Saturday, January 28, 2012

Murphy's Laws and Other Great Truisms:

When all else fails, read the instructions.

Falling in love is awfully simple. Falling out of love is simply awful.

You get the most of what you need the least.

Anything is easier to take apart than to put back together.

A crisis is when you say, 'Let's forget the whole thing.'

Never ask sales people if it's a good price.

One child is not enough, but two children are far too many.

The quickest way to find something is to start looking for something else.

Good enough never is.

A bird in hand is safer than one overhead.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Deceptive Truth

Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me. (Philippians 1:17, NLT)

We can deceive by telling the absolute truth. It’s easy. Just leave something out. There was a captain of a ship who for some unknown reason, wanted to get rid of his first mate. He did not abuse his victim or malign him. He told the absolute truth. Every three or four days he made an entry in his log - “The first mate was sober today”. The first mate was sober every day but the implication did the trick and the first mate was subsequently discharged.

We should strive to be people like Nathaniel, “An Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile”. People should recognize that we are different and we should be known for our integrity and absence of guile and deviousness.


From Day Lighters by Nico Bougas. Available from amazon.com

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Spreading the Good News

We’re not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves… Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.”" (2 Kings 7:9, NIV)


Tony Campolo, the well known Christian communicator and sociologist, found himself seated beside the governor at a state prayer breakfast. In the course of conversation the governor said that he was sympathetic toward Christianity but not personally committed. Campolo asked, "Why not?" The governor replied, "Well, to tell you the truth, no one ever invited me to commit."

Campolo said, "I'm inviting you." within five minutes that governor had committed his life to Christ.

We have good news that is essential to every human being; it's a matter of their eternal life or death. We may be the only conduits God has to certain persons. We must help him reach them.

Let us not disqualify people from hearing the gospel by presuming their disinterest.

From DAY LIGHTERS by Nico Bougas. available from amazon.com on Kindle

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Texas Beer Joint Sues Church Over Lightning Strike



Drummond's Bar began construction on an expansion of their building to increase their business. In response, the local Baptist church started a campaign to block the bar from expanding with petitions and prayers. Work progressed right up until the week before the grand reopening when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground.

After the bar burned to the ground as a result of the lightning strike, the church folks were rather smug in their outlook, bragging about "the power of prayer," until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church "was ultimately responsible for the demise of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means."

In its reply to the court, the church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building's demise. The judge read through the plaintiff's complaint and the defendant's reply, and at the opening hearing he commented, "I don't know how I'm going to decide this, but it appears from the paperwork that we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer and an entire church congregation that now does not."

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Learning to win

"Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you." (Romans 12:3, NIV)

The junior soccer team that I told you about yesterday lost its first 7 games of the season. In the second half of the season they went on to win their last seven games against the same opposition. They had learned how to lose and persevere. Now they had to learn how to win.

Somebody said, “it takes a great deal of grace to carry a full cup with a steady hand”. We are more inclined to grow spiritually through trials than through prosperity.

Yes we all need encouragement to motivate and build up our self-esteem. And we need to be encouraging one another. But as winners we also need to learn to be humble and win with grace. Most people can handle adversity but if you really want to test a person's character give them power.

DAY LIGHTERS by Nico Bougas. Available from amazon.com

Monday, January 16, 2012

Learning to Lose

Winning and Losing Part 1

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. (2 Corinthians 4:8, NLT)

I coached a junior soccer team that lost its first seven games of the season. Now we could have grown discouraged about this and felt downhearted. But I think that losing all seven games did the boys more good than if they had won all seven games.

In our western society we concentrate on developing winners. We gear up our children for success and we never train them how to handle defeat. They don’t know how to handle losses. So when college life gets tough they drop out of school, when

marriages they take the escape route of divorce. They have never learned to hang in there and persevere through difficulties. More about this team tomorrow…