortcut”.  Come here to the comments on this post, RIGHT click again (PC users; mac users will need to use their edit menu), and click “paste”. 

No problem!  You can do it.  I’ll keep teaching you, don’t sweat it. 

I’ll post my quote on this post later today or tomorrow, hopefully.  I could use some great quotes this week, so I look forward to yours mainly!  Keep them coming through the weekend, fine by me.

From iGoogle today:

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, “Where have I gone wrong?”

Then a voice says to me, “This is going to take more than one night.”
  – Charles M. Schulz

A quotation, like a pun, should come unsought, and then be welcomed only for some propriety of felicity justifying the intrusion.
  – Robert Chapman

Maggie:  Okay, so I’m seeking the quotes, and think that the felicity (happiness) justifies the “intrusion”!

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
  – Pablo Picasso

I’m Starting a Meme…I WANT your quotes, book reviews, chapter reviews…

 JOIN ME ON THURSDAY’S FOR “Thursday Thoughts”…

It’s easy if you’ve never done a meme!

Each Thursday…

1.  Find a great quote, book, or chapter review.  

2.  Post it on your blog in a post. 

3.  Tell me the topic of your post on my Thursday Thoughts post each week.

4.  Visit-eth one another’s Thursday Thought’s linkage in the comments.  

5.  Comment-eth on one another’s posts!!! 

If you like the “extras”:   Use this button-picture on your post.  Link back to me if you want.  

MY FIRST “THURSDAY THOUGHTS” QUOTE !!! {drumroll, cymbal smash}

    The master in the ART of living makes little distinction between his work and his PLAY, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion.He hardly knows which is which.

He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is WORKING or PLAYING.

To him he’s always doing both.  (James Michener)

This amazing quote opens a book Rules of the Red Rubber Ball, by Kevin Carroll.  I’ve not read it yet, but read a beaming review last night.  It’s said to be chock full of inspiration –a “must read”! 

I’m late getting this up this week, but I’m looking forward to your quotes and reviews next week.  Save me a great one!  I’ll can’t wait!

Richard Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline”

Celebration of Discipline is Foster’s best known work, now in a Twentieth Anniversary Edition. It has sold more than a million copies, and was named by Christianity Today as one of the top ten books of the twentieth century.  (QuakerInfo.Com)

I posted a quote on this book yesterday and read part of the chapter on the discipline of “service” last night.  I’ve not been challenged in a long time as much as I was reading those few pages.  They left me breathless.  I’m going to have to let myself settle down and inhale that again slowly.  

I knew but had forgotten that he is a contemporary Quaker.  Awesome that someone who comes from a heritage of disciplines has been gifted with the ability to teach others.  I have Richard’s book on Prayer also.   These are his other writings of which I’m aware:  Streams of Living Water, Prayer:  Finding the Heart’s True Home, Freedom of Simplicity, Meditative Prayer, Spiritual Classics.

Foster started Renovoré, a renewal organization committed to bringing “the church to the churches”.   His website contains readings from a Bible he put out, centered around the areas of discipline discussed in his book Celebration of Discipline.

I stumbled on an unexpected criticism of Foster.  One, for promoting the disciplines of contemplation, which is unwarranted based on Foster’s constant focus on Christ at the center of the meditation.  The Psalms teach us to “be still and know that I am God.  Meditation is a Biblical practice, with it’s focus on faithfulness and obedience.  (p. 16 Cel. of Disc., Foster).  This is NOT the middle eastern counterfeits that claim “God is all” or “God is in all”.   

Two, for using a quote from Thomas Kelly in his Bible edition .  I would like to hear Foster expound on on that myself, but have enjoyed the integrity of his writings to such a degree that I would not at this time discount his entire works based on it.

Bro. Ray  recommends the book heartily, and many others who’ve been challenged by it would as well.

A Quote from Celebration of Discipline on Meditation: 

In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things:  noise, hurry, and crowds.  If he can keep us engaged in the “much-ness” and “manyness,” he will rest satisfied…If we hope to move beyond the superficialities of our culture, including our religious culture, we must be willing to go down into the recreating silences, into the inner world of contemplation.  In their writings all the masters of meditation beckon us to be pioneers in the frontier of the Spirit.  Though is may sound strange to modern ears, we should without shame enroll as apprentices in the school of contemplative prayer. (p16)…Christian meditation, very simply, is the ability to hear God’s voice and obey his word.  It is that simple.  I wish I could make it more complicated for those who like things difficult.  It involves no hidden mysteries, no secret mantras, no mental gymnastics, no esoteric flights into the cosmic consciousness.  (p17)…In meditation we are growing into what Thomas À Kempris calls “a familiar friendship with Jesus.”  We are sinking down into the light and life of Christ and becoming comfortable in that posture(p19)…[one of] both intense intimacy and awful reverence.  (p20).

The Divine Storyteller

Chesterton in Orthodoxy says:

“[I] had always believed that the world involved magic;  now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician….I had always felt life first as a story;  and if there is a story there is a storyteller.” 

And, from “The Sacred Romance” (Brent Curtis & John Eldredge):

…we journey into the heart of God and toward the recovery of our own hearts.  For perhaps God would be reason enough to stay open to the Romance if He knew that we knew He would keep us safe.  (p46)  [emph. added]

Sanctity…

SANCTITY:  defined–

     1: holiness of life and character : godliness 2 a: the quality or state of being holy or sacred : inviolability bplural : sacred objects, obligations, or rights

This week we celebrate the sanctity of human life.  (Click here for more information.)

I heard statistics yesterday – just a few years ago 1 out of every 3 pregnancies ended in abortion (Pro-Abortion statistics, not Pro-Life statistics.)  The whole room gasped and questioned.  The numbers are real.   Thankfully, there was somewhat of a sigh of relief to hear that we are now down to 1 in every 5, thanks to the care and concern of many HARD workers.  20%?  That shocks me still.

Interestingly, for mothers who see their unborn children by ultrasound, 88% of those choose to not abort the child.  Read more about that effort here.

My heart was deeply touched by a blog post I just happened to stumble across here with a woman recounting her abortive experience. 

If you have gone through this experience, there is help and healing and wholeness for you.  Click here.

This, from iGoogle’s selected quotes for today: 

     Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.
  – Ronald Reagan

[don't miss the words to a song posted as Comment 1 in the comments]

Quote on Newspaper Reading

I subscribe to a quote of the day deal in iGoogle.   You know I had to publish this baby:

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers

is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
  – Ben Hecht

I knew there had to be a more grown up quote than:  “It’s really awkward to manage.”  I’ll use this and sound more educated.

Simplicity Quote

To live content with small means;

to seek elegance rather than luxury;

and refinement rather than fashion;

to be worthy, not respectable;

and wealthy, not rich;

to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;

to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart;

to bear all cheerfully,

do all bravely,

await occasion,

hurry never;

in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious

grow up through the common.

This is to be my symphony.

~William Ellery Channing

{A}

Photo note:  For me:  two matching watering cans for Christmas, one for me and a matching one for daughter.  I am running into watering cans everywhere this December…what’s with that?

Magnanimity Quote

What are the “philosophers” of today?  Song writers, perhaps?  Story writers?  Politicians, at times?  Artists?  I did a search for thoughts on simplicity as I approached this season, and, of course, the word “mananimity” jumped off this one for me.  Interesting how the word is meshed with wisdom expressed through simplicity, trust, and independence.   

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts,

 not even to found a school,

but so to love wisdom

as to live according to its dictates,

a life of simplicity,

independence,

magnanimity,

and trust.

 

~Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)

Think for Yourself

The conventional view

serves to protect us

from the painful job of thinking.

  ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

In Stillness and Simplicity

Perfection is achieved,

not when there is nothing more to add,

but when there is nothing left to take away.

  – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I keep hearing the words of the Michael Card song “In Stillness and Simplicity”.  It’s from one of his earlier albums.  I posted this quote today and have thought of it all day long, not so much in terms of perfection, but in knowing where to stop.  I remember times I’ve created something, a craft or piece of art, and I fool with it and mess with it, and then, the point comes when it feels I am taking away something to add anything else to it…any more work, effort, or “touching” of it at all.  There just comes a time when it is time to stop.  I think of that everytime I cut hair!  You can strive for perfection to the point that you are bald.  There comes a point when you just stop.  It is what it is. 

Editing applies to this quote.  One AP English teacher taught me over and over again:  “It is harder to write briefly a clear and effective message than to write a 2000 page book.  Strive for brevity and concise writing.”  How true. 

I don’t know that I hit “concise writing” well.  I enjoy the various facets of a thought and I enjoy turning over all the rocks to see what lies there. 

Still, the message of simplicity, or “less being more” is central to my thoughts this season.  Oh yes, I won’t lie:  there is that desire to be delighted that is the child in each of us.  But, I want more than anything, below the surface, to just know the gift of contentment.  The gift of using well what I have.  The gift of sharing my time, myself, my life-energy…good priority.  The appreciate and give more the gift of the smile.  To love, to know, to be, to do.  Those precious things can’t be bought or measured, only deliverately given from a very disciplined, honed, focused life driven by clear, sole, purpose and priority.  You don’t “get” that.  You attain it.  You reflect it from the very life of Jesus.