Time For God and More ... :) Shangy! >Here are the details on our Yahoo ShangyFunList: To Subscribe send a blank email to ShangyFunList-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ShangyFunList or Web Site: http://www.ShangralaFamilyFun.com/ShangyFunList.html Group email address: ShangyFunList@yahoogroups.com or email me here: bcrsystems@earthlink.net =========================== ** PLEASE SEND ANY COOL FORWARDS MY WAY - I Love them, I need them! I use them as extras to the group or turn them into pages for the web site for all to enjoy for years to come! *~* Thank You ALL So Much! ============================================================== >-->In The 'Shangy' News :) _/_\ |==( /O/ /()\/""""""\ | ||O/ (()()) | | \/ \()/ _,dH-' | _,dHP=' | PBHHHHHHHHHHHP=' /|\ | | | || | O O pb Well, I found out today why I have been having stomach troubles. My gallbladder tested positive and I go to see the surgeon on Monday as it will have to be removed. Not the best news but if it makes life go on, then so be it. No use holding on to something that is going to be holding me back! _..--+~/@-~--. _-=~ ( . "} _-~ _.--=.\ \"""" _~ _- \ \_\ = _= '--' ' = . : : ____ '=_. ___ ___ | ; ____ '~--.~. ; ; _____ } | ___= \ ___ __ __..-...__ ___/__/__ : =_ _.-~~ ~~--.__ _____ \ ~-+-~ ___~=_______ ~@#~~ == ...______ __ ___ _--~~--_ Plesiosaur -r.millward- " Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Plesiosaurus swam over the ocean, It caused a commotion wherever it went, A reptile cretaceous, Its habits voracious, It never paid income tax, phone bills or rent." -- Jack Prelutsky TAlk about a commotion!! Did any one watch the Republican Convention speeches last night and the night before? I was concerned that McCain wasn't quite conservative enough for my tastes, but wow. I am impressed with those two. McCain and his VP choice AND his wife Cindy McCain is a force to be reckoned with too. I do like the line up for our country! Like McCain said, We need to get back to basics! We had such trust in our government with Bush and he let us down and McCain acknowledges that and says we aren't going to have more of the same with him. Why do I believe him? The man has PROVEN Character and integrity. It is unimaginable to me that he did this but when held captive, he turned down early release because #1 it went against what he was told to do if captured which was always be released according to when captured and #2 it would spread lies and propaganda to the US and #3 because it would hurt his fellow american captives. He stayed an agonizing 4 more years as a POW because of those 3 things. Suffering abuse, torture, broken bones and all for integrity and duty to country. This is not a man that will ever let America down or sway his morals and values. He is pro country which is what this country needs. We need a person in office that is, was, and always will be Proud to be an American! I also found his wife is a volunteer for human rights and has been on the scene helping people in crisis time and time again over many years. You can tell from her actions and manner that she is a true 'people person' and will be by her husband fighting for the rights of the down trodden people in america who need help and assistance. She'll be helping with strength in family values and fighting on the side of the middle to low income peoples needs. His choice for Vice President isn't much of a surprise since he gave credit to his 92 year old mother for raising him and his brothers with morals and strength and love for country. Palin is a typical American mom. Raised tough in the wilderness of Alaska, she knows how to hunt, fish and fight for what she feels is right. She is a mother of 5 with her youngest born premature with downs syndrome. She pledges to fight for what is right and be an advocate for family and special needs children. She also has much insight and understanding of our nations fuel and natural gas. She fought the big oil companies in her state when they were against the best interests of the people and she won. She has a whopping 80% in favor of her in Alaska. Pretty good majority. She must be doing the job right. Obama doesn't have a track record. Obama hasn't done anything. Obama hasn't fought and got a law or even a bill passed. Obama doesn't have any military experience. Obama doesn't have the experience or the character that McCain has. McCain is 72. Pretty old to be given such a job, but he is spunky. His mom is still healthy and spunky at age 92 so I don't think McCain serving 4 years is going to be a problem health wise. At his age, we can figure his motives for wanting to be president is along one of these lines. He may be out for a name for himself to go down in history. He already has that, but maybe he wants more popularity. He may want more money or power. He already makes good money but maybe he wants more. His wife being a volunteer and helping with her own hands people of other races, minorities, poor people, and those in dire need shows he is not so much about the money. They even adopted two child victims of genicide war. He'll have veto power as the president but be mostly ruled by those he chooses or who works along side of him. So maybe his motives is what he says they are. He vows he will serve this country with his last dying breath. He has done so all his life, so I pretty much believe him when he says this. He has that life long track record. Action speaks louder then words you know. And his actions have always been pro America. Not like Obama. I can not trust Obama to put the best interests of America and it's people first. He doesn't have the integrity or the character or the track record that says he is all about America. America is what we the people make it. We don't like it, we fix it. We need a President who won't knuckle under pressure to the thugs. We need a president who won't be swayed by the big oil companies mula. We need a president who loves this country and thinks it is the best country. We need a president who says like McCain says - 'Yes We Can' make changes and reform this great country of ours! I'm gonna give him my vote and see what he and his can do for 4 years. I, like McCain, love America. I'll give him a try. He doesn't worry me now. Hey, we have to at least try. With Obama we give up on our morals and our country. I'm not ready to do that! Sure Bush failed us and didn't do what he said EXCEPT, praise God, he kept this country safe from another attack like 9-11! Other then that, he has let us down. I don't think McCain is going to be just another 4 years of the same BS like Obama says. McCain with the people he has on his side I think, I hope, I pray, will be the ones to make a difference To get America back on track! SO I'm going to Vote McCain and join with him and say - 'Yes We Can!' - Always have been an optimist anyway :) -<>- >If You haven't checked this out - be sure to! It is great! From Our Friend Viv: You have never seen anything like this before and you won't see the American flag wave like this again. WOWOWOWOW http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iCz3BA-oNlY ALSO We had Jo Ann send us a forward that was absolutely cool... Egg Stacking Art http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/eggart.html --- ...Thanks Viv and Jo Ann! I loved these! -<>- >Last Month, We Had a lot of FUN Pages! If you haven't already, be sure to check them out: Bored Graphic Artists http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/abored.html Grizzly Bear Killed by Truck http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/grizzly.html Signs Of A Bad Day http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/badday.html USS New York Tribute http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/ussny.html Truth About Work http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/work.html Humor With The Troops 2 http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/humor2.html Humor With The Troops 3 http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/humor3.html New Office Policy http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/office.html Olympic Cusine http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/olympic.html Bucky And The Beagle http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/visitor.html Typewriter Art http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/typeart.html *~* Warm Thank Yous To All Our Contributors! You Bless Us! ===================================================================== >-->From Heartwarmers: _,---. (/_/)))) \c e_e) . \ = ) _| ,-` -(_ |o| / `-'\\ |#{) /__| ._ _)y / < \ (\_/ `.\ ____\ ,>>> | .==T=T==.__| | | / | |\ |_______| \ / /\ \ / ,' `. \ / / \ \ <\_\_ \ \ `---` (_`-\_ `---' hjw WORKER'S PRIDE by Joseph Walker It has always struck me as more than just a little bit ironic that every year about this time America pays tribute to her working men and women by not working. Not that I'm complaining. I appreciate a day off as much as the next worker bee. It's just the logic that throws me. I mean, on Thanksgiving we actually give thanks. On Christmas we celebrate a gift from God by giving gifts ourselves. On Easter we observe another divine gift by eating multi-colored eggs that were supposedly delivered by a rabbit. OK, so the logic of Easter eludes me, too. Still, it stands to reason that if we are going to celebrate America's workers, there ought to be something... you know... laborious about it. And no, I'm not talking about the effort it requires to pack a picnic lunch, or to go camping or boating or any of the pastimes we work so hard at enjoying during the long weekend. I'm talking about sweating. Toiling. Working. You know -- laboring. Mom and Dad understood the concept. Around our house, Labor Day was just that -- a day to labor. I don't remember any Labor Day picnics or parties or barbecues. We'd just had a full summer for that. Labor Day meant that school was back in session and it was time to work. And so we did. We prepared the garden bed for winter. We pruned fruit trees. We bottled peaches and tomatoes until the inside of our house was thick with steam and aroma. Sometimes there were special projects that we didn't finish during the summer: painting the trim around the house; taking out an old, dead stump; planting new grass in that patch of dirt in the middle of the lawn that we used as home plate during spirited games of whiffle ball. For me, however, the job was always the same: mowing, edging and raking the lawn. As the youngest of eight children, I always got the easiest -- and most boring -- duty. "It's not fair!" I protested one Labor Day. "I do the lawn all summer. Why can't somebody else do it today?" "Because everyone else already has a job," Mom said. So much for labor negotiations. A late summer trip had interrupted regularly scheduled lawn care that year, and our yard looked it. The grass was tall and thick -- especially the edges. I shuddered. Dad didn't believe in power mowers or edgers, so this would require hours of back-breaking, wrist-snapping, energy-sapping labor. What a way to spend Labor Day, huh? Don't ask me how, but I survived the ordeal. I was tired from pushing the mower up and down the slope of our front lawn. My fingers ached from squeezing Dad's rusty grass clippers. And I was itchy from the grass that seemed to cover me. But for some reason, as I sat out on the front porch looking out over the aesthetic results of my labors, none of that mattered. I was weary, but content. And I wasn't sure why until Mom came out with the lemonade. "That's why we have you mow the lawn," she said as she handed me a tall, cool glass. "You do such a good job." In retrospect, I'm sure other lawns in our neighborhood looked as good as ours. Maybe better. But that night I was King Lawnboy, and all was right in my carefully clipped kingdom. I've never forgotten the feeling of satisfaction that came from a job well done. That's the feeling we ought to celebrate on Labor Day, for much of what we are as a nation we owe to the efforts of workers who are willing to work, and who take pride in the results of their labors. So do something laborious this Labor Day, and savor the privilege and blessing of work. 'Tis the season, you know. -- Joseph Walker ____________________________________________ Joe is a Heartwarmer Gem and lives in Utah. ===================================================================== >-->From Our Friend Jo Ann :) "The greatest weapon against stress Is our ability to choose one thought over another." -William James- *~*~*~*~*~* >Stress _,,,_ .' `'. / ____ \ | .'_ _\/ / ) a a| / ( > | ( ) ._ / ) _/-.__.'`\ ( .-'`-. \__ ) `/ `-./ `. | \ \ \ jgs | \ \ \ \ |\ `. / / \ When caught in the middle of a crisis, we tend to forget the important role our own perception plays. We imagine the worst and as we imagine, the worst starts happening all around us. What we don't realize is that dealing with the worst-case scenario is a personal choice we make. Problems should never be dealt with on the same level in which they occur, so whenever we judge an experience or a person as bad, whenever we insist on seeing any situation as stressful, we give it permission to bring stress into our lives -- we actually empower it. On the other hand, when we insist on seeing every person and every situation in our lives as a blessing, then we give the blessing permission to come forth. So you see, the truth of the matter is, there is never a need for stress when we can choose instead to bless. --- ...Cool! Thank Jo Ann! ======================================================================= >-->From SermondFodder: >Ten Commandments Pencil .========. .========. // I .'..' \ // VI.'.,".\ || II .'..'| || VII..'..| || III .'."| || VIII,'.'| || IV ,','.| || IX.'".'.| || V '..'.'| || X .'..',| jgs .\_________/ .\_________/ A teacher who takes a great deal of pride in her interaction with students noticed a girl in her math class with a nice looking pencil. When she was making rounds checking the students as they worked on their assignments, she noticed the pencil had the ten commandments written on it. Thinking it might be something she'd want to purchase to give as a gift to her students, she complimented the unique design of the Ten Commandments pencil and asked the girl where she got it. The student said, "Yeah, I thought it looked pretty cool too, that's why I stole it from my brother." By way of Reader's Digest (rd.com) -<>- >String Theology Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity are both accepted as scientific fact even though they're mutually exclusive. Albert Einstein spent the second half of his life searching for a unifying truth that would reconcile the two. Einstein was searching for String Theory. It not only reconciles General Relativity to Quantum Mechanics, but it reconciles Science and the Bible as well. Listen to a group of physicists talk about String Theory and it will slowly dawn on you that they're explaining the entire universe as nothing but the quivering, dancing echo of the voice of God. "Let there be light." String Theory describes energy and matter as being composed of tiny, wiggling strands of energy that look like strings. And the pitch of a string's vibration determines the nature of its effect. ~~0 / Q @ /_oo-#= \_|_/ _|/_ .| \/ _|_|_|_ \_|_/ /( )_\ ||__ |, _|_|_|_ ;/_)_(_ 0 / | |\\ /|\ |, _( ) |0== /_oo-#= /|\ / / / =#-@@| .| \/ _/ \_ \/ |. ||__ |, ejm 97 |, __|| | |\\ /|\ /|\ //| | In essence, String Theory describes space and time, matter and energy, gravity and light, indeed all of God's creation… as music. Strings of gravity vibrate at a different frequency than strings of light. The strings that make up protons vibrate at a different pitch than the strings that make up electrons. Strings composing the strong nuclear force vibrate differently than the strings composing the weak nuclear force. And electromagnetism vibrates at its own unique frequency as well. We've known for a while that matter is made of protons, neutrons and electrons – which are themselves made of quarks. Now String Theory comes along to whisper in our ear that quarks are made of vibrating, wiggling strings of energy that are unimaginably small. According to Brian Greene, a Columbia University physicist educated at Harvard and Oxford, "If an atom were enlarged to the size of the solar system, a string would only be as large as a tree." Greene goes on to say, "Just as different vibrational patterns or frequencies of a single cello string create what we hear as different musical notes, the different way that strings vibrate give particles their unique properties, such as mass and charge. For example, the only difference between the particles making up you and me – and the particles that transmit gravity and the other forces – is the way these tiny strings vibrate. Composed of an enormous number of these oscillating strings, the universe can be thought of as a grand, cosmic symphony." According to String Theory, what appears to be empty space is actually a tumultuous ocean of strings vibrating at the precise frequencies that create the 4 dimensions you and I call height, width, depth and time. We live in these 4 dimensions and know them well. But String Theory describes an additional 7 dimensions beyond our ability to perceive. Suddenly the idea of an invisible world isn't quite so hard to believe. Physicist David Gross of the University of California in Santa Barbara says, "It's as if we've stumbled in the dark into a house which we thought was a 2-bedroom apartment and now we're discovering there's a 19-room mansion at least, and maybe it's got a thousand rooms and we're just beginning our journey." WizardAcademy.org. Roy H. Williams Roy Williams is the author of several best seller books on advertising and communication. His best know is perhaps "The Wizard of Ads," a collection of essays about life and his passion for business. For more info on Roy's wonderful organization and world- know communcation worshops go to www.wizardacademy.org. =============================================================== >-->From Our Friend Tony In Australia :) Hope this finds you well! Tony (() ()) (() ()) (() ()) (() ()) (() .+. _.-//_\\-._ .'.-' XII '-.'. /`.'* *'.`\ / /* / *\ \ | ; _/ ; | | |IX (_) III| | Time for GOD? | ; \ ; | \ \* \ */ / \ '.* \ *.'./ jgs '._'-.__VI_.-'_.' '-.,___,.-' Read only if you have time for God Let me tell you, make sure you read all the way to the bottom. I almost deleted this email but I was blessed when I got to the end God, when I received this e-mail, I thought... I don't have time for this... And, this is really inappropriate during work. Then, I realized that this kind of thinking is.... Exactly, what has caused lot of the problems in our world today. We try to keep God in church on Sunday morning... Maybe, Sunday night.... And, the unlikely event of a midweek service. We do like to have Him around during sickness.... And, of course, at funerals. However, we don't have time, or room, for Him during work or play..... Because.. That's the part of our lives we think... We can, and should, handle on our own. May God forgive me for ever thinking.... That... There is a time or place where.. HE is not to be FIRST in my life. We should always have time to remember all HE has done for us. If, You aren't ashamed to do this.... Please follow the directions. Jesus said, 'If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.' Not ashamed? Pass this on ONLY IF YOU MEAN IT!! Yes, I do Love God. HE is my source of existence and Savior. He keeps me functioning each and every day. Without Him, I will be nothing. But, with Christ, HE strengthens me. (Phil 4:13) This is the simplest test. If You Love God... And, are not ashamed of all the marvelous things HE has done for you.... Send this to ten people and the person who sent it to you! Now do you have the time to pass it on? Make sure that you scroll through to the end. Easy vs. Hard Why is it so hard to tell the truth but Yet so easy to tell a lie? Why are we so sleepy in church but Right when the lesson (sermon) is over we suddenly wake up? Why is it so easy to delete a Godly e-mail, but yet we forward all of the nasty ones? Of all the free gifts we may receive, Prayer is the very best one..... There are no costs, but wonderful rewards... GOD BLESS! Notes: Isn't it funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Isn't it funny how someone can say 'I believe in God' but still follow Satan (who, by the way, also 'believes' in God). Isn't it funny how you can send a thousand jokes through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing? Isn't it funny how when you go to forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it to them Isn't it funny how I can be more worried about what other people think of me than what God thinks of me. I pray, for everyone who sends this to their entire address book, they will be blessed by God in a way special for them. And send it back to the person who sent it, to let them know that indeed it was sent out to many more. --- ...A very good one! Thanks Tony! =================================================================== >-->From InspiredBuffalo: . | . \ | / `. \ ' / .' `. .-*""*-. .' "*-._ /.*" "*.\ _.-*" : ; ____ """"': .. ; _.-*" \ `.__.' / "*-._ .' `-.__.-' `. bug .' / . \ `. / | \ ' | ` >You are the Light of the World "To the world you might just be another person, but to one person you may be the whole world." D. L. Moody told the story of a man crossing the Atlantic by ship. One night, as he was confined to his cabin due to seasickness, he heard the cry, "Man overboard!" He felt that there was nothing he could do to help, but he said to himself, "I can at least put my lantern in the porthole." He struggled to his feet and hung the light so it would shine out into the darkness. The next day he learned that the person had been rescued and had told others, "I was going down in the dark night for the last time when someone put a light in a porthole. As it shone on my hand, a sailor in a lifeboat grabbed it and pulled me in." God has chosen us to reach out and light up lives, no matter how small or insignificant we may feel! "In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:16 -<>- >IF 99.9% IS GOOD ENOUGH THEN. . . 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily 114,500 mismatched pairs of shoes will be shipped/year 18,322 pieces of mail will be mishandled/hour 2,000,000 documents will be lost by the IRS this year 2.5 million books will be shipped with the wrong covers Two planes landed at Chicago's O'Hare airport will be unsafe every day 315 entries in Webster's Dictionary will be misspelled 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions will be written this year 880,000 credit cards in circulation will turn out to have incorrect cardholder information on their magnetic strips 103,260 income tax returns will be processed incorrectly during the year 5.5 million cases of soft drinks produced will be flat 291 pacemaker operations will be performed incorrectly 3056 copies of tomorrow's Wall Street Journal will be missing one of the three sections A typical day would be 24 hours long (give or take 86.4 seconds) [3] And we don`t know how many are going to hell, instead of heaven. -<>- .,'',-~~0 ~~ _ # # .,,... __\- - _ #'#`/::''__-~ ~ C.; _ ''--_`\|/'__-~ ~ .(-!\ ~ __--#:' \_/ ''--__ ~ ~ ;.-' O_--#.:\|/ # / \ .`,''',''--__ __--'.:\|/ # \|/ / '`.',.',!!,!, '!--_/-\ \|/ \ / .'/!!!.'!!`,'.' \ / \_-- / \ ~.'!`!!!':!.'; / /\_/ / .~.!'`:`!'!.!'!, \ _/\ / `\.!,!'!'.!''!,` / / __ / ` !!.!'!~.!.; / / \/ / AsH/ejm `./'`;, / \ / \ >Letting Go Of Control by Brian Jones Jesus doesn’t work on our timetables. He doesn’t check with us before he makes decisions. Following Jesus is more like driving a taxicab than being a librarian—you never know who you’ll meet or where you’ll go next. Following Jesus means giving up control. It means pulling your life over to the side of the road, tossing your keys to Jesus, hopping into the passenger’s seat, and saying, “You take it from here.” This is the only way you’re going to see God at work in your life, because God can’t work in a situation until we get out of the way. As long as we continue to meddle with a problem and try to fix it ourselves, we haven’t turned it over to God so he can work on it. Last summer our family vacationed in southeastern Colorado. One bright afternoon my wife said, “Let’s go white-water rafting!” Now, if you haven’t guessed by now, I might as well tell you: I’m a chicken… one hundred percent wimp. White-water rafting was not on my list of the top ten things I wanted to do before I died. My family was set on the excursion, however, so I reluctantly agreed to go. At the river we joined our group, and our guides put us in wet suits and gave us instructions for the trip. “This is a class III river. You need to know what to do when you fall out of the boat.” I raised one eyebrow and turned around and stared at my wife. Once on board I nonchalantly asked our guide, a left-over hippie from the sixties, if anyone had ever fallen out of one of his rafts. “Sure,” he quickly replied, “I lost a group of Japanese tourists a while back. They were fine, though. I picked them up about a mile down river, a little disoriented. You’ll be fine today. No worries.” Wonderful. For the next fifteen minutes, I was a wreck. Not my five-year-old. Not my nine-year-old. Not my eleven-year-old. Not my sadistic wife. Just me, a wreck. Then something happened. With each wave I enjoyed the ride a little bit more. I began to pay attention to the scenery: steep canyon walls, layers of deep red rock, and beautiful species of birds I had never seen before. By the end of the trip, I was giving high fives and hollering like a college student at a football game. “I told you this would be awesome,” I told my wife triumphantly. Do you know what’s interesting? Not once did I ever lean over to our guide and say, “I’ll take over from here.” Why? Because I knew the most experienced person in that raft was calling the shots. As a result I could rest and enjoy the ride. It was bumpy. I was scared to death at first, but the ride was much easier than if I had been the captain. The old bumper sticker “Let go and let God” might sound cliché and cheesy, but the saying is true. Some people can’t see God at work in their lives, not because they lack faith but because they insist on having too much control. -<>- ,----------------------------------------------------------------. | OV"|OOO> U N I T E D S T A T E S OF A M E R I C A O N E D O L L A R A Dollar For God Nine thousand for my brand new car Five thousand for a piece of sod Fifty thousand for my brand new house A dollar I gave to God! A tidy sum to entertain My friends in pointless chatter And when the world goes crazy mad I ask God what's the matter --A DOLLAR I GAVE TO GOD! Yet there is one big question For the answer I will search With things so bad in this whole world What's holding back the church? --A DOLLAR I GAVE TO GOD! -<>- ______ .-"""".._'. _,## _..__ |.-"""-.| | _,##'`-._ (_____)||_____|| |_,##'`-._,##'` _| |.;-""-. | |#'`-._,##'` _.;_ `--' `\ \ |.'`\._,##'` /.-.\ `\ |.-";.`_, |##'` |\__/ | _..;__ |'-' / '.____.'_.-`)\--' /'-'` //||\\(_.-'_,'-'` (`-...-')_,##'` jgs _,##`-..,-;##` _,##'`-._,##'` _,##'`-._,##'` `-._,##'` This is a short interview with Rick Warren, "Purpose Driven Life" author, and pastor of Saddleback Church in California. In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said: People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body--but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal of God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness. This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good for which you can thank God. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, "which is my problem, my issues, my pain." But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others. We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people. You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72. First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free. We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)? When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings. Happy moments, PRAISE GOD. Difficult moments, SEEK GOD. Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD. Painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every moment, THANK GOD. -<>- >Links: The Love Of God http://www.ShangralaFamilyFun.com/BibleStudy/loveofgod.html The Peace Of God http://www.ShangralaFamilyFun.com/BibleStudy/peaceofgod.html Giant Panda Bear http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/pandabear.html Believe In Your Dreams http://www.ShangralaFamilyFun.com/poems/dream.html Lean On Me http://www.shangralafamilyfun.com/poems/leanonme.html Taxi Please http://www.buffaloschips.com/81844.htm Ten Quarters Ten Glasses One Throw http://www.buffaloschips.com/81845.htm Trucks http://www.buffaloschips.com/81846.htm Golf http://www.buffaloschips.com/72227.htm Great Basketball Catch http://www.buffaloschips.com/72228.htm How They Made IT http://www.buffaloschips.com/72229.htm I Love You Dog http://www.buffaloschips.com/72230.htm Incredible 11 YR Old Yodeler http://www.buffaloschips.com/72231.htm Subscribe send a blank email to: the-inspired-buffalo-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ====================================================================== The longer you delay, the more your sin gets strength and rooting. 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