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
- BOUNDARIES “God’s boundaries come out of His love for us. Right and wrong are established to protect us from consequences that will hurt us. For instance, “Do not steal” protects us from losing the trust of others, and “Do not have sex before marriage” protects us from sexually transmitted diseases and being physically bonded to someone other than our spouse for life. In general, we need to see and present authority as a blessing to our teens. Specifically, we need to present the Word of God as the most trustworthy standard. It is reliable, consistent, and complete. We have freedom because He gives us free will, but that’s also a reason He provides boundaries.”
Excerpt From: Koch, Kathy. “Screens and Teens.”
- HOW KNOW GETTING OLD? “You know you’re getting older when: Everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work.
The gleam in your eyes is from the sun hitting your bifocals.
Your little black book contains only names ending in M.D.
You get winded playing chess.
Your children begin to look middle-aged.
Your mind makes contracts your body can’t meet.
You know all the answers, but nobody asks you the questions.
You look forward to a dull evening at home.
You’re turning out lights for economic rather than romantic reasons.
Your knees buckle and your belt won’t.
The best part of your day is over when the alarm goes off.
Your back goes out more than you do.
A fortune teller offers to read your face.
You’ve got too much room in the house and not enough room in the medicine cabinet.
You sink your teeth in a steak, and they stay there.”
Excerpt From: Hodgin, Michael. “1001 Humorous Illustrations for Public Speaking.”
- A HEARTBEAT AWAY “Many seem to have the idea that heaven is a long way off. Not really. It is only one heartbeat away. James asked, “What is your life?” Then he answered his own question by indicating that life is really just a vapor. It appears for a little while and then vanishes away (James 4:14). For each of us, one of these days that old heart is going to stop. Then, in the wink of an eye, we will begin eternity . . . somewhere.”
Excerpt From: O. S. Hawkins. “The Joshua Code.”
- ABSOLUTIZING “Even though there is a drive to relativize absolutes, men and women cannot live without them. So they eventually take something of relative value and absolutize it. That is, they regard it as the core value that determines their attitude to everything else. From time immemorial the obvious candidates have been the state, power, wealth, and sex.”
Excerpt From: John C. Lennox. “Against the Flow.”
- WHAT U WANT? “If you don’t get everything you want, think of the things you don’t get that you don’t want.” — Unknown
- MARTYRS “As far as Christianity is concerned, it is easy for some of us to forget that, at the moment, persecution is raging in many parts of the world.
For 27 years, the International Bulletin of Missionary Research has published an annual Status of Global Mission report, which attempts to quantify the world Christian reality, comparing Christianity’s circumstances to those of other faiths, and assaying how Christianity’s various expressions are faring when measured against the recent (and not-so-recent) past. The report is unfailingly interesting, sometimes jarring, and occasionally provocative. The provocation in the 2011 report involves martyrdom. For purposes of research the report defines “martyrs” as “believers in Christ who have lost their lives, prematurely, in situations of witness, as a result of human hostility.” The report estimates that there were, on average, 270 new Christian martyrs every 24 hours over the past decade, such that “the number of martyrs [in the period 2000–2010] was approximately 1 million.”
Excerpt From: John C. Lennox. “Against the Flow.”
- GO FOR IT “Consider how the forward pass became a part of football. It was legalized in 1906 but hardly ever deployed until 1913, seven years later, when a small, obscure Midwestern school, Notre Dame, had to travel east to face mighty Army, a heavily favored powerhouse. With little to lose, the Fighting Irish coach, Jesse Harper, decided to employ this risky, newfangled strategy by using his quarterback, Charlie “Gus” Dorais, and his end, a kid named Knute Rockne. The summer before, Dorais and Rockne had been lifeguards on a Lake Erie beach near Sandusky, Ohio, who passed the time throwing a football back and forth. The Army players were stunned as the Irish threw for 243 yards, which was unheard of at the time. Notre Dame won easily, 35–13. After that, the Irish no longer resided in college football obscurity, Dorais and Rockne became one of the first and best passing tandems of all time, and the forward pass was here to stay. Dorais and Rockne would both go on to become revered Hall of Fame coaches, in large part because they continued deploying their passing tactics at the coaching level.”
Excerpt From: Tobias Moskowitz & L. Jon Wertheim. “Scorecasting.”
- OBEY “The blessings of God are never attained by violating the principles of God.”
— Andy Stanley
- TRUTH If it is true that “you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free,” then is it possible that if you don’t know the truth, it’s absence can place you in bondage? –Unknown
- CRY BABY “Our friend Lynda Pearce says she never regrets taking a couple years off to care for her new baby.
“I thought the crying and whining would drive me crazy at first,” she explains, “but my boss eventually calmed down.”
–Michael Hodgin
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