Critics are like. . .

Angela and I saw a great movie last week.  I know this isn’t the place for movie reviews but it was funny and exciting and we really enjoyed it.  Unfortunately that wasn’t the view of most of the critics. It was panned and ridiculed in the media and as a result lost a boatload of money.  Which is unfortunate.
How often in life do we allow the opinion of the critics to affect how we view something, or worse, how we view someone?  We mentioned to several people  the movie we were planning to see and we were warned that it had been panned and wasn’t worth seeing.  But none of those who offered that opinion had actually seen the movie themselves.
In the end, we decided that we had been really looking forward to seeing the movie and that we would be willing to take the chance, and we really enjoyed it.
Ultimately it was just a movie so it wouldn’t have been earth shattering if we had missed it. But how many times do we miss out on important things or individuals in life simply because we listen to someone who listened to a critic?
And so now my response to critics will be: Hi-Yo Silver, away!    Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.   

Here today. . .

He was a million times richer than Bill Gates. . . for a day.  Think of the possibilities.  Last week Chris Reynolds became the world’s richest man . . . for a while.  Imagine the Pennsylvania account executive’s surprise when his monthly statement from Pay Pal showed a balance of  $92,233,720,368,547,800, that’s 92 quadrillion dollars.  Alas, when he logged in to his account it showed a balance of $0.00, zip, nada.  It had all been a software glitch.  

In a matter of degrees we are all like Chris Reynolds, everything we have, we only have temporarily.  Oh, we might get to hold on to what we have longer than Reynolds did, but in the long run everything we have will belong to someone else. 

When asked what he would have done if it had of been a reality, Reynolds commented that he was a responsible man, “I would pay the national debt down first. Then I would buy the Phillies, if I could get a great price.”

But the question isn’t what we would do with the 92 quadrillion dollars we don’t have but what we are doing with what God has given us, for however long God has trusted us with it.  Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.   

No Ransom

In November of this year I will be travelling to Peru with an international relief agency on what is referred to as an “Exposure Trip”.   So this week I filled out the eight page “Travel Release” form that is required before I travel.  I have done this different times for different agencies, but this time, as I signed here and initialed there, I actually took the time to read what I was agreeing to.  Can you imagine? 

One of the paragraphs that I initialed reminded me that the organization has a policy to not pay a ransom or give in to demands if I am abducted while on my trip.   I understand that and I hope potential kidnappers do as well, because unless they want an 8 year old Smart Car and part of a house, they are out of luck.

However, I was reminded that 34 years ago I needed to be ransomed and if it hadn’t been for the sacrifice paid by the Son of God it never would have happened.  I didn’t have what it took and nobody else was willing.  But Jesus stepped into my life with grace and forgiveness and did what I couldn’t and others wouldn’t, He paid the price and set me free.     Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.   

It's not Black and White

Angela and I were talking the other day and I commented on a friend we had in Australia.  According to his older sister, when Adam was a child, he thought that colour was a recent innovation.  He had assumed that in the old days, everything was black and white!  That may seem silly to us today, but to him it was a reasonable assumption. 
Think about it, all of the pictures that Adam had seen from back in the day were black and white, and the old movies and old television programs were all in black and white.  It was only when he asked his parents when colours were invented that he learned the truth.

And even though colours have always been around there are people who go through life never seeing them.  They might as well be living in a world painted in various shades of grey.  Their life is one of drudgery not one of beauty.  But that isn’t what God wants for us!  God has given us a palette full of colours, and it’s up to us as to which ones we choice to paint our lives with.  Because in how we perceive life, the difference will be how we choose to colour it. Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.   

No Excuse.

I received a certificate in the mail the other day from Canada Blood Services recognizing the fact that I have made fifty donations.  And it made me feel a little bad.  I’ve been donating blood since high school but I’ve only made fifty donations?  It probably should be a hundred and fifty donations. I don’t intentionally miss the clinics, but it doesn’t seem to be a priority. It wasn’t always that way, I remember when I first became a donor, I counted the days until I could give blood. And talk about being vocal! I wanted everyone to know that I was a blood donor, and I tried my darndest to convince other people that they should be blood donors too. I knew all the statistics and could answer all the objections. But gradually my priorities changed. I still believed that donating blood was important but I didn’t talk about it as much as I used to.

It wasn’t long after I stopped talking about it that I found getting out to the clinic sometimes conflicted with other things I had planned.  Pretty soon it wasn’t that giving blood became a lower priority it just wasn’t a priority at all.

I wonder what other commitments in our lives suffer the same fate?  Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.