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In much of the Northern Hemisphere it is the long, gray season when life seems a little harder for want of sunshine. We battle flu bugs and stalled cars, try to buoy sagging spirits against long, cold nights, and through it all wonder why life has to have so many frustrations. We think that tomorrow or next month or even next year will bring us ease. Surely at some point the obstacles will fall, the little problems that bits at us like a swarm of angry insects will subside. That is the time for which we yearn.
Often our lives are so full of the bounty of this world that it is easy for us to say, "Life is good." We have our homes and our families, our employments, and opportunities. There is work for us to do and time in which to do it; there are rewards for our labors, and there is the love of those we love.
There are among us those whose names are household words, whose lives and actions are common knowledge to all: movie personalities, sports heroes, politicians and tycoons. These are the rich and famous.
As we look around, we see people who measure their lives as failures, as drab, as small, and yet are they? In that rhythm of light and darkness which is our life, we wonder what has significance—what is the moment that will stay with our souls, cherished in memory, leaving us never quite the same?
Faith is the key which unlocks the door of success for every human being. We all exercise faith at various times in our lives. It comes in all degrees and in all quantities. The scriptures tell us, "whatsoever thing ye shall ask in faith, believing that ye shall receive in the name of Christ, ye shall receive it."1
The wisdom and glory of the Lord is due in part to His ability to view events from an eternal perspective and judge their consequences by that much more accurate measure.
The wisdom and glory of the Lord is due in part to His ability to view events from an eternal perspective and judge their consequences by that much more accurate measure.
Ancient sailors heard its plaintive cry along the coast of Greece pulling them to uncharted shores; and Vikings heard the call above the whistling sound of ocean spray and kept their prows toward the unexplained; then Columbus listened to its whisper in the billowing canvas of his sails and pushed onward toward the unknown.
Where you there on that Christmas night? Many were —citizens of Bethlehem, who went about their work and didn't know a child was born. It's not that he wasn't expected. For thousands of years the people had word of His coming, waiting for a Savior; but now, at the moment, it was all so quiet. A mother, travelworn and weary, her husband with anxious eyes, and a baby who probably looked just like any other. No pomp, no press, no general announcement of His birth. He left His throne of glory to enter in a manger —and He did it quietly.
Christmas has accumulated a great many symbols in its passage through the centuries and the customs and countries of the world —the evergreen tree, the sleighbells, the piñata, Santa Claus, and a red-nosed reindeer to name a few.
Christmas is a time for remembering friends, a time for kindness and generosity, but it is often a difficult season because of the challenge of brotherly love in a world filled with hardship, violence, and mistrust.
Ours has been called the "Age of Information." Indeed, the most stunning advancements of our technologies have been applied to the communication of data and ideas. We can shuttle and save numbers and words faster, farther and with greater efficiency than at any other time in the history of the world. Our data banks require such precision that we extrude recording filaments through orifices burned by laser in the face of diamonds—all to the end that we can save more, in a smaller space, and access it with greater speed.
Henry David Thoreau once observed that our lives are often frittered away by detail. He advised us to simplify! Simplify!
Today, a history lesson of ten thousand years we study; of the species called man we learn; with laws, customs, arts, traditions we become acquainted clusters of peoples, of men and women like us, being born, giving birth, dying; nations of languages and governments traveling their course.
Listening has always been one of the most important aspects of mankind's communication. Even the Savior made reference to it. "He that hath ears to hear, let him listen."1
Poet Robert Browning once wrote, "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for."
One of the more interesting and important aspects of the Ten Commandments is that they are as valid today as they were when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai. We need to be reminded from time to time of their application today, of the need to still keep the Lord's commandments and observe His teachings.
George Eliot once observed that we would never have loved the earth so much if we had not first been children here. It was then that each season came with the freshness and wonder of first love; each golden leaf that fell was a miracle. Often, even the things we love as adults are dear to us because they carry the nostalgia of some half-remembered past.
Often in life we're concerned with giving or getting the right answer. But we must also be cognizant of the right question.
The burden of modern civilization is not, as many have supposed, that wealth is ill-distributed, or that social welfare has been neglected. It is rather the very real possibility that civilization has become an obstacle to the simple faith of honest souls.
In “The Prayer Perfect,” just sung by the Choir, the supplicant asks the Lord to share with all the needy his own vast treasure of content. We know no more of this person than this. We do not know if he is wealthy or powerful, inhabitant of castle or hovel. It matters not. His sense of well-being flows from some inner spring, deep and consistent and sure, independent of circumstance.
It is not true what some have said: that truth needs no defense, that truth will overcome the false, with power of its own, with none to speak its name or plead its cause. Perhaps when eternity has balanced all that is on time's unerring scales, and future, present, past are one, then truth will stand alone, without the aid of just and fearless men.
All that we are and all that we do is real. We are all part of a living world—part of a world that gives us experience, understanding and growth. Like a valley in which a shepherd seeks refuge for his flock, we live in a world that exists in both space and time. Some philosophers have argued that experience is an illusion—that even our lives are not real. But the world is, and we are.
America's war veterans come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes and ages. Their collective experience spans two world wars and several foreign conflicts. They have followed war mules through the mud of Flanders Field, dropped from landing barges onto the beaches of Normandy, faced the icy cold of Porkchop Hill and trudged the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta.
The Bible records that one of the first commandments from God was "Let there be light: and there was light."1 And thus began this great miracle of physics, philosophy and aesthetics which we know as light. We don't know precisely what it is. At times, it behaves like wave lengths of energy; at other times it is more like little packets of power that physicists and photographers measure as photons.
The scriptures speak of faith and the courage that it inspires. Indeed, those who have faith in Christ need fear no final disaster, no ultimate failure. His atoning sacrifice guarantees us that, if we will be faithful, He will overcome the tragedy of the moment. He will deliver us out of trouble into the keeping of His salvation and ultimate peace.
Among the drab and routine days that life often holds for us are a few moments that pierce us with joy. Having known those, we are never quite content until we feel them again, and we wander our days thinking something is missing. Yet, too often, joy eludes us, and we tear at the curtains trying to find where it hides.
Whether it is accomplished early or late in life, eventually we all must learn to discipline ourselves and our desires. Many lives have been ruined by uncontrolled appetites, and they often run rampant in summer, with its relaxed and laid-back pace. There seems to be an increased desire for more thrills, more indulgence, more possession of material things.
One of the most persistent poetic themes is the "Brotherhood of Man," the responsibility we have to love one another. The result of that love is beautifully expressed by the English romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, in the hymn we have just heard love results in affection that endures, affection that lives after us in the objects of our love.
In a pioneer diary is this story dated July 1858. It seems a Parker family was traveling west in a handcart company. One night as a thunderstorm blew up, they hastily made camp, and it was then the Parkers discovered their six-year-old boy, Arthur, was missing. Robert and Ann Parker spread the alarm to the rest of the camp, and someone remembered seeing the little boy earlier in the day settling down to rest in a wooded area. He was exhausted from the trip.