Play till the final whistle

I have to say you don't look discouraged. 

"Discouraged" the boy asked with a puzzled look.

Why should I be discouraged when the referee has not blown the final whistle.

I have confidence in the team and the managers; we shall definitely overcome.

Truly, the match ended 5-4 in favor of the boy's team.

He waved at me gently, with a beautiful smile as he left; I was amazed, mouth wide open; Such confidence; Such beautiful faith.

As I got back home that night, his question kept coming back to me -

Why should I be discouraged when the referee has not blown the final whistle.

Life is like a game...

Why be discouraged, when there is still life.

Why be discouraged when your final whistle has not sounded.

The truth is that many people blow the final whistle themselves...

But as long as there is life, nothing is impossible and it is never too late for you.

Half time is not full time...

Don't blow the whistle yourself...

What is faith?

What really is faith? One little boy in Sunday School was asked that question and quick as a flash he replied, "Believing something you know isn't true." And I don't know what you feel about it. I often thought that that's what faith was.It's believing something that you know with your mind isn't true. It's some kind of overdrive that you push in with a button of some kind in your mind or your emotions or somewhere as "they" say down in your heart, to get you to accept something that you know with your intellect could not possibly be true. And so many of us, I think, in this world today are sceptical of the whole idea of faith, because we think of it as something not connected with the ordinary processes of the mind at all and actually opposed to the convictions of the intellect. And so many of us who have been through some kind of education and especially some kind of scientific education get the idea that to have faith you have to in some way close up your mind, or in some way put your intellect to sleep, or in some way ignore the conclusions of science and conclusions of research.

That's absolutely ridiculous. Faith is not that kind of an irrational thing at all. Faith, in fact, is something that you and I exercise every day in our lives. And we've exercised it from the very moment we were born. I suppose it's true that your mother even encouraged you to feel that we could trust her when we lay in her arms. And we learned day by day that was true, she would not drop us, that she was reliable, and we could put our faith in her arms.
And so as we grew up and came to the age of two or three or four years old and our Mom would ask us to jump from one chair into her arms, we would jump, because we would feel, "Yes, we can put our faith in her because she has never let us fall before. And every time we have observed her, every time we have experienced the stability and the safety of her arms we have not been disappointed, and so we learned to put our faith in her.

It was the same when we began to ride on a bicycle. We started to find out that the bicycle would carry our weight. Then as our Dad taught us how to balance we found that it was possible, amazing though it was, to push the bicycle along on the ground in such a way that we could stay up even though it had only two wheels. And we began to put our faith in the bicycle and in our ability to ride it and to stay up all the time.

And so in all of our lives we have gradually come to put our faith in all kinds of things. If I ask you, "Would you put your faith in that chair that is sitting opposite you in your office or in your home?" You will probably reply to me, "That chair? Yes, yes I would put my faith in that chair. That is, I would gladly go over and sit on that chair, because I have observed it holding other people. It has held me myself on many occasions, and I'm prepared to bet my life on the strength of that chair."
It's so in the car this morning. If you're sitting in your automobile and you're in rush hour traffic, and you see the guy's lights in front of you or the woman's lights in front of you brighten up, you put your faith in the fact that the car in front of you is going to slow up. And you immediately move your foot from your accelerator over to your brake because you put your faith in the stop light of the car in front of you working properly. Now sometimes, of course, it is not working properly and sometimes it fails to work. Then you find you are in real trouble at that moment. But even that failure of the car's tail light is proof that you actually do normally live by faith in that mechanism working efficiently.

And so it is in all kinds of situations. You lift the phone when you hear the phone ringing, and you're absolutely certain that you will hear somebody speak on the other side of it. And it's the same when you hear the doorbell sounding, you're pretty certain that when you go to that door and open it you have faith that there will be someone standing on the other side.

And so it is in all kinds of more important and vital matters. In connection with your bank account you have absolute faith that when you write a cheque out and send it to a certain person your bank will forward to them the necessary amount of money as long as it's in your account. You put faith in your bank to do that.

Then we have all kinds of complicated expressions of faith when you get to the stock exchange floor. And you get to the buying of stocks and shares and you find that all kinds of massive purchases of stocks and shares in companies and investments are made simply on the word of one man. Often on the wild waving hands of some man on the stock exchange floor. And they shake the hand and that's the deal done. Often, even thousands and millions of dollars change hands because they put faith in the shake of the other person's hand, or they put faith in what the other person has said is going to happen.

So it is of course every time we step into a plane. We put faith in the incredible theory of aerodynamics that assures us that the mass of metal is going to lift into the air and going to cross thousands of miles of ocean. Then it lands us safely in another country, even though to our ordinary eyes and to our ordinary intellect we cannot understand why that plane could possibly rise off the ground like that. And yet we put our faith in it because we've seen it happen again and again.
And so it goes on throughout all of our life. We'll often allow ourselves to be put to sleep by some stranger in a hospital because we'll have absolute faith in what the hospital has done with other people. We have even seen other hospitals do this with our own relatives and we have seen doctors and surgeons do. We'll put our faith in a great many unknown people and unknown events and unknown techniques, simply because we have observed in the past and we have good grounds for putting our faith in those things.

So practically everyday in our life we exercise faith a thousand times. We breathe because we put our faith in the fact that the air is clean enough to breathe and is not filled with poisonous gas.

So in all kinds of manifold situations we put our faith again and again in people, in things, in events, in techniques, in strategies, in processes that actually on many occasions we have not tried before, but we have observed other people trying them. So when we think of faith let's not think of something strange and superstitious; let's not think of something religious or something non-rational. Let's see that faith is something that we practise every day in our lives.

Can I borrow Rs 25?

A woman came home from work late, tired and irritated, to find her 5-year old son waiting for her at the door.

SON: 'Mummy, may I ask you a question?'

MUM: 'Yeah sure, what it is?' replied the woman.

SON: 'Mummy, how much do you make an hour?'

MUM: 'That's none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?' the woman said angrily.
SON: 'I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?'

MUM: 'If you must know, I make R 50 an hour.'

SON: 'Oh,' the little boy replied, with his head down.

SON: 'Mummy, may I please borrow R25?'

The mother was furious, 'If the only reason you asked that is so you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. Think about why you are being so selfish. I don't work hard everyday for such childish frivolities.'

The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door..

The woman sat down and started to get even angrier about the little boy's questions. How dare he ask such questions only to get some money?

After about an hour or so, the woman had calmed down , and started to think:

Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that R25.00 and she really didn't ask for money very often.The woman went to the door of the little boy's room and opened the door.

'Are you asleep, son?' She asked.

'No Mummy, I'm awake,' replied the boy.

'I've been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier' said the woman. 'It's been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you. Here's the R25 you asked for.'

The little boy sat straight up, smiling. 'Oh, thank you Mummy!' he yelled. Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled out some crumpled up bills.

The woman saw that the boy already had money, started to get angry again.

The little boy slowly counted out his money, and then looked up at his mother.

'Why do you want more money if you already have some?' the mother grumbled.

'Because I didn't have enough, but now I do,' the little boy replied.

'Mummy, I have R50 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you.'

The mother was crushed. She put his arms around her little son, and she begged for his forgiveness.

It's just a short reminder to all of you working so hard in life. We should not let time slip through our fingers without having spent some time with those who really matter to us, those close to our hearts. Do remember to share that R50 worth of your time with someone you love.

If we die tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of hours. But the family & friends we leave behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives.

F-A-M-I-L-Y

I bumped into a stranger as he passed by,
"Oh, excuse me Please" was my reply.
He said, "Please excuse me too; Wasn't even watching for you."
We were very polite, this stranger and I.
We went on our way and we said good-bye.
But at home a different story is told,
How we treat our loved ones, young and old.

Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
My daughter stood beside me very still.
When I turned, I nearly knocked her down.
"Move out of the way," I said with a frown.
She walked away, her little heart was broken.
I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken.

While I lay awake in bed,
God's still small voice came to me and said,
"While dealing with a stranger, common courtesy you use,
But the children you love, you seem to abuse.
Look on the kitchen floor,
You'll find some flowers there by the door.
Those are the flowers she brought for you.
She picked them herself: pink, yellow and blue.
She stood quietly not to spoil the surprise,
and you never saw the tears in her eyes."

By this time, I felt very small,
and now my tears began to fall.
I quietly went and knelt by her bed;
"Wake up, little girl, wake up," I said.
"Are these the flowers you picked for me?"
She smiled, "I found 'em, out by the tree.
I picked 'em because they're pretty like you.
I knew you'd like 'em, especially the blue."
I said, "Daughter, I'm sorry for the way I acted today;
I shouldn't have yelled at you that way."
She said, "Oh, Mom, that's okay. I love you anyway."
I said, "Daughter, I love you too,
and I do like the flowers, especially the blue."

Are you aware that:

If we die tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family we left behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives. And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more into work than to our family - an unwise investment indeed.
So what is behind the story?
You know what is the full word of family?
FAMILY=(F)ather (A)nd (M)other, (I) (L)ove (Y)ou!
Fill life with love and bravery and we shall live a life uncommon.

And you calling me colored??

Written by an African child and nominated by The United Nations as the Best Poem of 2006.

When I born, I black.
When I grow up, I black.
When I go in sun, I black.
When I scared, I black.
When I sick, I black.
And when I die, I still black.

And you white people.
When you born, you pink.
When you grow up, you white.
When you go in sun, you red.
When you cold, you blue.
When you scared, you yellow.
When you sick, you green
And when you die, you grey…

And you calling me colored??

THE U IN JESUS

Before U were thought of or time had begun
God stuck U in the name of His Son.

And each time U pray, u'll see it's true
U can't spell out JesUs and not include U.

U are a pretty big part of His wonderful name
For U, He was born; that's why He came.

And His great love for U is the reason He died.
It even takes U to spell crUcified.

Isn't it thrilling and splendidly grand
He rose from the dead, with U in His plan?

The stones split away, the gold trUmpet blew
and this word resUrrection is spelled with a U.

When JesUs left earth at His upward ascension
He felt there was one thing He just had to mention.

"Go into the world and tell them it's true
That I love them all - Just like I love U."

So many great people are spelled with a U
Don't they have a right to know JesUs too?

It all depends now on what U will do
He'd like them to know
But it all starts with U.

Acre of Diamonds

One of the most interesting Americans who lived in the 19th century was a man by the name of Russell Herman Conwell. He was born in 1843 and lived until 1925. He was a lawyer for about fifteen years until he became a clergyman.

One day, a young man went to him and told him he wanted a college education but couldn't swing it financially. Dr. Conwell decided, at that moment, what his aim in life was, besides being a man of cloth - that is. He decided to build a university for unfortunate, but deserving, students. He did have a challenge, however. He would need a few million dollars to build the university. For Dr. Conwell, and anyone with real purpose in life, nothing could stand in the way of his goal.

Several years before this incident, Dr. Conwell was tremendously intrigued by a true story - with its ageless moral. The story was about a farmer who lived in Africa and through a visitor became tremendously excited about looking for diamonds. Diamonds were already discovered in abundance on the African continent and this farmer got so excited about the idea of millions of dollars worth of diamonds that he sold his farm to head out to the diamond line. He wandered all over the continent, as the years slipped by, constantly searching for diamonds, wealth, which he never found. Eventually he went completely broke and threw himself into a river and drowned.

Meanwhile, the new owner of his farm picked up an unusual looking rock about the size of a country egg and put it on his mantle as a sort of curiosity. A visitor stopped by and in viewing the rock practically went into terminal convulsions. He told the new owner of the farm that the funny looking rock on his mantle was about the biggest diamond that had ever been found. The new owner of the farm said, "Heck, the whole farm is covered with them" -and sure enough it was.

The farm turned out to be the Kimberly Diamond Mine... the richest the world has ever known. The original farmer was literally standing on "Acres of Diamonds" until he sold his farm.

Dr. Conwell learned from the story of the farmer and continued to teach it's moral. Each of us is right in the middle of our own "Acre of Diamonds", if only we would realize it and develop the ground we are standing on before charging off in search of greener pastures. Dr. Conwell told this story many times and attracted enormous audiences. He told the story long enough to have raised the money to start the college for underprivileged deserving students. In fact, he raised nearly six million dollars and the university he founded, Temple University in Philadelphia, has at least ten degree-granting colleges and six other schools.

When Doctor Russell H. Conwell talked about each of us being right on our own "Acre of Diamonds", he meant it. This story does not get old... it will be true forever... Opportunity does not just come along - it is there all the time - we just have to see it... look around and see if you can spot an opportunity today...