507.  Past

Principles

Help

Just a simple question which affects a lot.  If one needs help does God actually help?  I mean, indirectly knowing God gives purpose to one's life.  True.  But in this life does it actually help?  Or, do things depend, here in the physical world, on the physical world.  The laws of cause and effect, supply and demand, and input/output seem to rule.  Of course there occasionally is help from a person who gives assistance and nothing is asked in return.

But does God himself help here or is the truth closer to when we need help we have to depend on the world.  If a person needs help, should he/she expect God to help or just be honest about their situation and receive or not receive help from the world.    The helper can still know there is a maker but their help comes from the laws of this world.  Whoever donates the help can be kind with or without  knowing there is a God.

People use the quote “God helps those who help themselves.”  Some say it is biblical.  Actually, it's nowhere  in the Bible.  Its bias is towards this world.  What if someone can't figure out something and needs help?  Appeals to God can be made.  Can he directly alter what happens?  Can he give to you the patience you need?  Can he give to you subtle signals that lead you to this way or that?  Or is thinking this way dangerous?

The laws of the universe work equally whether you know God or not. But this puts people into two camps  .What if, even if one is not aware of God, God is still aware of you?  If so, this means he is conscious of all of us. We then return to the question, does God have different ways of intervening here or not?  Perhaps given a certain amount of suffering and experience we earn some spiritual points and receive help.  This would still  imply he is active in the real world.

I watched a TV program where a couple of homesteaders were going under and a knowledgeable man and his family offered to help them.  Of course it was a TV show.  The couple was roughing it and didn't have enough water and food.  The helper and his family managed to find a 1000 gallon water container for them, built an underground greenhouse, and then refined some of their hunting skills.  The couple was shown how to survive their tough circumstances.  This was help from the world offered at no cost.  The only unsaid price was that they had to admit they needed help and ask for it.  They followed a path on principle that lead them to a dead end and became humbled enough to ask for help.  The husband was so thankful tears welled up inside of him.  It seemed sincere and real.

This is an example of needing help from the world and receiving it from the world.  If the couple had appealed to the above privately and asked for help and assumed the maker would meet their needs would that have happened?  We do not know if he did or not.  All we know is that help just came because of the laws of the world.  He asked for help from the world and received help from the world.

If he went to God, say, and that was his whole emphasis, what would the help have looked like?  If he had done so and not publicly appealed for help how would help have come?  Would asking the above to provide and assist have been enough or did they still need to plea to the world and have the world answer?

506.  Past

Theological 

From the bottom up

During certain periods of time, if in the right frame of mind, I have tried to go to God for advice.  It seems to put me together.    It's as if I have no memory and have to build myself from the bottom up every day.  I have to recharge daily, reconcile where I'm at and review my direction and the “why.”

505.  Past

Personal

Knee

Knee

Trying to get some work done after knee injury.  Every movement involves pain.  The implications are fierce.  It could bring me to a halt.  I need a miracle.

504.  Past

Principles

Psychology

Doing good

Doing good can hurt you as much as doing bad.  It can drain, deplete, exhaust, bloat your self-image, be an escape from seeing yourself and have you running from who you really are.

503.  Past

Spiritual living

Silent orders   

Pressure and overwhelming problems can make one immobile.  The drill sergeant approach is one way to push through this, almost ordering one’s self to function.  A few times, when too dangerously helpless for even this, I heard strong but silent orders dictating to me what I had to do, perhaps from another realm.

502.  Past

Principles

Stands


Life is important

Stands in life don't seem to work.  Principles don't seem to hold up.  Right and wrong doesn’t seem that important.  What you thought was right wasn't.  Time outlasts everything.  Life and just being alive is.  Life is unique and will never be again.

501.  Past

Principles

Living

More than success 
                           
Am I out of sync,
out of my league,
out of touch?

It takes too much work,
too much ego,
too much ambition.

Who needs it?
Grab some joy
with the time that’s left.

But what if it took
all this time
to get something right
that I should finish?

Well, I’ll do it then,
not for success,
but for the unknown to see.

500.  Past

Principles

Thinking

Age challenges what you think

I have a neighbor Carol, who has done a little bit of this and that to earn a living. She had been married three times.  Besides being a realtor, she did motivational speeches using visualizations, positive thinking, and techniques about maintaining a good attitude.  Sometimes she visited Israel, where one of children became orthodox and moved there. She prides herself on going with the flow and being economically astute.

A few years ago, before the economic downturn, Carol’s world was beginning to crack.  She was overweight, hurt her knee badly and she couldn’t rent out her apartment easily.  Her orthodox children were difficult and demanding.  Motivational speaking was drying up, and she, tired of being alone, went on a dating site to meet and give men “winks.”  After some time having not seen her, I saw of her walking with a cane and looking thin.

One night, early in our acquaintance, she invited me for dinner after I picked her up from the airport (always something for something with Carol).  We did some catch up and talked about different things. She said motivational speaking engagements were hard to get.  I could see it was hard for her to be positive all the time.  Simply put, here she was teaching positive thinking, visualizations and affirmations and in her own life doing so wasn’t working out and she had doubts and was quizzical.

As I do sometimes I drew from my own experience and said, “Once you get past a certain age any take and approach you have on life gets seriously challenged.”

Her face looked relieved and at peace when she answered, “you’re so right

499.  Past

Principles

Stands


Taking stands 

Stands in life usually don't work.  Every time I've taken a stand in business, to a boss, or personally, it seems to backfire.  For instance, when spoken to insultingly and childishly by a boss, I stood up for myself and eventually he fired me. I had written a letter to the board and spoke eloquently and convincingly, and many people agreed with me.  However, eventually my boss just fine tuned his skills and was sharpened by my opposition.  The board sided with him because at his job he was willing to do all the work that they didn’t want to do.  The people who were behind me did nothing and I was out of work.  It was hard to replace this job with an equal one.  I paid for my stand, and although I was right and did a good thing, I was the one who suffered.

498.  Past

Principles

Man/Woman


Hard to process 

It is hard to be with anyone today.  It's hard to think of ending alone.  It's hard to process these scenarios and almost any scenarios today.