The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon
- QUESTION FOR UR TEEN “Rather than asking, “What are you going to do when you grow up?” and “Where are you going to college?” we could ask today’s multitalented, multipassionate teens a question like, “What problems would you like to help solve?” I’ve had some amazing conversations with youth that began with this question. In their answers we’ll often see connections to high school electives, college majors, and careers, so it can stimulate a great conversation.”
Excerpt From: Koch, Kathy. “Screens and Teens.”
- PLACE OF REST “When we walk down heaven’s golden streets, we will never see a hospital. There will be no more sickness. We will never see a counseling center. There will be no more depression or mental illness. We will never see a funeral home. There will be no more death there. We will never see a policeman in uniform or a police station. There is no crime there. There will be no courthouses on the square. There will be no lawsuits and no one seeking to cheat anyone else out of something that is rightfully theirs. We will never hear the shrill sound of an ambulance siren. There will be no more emergencies. We will never have to lock our homes or look behind us to see who is following us as we walk along. There will be no more fear. We will never see a handicapped parking place or a ramp for a wheelchair. There will be no nursing homes there for we will never grow old. Heaven is a place of rest.”
Excerpt From: O. S. Hawkins. “The Joshua Code.”
- HAPPY BDAY “A man entered a stationery store and asked the clerk for a “birthday-anniversary” card. The clerk replied, “We have birthday cards, and we have anniversary cards. Why not take one of each?” He said, “You don’t understand. I need a card that covers both events. You see, we’re celebrating the fifth anniversary of my wife’s thirty-fourth birthday.
Excerpt From: Hodgin, Michael. “1001 Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking.”
- REARING CHILDREN “If you neglect to instruct them in the way of holiness, will the devil neglect to instruct them in the way of wickedness? No, no, if you will not teach them to pray, he will teach them to curse, swear and lie. If ground be uncultivated, weeds will spring up.
If the season of their youth is neglected, how little probability is there of any good fruit afterwards? Youth is the molding age (Proverbs 22:6). How few are converted in old age? A twig is brought to any form, but grown limbs will not bend.
There is none in the world so likely as you to be instruments of their eternal good. You have peculiar advantages that no one else has; such as the interest you have in their affections; your opportunities to instill the knowledge of Christ into them, being daily with them (Deuteronomy 6:7); your knowledge of their character. If therefore you neglect, who shall help them?
Excerpt From: Flavel, John. “The Mystery of Providence.”
- PC AND TRUTH “Political correctness, which foists upon us a common language for postmodern thinking that encourages the notion that all truth is defined by man subjectively, rather than being defined outside of man, who is then subject to that truth. Since we don’t like being anyone’s subjects (that smacks of kings and despots), we rebel to think we are bound by anything. After all, independence is core to America’s national identity.
Political correctness likes the road to truth to be wide, very wide, with many roads to it so that
anyone can build their own road. The obvious end result is the dissolution of absolutes. But Jesus said He was the truth. Absolutely.
Political correctness, when confronted logically, is confusing and intellectually dishonest in its attempt to relegate truth to the wide road. Truth, by definition, must be narrow and not wide. It only allows for one way.”
Excerpt From: Battaglia, Joe. “The Politically Incorrect Jesus.”
- SIMPLE OBSERVATION “The world is round,” said Christopher Columbus. “No, it’s not,” said the public, “it’s flat.”
To convince the public otherwise, fifteenth century scientists first had to prove that the world wasn’t flat. One of their more convincing arguments was the fact that sailors at sea were first able to observe the tops of the masts of an approaching ship, then the sails, then the hull. If the world were flat, they would see the whole ship at once.
All the mathematical arguments in the world weren’t as effective as a simple observation the public could verify themselves.”
Excerpt From: Al Ries & Jack Trout. “Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind.”
- FLAG DAY Henry Ward Beecher, a prominent nineteenth-century Congregationalist clergyman and social reformer, stated this:
“A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation’s flag, sees not the flag only, but the nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the government, the rinciples, the truths, the history which belongs to the nation that sets it forth.”
Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”
- CHRISTIAN FOUNDERS “It wasn’t long after the colonists defeated the Red Coats that the state governments that had been controlled by the British had to be established with new state constitutions. It is interesting to read what many of the men who signed the founding documents placed in their original new state constitutions. Delaware provides one example, but other states were similar:
“Every person appointed to public office shall say, “I do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do knowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.”
Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”
- EVIL FAITH? “I think that a case can be made that faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate. Faith, being belief that isn’t based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion.” -Richard Dawkins
It would be a mistake to think that this extreme view is typical. Many atheists are far from happy with its militancy, not to mention its repressive, even totalitarian, overtones.
Excerpt From: John C. Lennox. “Against the Flow.”
- WISDOM “To acquire information, much less wisdom, one’s lips cannot be moving. Moreover, as we listen to learn, we learn to listen.”
Excerpt From: DeMoss, Mark. “The Little Red Book of Wisdom.”
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