A well-groomed man of nearly 60 sought me out after I had spoken at a banquet and said to me, “I’ve got a story you must hear.” I sat with him and heard an amazing testimonial to God’s grace. Here is his story: [Read more…]
Do I Accept What He Has to Offer?
Let me share this letter from a woman to her brother that she recently shared with me:
Dear Bill:
I don’t have to remind you of the problem Mom always was. How well you knew her self-pity, sarcasm, jealousy, suspicion, injustice, self-righteousness, and nagging that ended only in long periods of sulky silence. You rebelled openly, but my rebellion was silent. I buried the bitterness and resentment, but I buried them in the wrong place. I hid them in my heart and they have come back to torment me. Even after she died, I blamed Mom for making me the wretched person I was. [Read more…]
Perfect Love Casts Out Fear
“It’s agonizing. Any gathering of people frightens me. In a traffic jam, I feel like jumping out of the car and running away. I force myself to go to church and sit there with a feeling of suspense. Even a few customers lined up to buy something in my place of business frighten me. I feel trapped.”
The gentleman speaking was a college graduate and successful in business. He went on, “It started when we moved to an apartment. The people below us and beside us were noisy. We could hear their radios. They would drop things. Often another car was in my parking space. Finally, I insisted on moving to our own home. My wife wasn’t bothered at all by these things and she resisted our moving back to a home of our own, so now there is a wall building between us. [Read more…]
Patience in Managing
John Morgan was having trouble with the employees in his automobile repair garage. His mechanics would listen politely to an order, then not carry it through.
“Why, I bet I have to tell them three times before they fill out their repair tickets right or turn out a light they’re through using,” he raged.
Mr. Morgan had come to me from a sickbed. Every month or so he had to quit work. His stomach pained him; he was short of breath; he couldn’t eat. He would blow up at the garage and go home. [Read more…]
How to Deal with Your Anger
Anger is a universal problem. I have observed it in the primitive cannibals in Irian Jaya, uncivilized Indians in the remote jungles of Brazil, illiterate people in tiny villages deep in the forest of Zaire, my playmates when I was a child, in my parents, church members, pastors, highly educated people, the very rich, people in government, and yes, even in myself. Call it what you will: mad, angry, frustrated, annoyed, perturbed, ticked off–all of these words represent a form of anger.
You cannot decide to be angry. You can take elaborate precautions to avoid being angry. But, alas, sooner or later, anger underneath your skin is triggered by a memory, someone’s behavior, a conversation, a phone call, or a letter. It can cause your heart to beat faster, make you sweat, tense up your muscles, foul up your digestive system, alter the way you think, dictate how you act, and trigger negative words from your mouth.
There seems to be universal agreement that anger must be tamed. Yet there is vast disagreement over the cause and the cure. [Read more…]