Friday April 15

Good morning to you.
I try to write or post in the mornings.  There doesn't seem to be enough energy or time left in the evenings.  
Well, yes today is the half over point for April, one of my favorite months... Spring comes, winter fades rapidly, it's not too hot and all things are coming out of their winter's nap.  
What are you after?  Success, money,  power, fame, sex, knowledge, influence, connections, a full toy box?  Sometimes we labor and we forget what we want and certainly rarely do we figure out the why.  


In all of the getting and doing, life can throw some mean fast curve balls at us and we do strike out now and then.  Those are cruel times.  


James Ryle points out this morning Ryard Kipling's wonderful poem.

April 15

"IF" by Rudyard Kipling

"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold In settings of silver. " (Proverbs 25:11)

Here is a real treasure; one of Kipling's best offers to the world of Literature; his insightful poem, simply entitled 

"IF" 

If you can keep your head when all about you

are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

but make allowance for their doubting, too;

If you can wait and not be tired of waiting;

or being lied about don't deal in lies;

or being hated don't give way to hating;

and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.

If you can dream, and not make dreams your master.

If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,

and treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

or watch the things you gave your life to, broken;

and stoop to build them up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings,

and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,

and lose, and start again at your beginning

and never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

to serve your turn long after they are gone,

and so hold on when there is nothing in you

except the will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;

if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

with sixty seconds' worth of distance run;

Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,

and (which is more) you'll be a man, My son!

May I propose that the journey is never easy, but you can have a much more peaceful and purposeful journey when you ask Jesus to walk with you each day?  Try Him, ask Him and you will see.

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