{"id":6466,"date":"2021-10-20T09:07:39","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T15:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theclarion.org\/?p=6466"},"modified":"2021-10-20T09:07:39","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T15:07:39","slug":"thoughts-from-the-bible-thoughts-from-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/?p=6466","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts from The Bible Thoughts from The Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"

You Are Making A Difference<\/strong>
\nby Terry Broome<\/em><\/p>\n

Do you ever get the feeling that you\u2019re just not needed? Sometimes we judge ourselves so harshly that we find no \u201credeeming\u201d qualities about our lives. One thing I\u2019ve learned in life is that things may be in the \u201cworking\u201d directly resulting from someone\u2019s influence\/ action\/ choice of direction. I don\u2019t know of anyone who has absolutely no influence on at least someone around them. Even if you happen to be the one person who has absolutely no tie with any family member, no involvement in any work that you consider essential to mankind, even you have the ability to directly affect others by choices you make.
\nA cheerful good morning as you answer the phone \u2013 a quick eagerness to apologize when you detect that someone has been wounded by your words or by your choices \u2013 these have the ability to totally reshape the direction another person\u2019s day might be going. The wise man put it this way: Proverbs 15:1, \u201cA soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.\u201d Proverbs 25:11, \u201cA word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.\u201d That person who received your \u201cunexpected\u201d note of cheerfulness may in turn decide it\u2019s a better day after all. That change of mood may very well lead to a chain of events that you never will hear about, but may very well link back to a chain reaction that you started.<\/p>\n

So, where\u2019s he going with this thought? Simply put, if all God\u2019s children made up their minds that their service, no matter how insignificant we feel it is, is important to someone, and if we behaved with such an attitude that we want God to be able to use anything about our lives that\u2019s usable for His glory, we would be a very surprised and productive people. Start by spreading some sunshine and joy. As the great old hymn puts it, \u201cBrighten the corner where you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

To those of you who still have very small children, and to those who will be parents in the near future, realize that the course of direction that you set for your family may very well impact even your children\u2019s children. My parents made a choice to become New Testament Christians very early in their young adulthood. They raised five children with involvement in the Lord\u2019s church as a priority and a joyful way of life. Out of the five, two are full-time pulpit ministers, one preaches weekly as a part-time position while he works in a growing business, one is now deceased but was very active in youth evangelism on foreign soil, one has been a faithful Bible class teacher until her health broke. They have each married faithful Christians who are very active in the church. Of all the grandchildren born in this family, all are faithful in the church. Of the married grandchildren, all have married faithful Christians who are equally active in the Lord\u2019s work. Of the great-grandchildren, all of them are being raised to be active in the church as a way of life. From two, this small circle encompasses some 50 lives now, all of whom are active in the Lord\u2019s church. One cannot even begin to measure the scores, hundreds, thousands of other lives that have been touched by the influence of all the above.<\/p>\n

This story is told time and time again of faithful Christians who are instilling the love of God in the hearts of their little children. You do make a difference! Start now, it\u2019s later than you think.
\nThe author can be reached for comments at 256-574-2489.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You Are Making A Difference by Terry Broome Do you ever get the feeling that you\u2019re just not needed? Sometimes we judge ourselves so harshly that we find no \u201credeeming\u201d qualities about our lives. One thing I\u2019ve learned in life is that things may be in the \u201cworking\u201d directly resulting from someone\u2019s influence\/ action\/ choice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tho"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6467,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6466\/revisions\/6467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}