Key is in getting off the fence

“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it,” advises Jo Petty in her 1951 book, Apples of Gold. “To go without some of the things we want is indispensable to happiness.

“Love is the passionate and abiding desire on the part of two or more people to produce together conditions under which each can be, and spontaneously express, his real self; to produce together an intellectual soil and an emotional climate in which each can flourish, far superior to what either could achieve alone.”

*****

I always remember an interview Oprah once had with a woman who was held hostage in Columbia for six-plus years. The lasting message the woman said she took away from her horrific ordeal was, “Whoever the person you ultimately want to be, that one you always dream about one day becoming, just be that person right now. You don’t have to wait.”

*****

“One of the hard things to do when you teach people is to help folks move out of sentimental-based thinking into the good, hard doctrinal reality that gives substance to their hope," relays Preacher Richard Jordan. "Their hope will then give the sentimental attachment."

“People say, ‘Well, why don’t I just start with the sentimental attachment and forget how I got there?’

"Because, as soon as the wind blows, you get off that sentimental attachment. If it’s all based in your sentiment, when the wind blows the other way, your sentiment turns around and you’re mad sentimentally in your emotions. You know that.

“Your emotions can change like that. You need your hope built on something that doesn’t change. You see, if you’ve got the facts and you place your faith in the facts, that faith in the facts of God’s Word will bear fruit and the fruit will produce some feeling.

“The feelings are like the tip end of the tail on the dog--they come last. My daddy used to say that he liked everything on the pig, including the part that jumps over the fence last. That’s where feelings are! Get the whole pig over the fence and the feelings will get there. And if they don’t, you know what? You’re not going to worry about it because the pig’s over the fence.”

(new article tomorrow)