“REFIGERATOR” WISDOM FOR 2017
The door to our refrigerator has gone through quite an evolution over the years. It displayed special papers and “works of art” that our children brought home from school. Today, it displays pictures, special papers, and “works of art” that have been sent to us from our grandchildren. The following statements would be good additions. You’ll need a couple of magnets.
1. TRUTH IS NOT RELATIVE.
The Oxford English Dictionary is considered the foremost authority on the meanings of English words. It defines the word “truth” as that which is, “reliable, constant, sure, and secure: conformity with fact; agreement with reality.” When speaking of a statement or belief, it says that “true” means, “consistent with fact; agreeing with the reality; representing the thing as it is.” It goes on to say that the often used statement “it is true” means “certainly, and doubtless.”
2. THE ABSENCE OF PROBLEMS IS NOT PEACE.
Life has its problems. God promises us a peace we can experience in spite of the problems life brings. A peace that transcends understanding begins by having a grateful heart that can see beyond the problem.
3. GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO EVERYONE / BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO EVERYONE.
Matt 5:45 (NIV)
He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
4. HE’S GOD AND I’M NOT.
That statement alone will relieve you of worry and fill your heart with joy.
5. PROV. 16:18, “PRIDE GOES BEFORE DESTRUCTION.” (NIV)
C.S. Lewis, in his book, Mere Christianity, (Chapter 8) calls pride the “great sin.” “There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others. The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. It was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.”
6. WHAT YOU TOLERATE YOUR CHILDREN WILL ADOPT AS A LIFESTYLE.
I’ll let you fill in the blanks on that one.
That’s my view of things.