Making Each Day a Success

Once again, there's lots more to enjoy by clicking on the link below, but here's an appetizer:

Beware of undertaking too much at the start.  Be content with quite a little. Allow for accidents.  Allow for human nature, especially your own.
A failure or so, in itself, would not matter, if it did not incur a loss of self-esteem and of self-confidence.  But just as nothing succeeds like success, so nothing fails like failure.  Most people who are ruined are ruined by attempting too much.  Therefore, in setting out on the immense enterprise of living fully and comfortably within the narrow limits of twenty-four hours a day, let us avoid at any cost the risk of an early failure.  I will not agree that, in this business at any rate, a glorious failure is better than a petty success.  I am all for the petty success.

How to Live on 24 Hours a Day 
Arnold Bennett as quoted by the Deputy Headmistress at the Common Room

Goodbye for now, Elisabeth!

Found this "goodbye" poem by Anna L. Waring (1850) on Elisabeth Elliot's site.  Elisabeth quoted it at the close of her newsletter in 2003, and it has plenty for us to chew on today as we remember her life and legacy and ponder our own:

Father, I know that all my life
Is portioned out for me,
And the changes that are sure to come
I do not fear to see;
I ask Thee for a present mind,
Intent on pleasing Thee.


I would not have the restless will
That hurries to and fro,
Seeking for some great thing to do
Or secret thing to know;
I would be treated as a child
And guided where I go.


Wherever in the world I am,
In whatsoever estate,
I have a fellowship with hearts
To keep and cultivate.

---

The Elixer by George Herbert

Teach me, my God and King,

In all things Thee to see,

And what I do in any thing,

To do it as for Thee.

Not rudely, as a beast,

To runne into an action;

But still to make Thee prepossest,

And give it his perfection.

A man that looks on glass, 

On it may stay his eye;

Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,

And then the heav'n espy.

All may of Thee partake:

Nothing can be so mean,

Which with his tincture--"for Thy sake"--

Will not grow bright and clean.

A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine:

Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,

Makes that and th' action fine.

This is the famous stone

That turneth all to gold:

For that which God doth touch and own

Cannot for lesse be told.

Work (by Henry Van Dyke)

Another favorite selection on the topic of work from the Abeka World Lit book, this one from an American Presbyterian minister in the early 1900's:

Let me but do my work from day to day,

In field or forest, at the desk or loom,

In roaring market-place or tranquil room;

Let me but find it in my heart to say,

When vagrant wishes beckon me astray,

"This is my work; my blessing, not my doom;

Of all who live, I am the one by whom

This work can best be done in the right way."

Then shall I see it not too great, nor small,

To suit my spirit and to prove my powers;

Then shall I cheerful greet the laboring hours,

And cheerful turn, when the long shadows fall

At eventide, to play and love and rest,

Because I know for me my work is best.

Deserve It! (Author Unknown)

This gem came from the Abeka World Lit book, and while one could argue from a theological angle about what we all actually deserve, the exhortation to a strong character and diligent work ethic is excellent.

Ne'er droop your head upon your hand,

And wail the bitter times;

The self-same bell 

That tolls a knell

Can ring out merry chimes.

And we have still the elements

That made up fame of old,

The wealth to prize

Within us lies,

And not in senseless gold.

Yes; there exists a certain plan,

If you will but observe it,

That opes success to any man;

The secret is--deserve it!

What use to stand by Fortune's hill

And idly sigh and mope?

Its sides are rough, 

And steep enough,

'Tis true; but if you hope

To battle 'gainst impediments

That rudely stop your way,

Go boldly to't;

Strike at the root:

You'll surely gain the day.

 Prate not about new-fangled plans,--

Mine's best, if you'll observe it:

I say success is any man's

If he will but deserve it!

Homer and Milton reign supreme

With Shakespeare--worthy band;

And Howard's name,

And Harvey's claim,

Are sung throughout the land;

And Marlborough and Wellington

Illustrious stand in fight;

And Newton gleams 

Amid the beams

Of an undying light!

What did they do to gain a name?

What did they to preserve it

With an untarnished, deathless fame?

They simply did--deserve it!

And thus may you--and you--and YOU--

From depths the most profound,

Your wishes teach

Success to reach

Up to the topmost round.

But if, from some unreckoned cause,

(Say market overstocked,)

Your hoped-for spoil

Pay others' toil,

Think not your efforts mocked:

If Fortune's smile so faintly beam

That you can scarce preserve it,

Remember, there is One above,

Who knows that you deserve it!

Moments

Moments come as wrapped gifts, and we simply have to trust the giver.

~Ann Voskamp

Trust and Obey

Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety.
~Aeschylus

God of the Living

Let us then mark this as the principal part of the covenant, that he who is the God of the living, not of the dead, promises to be a God to the children of Abraham.

--John Calvin

Divine Visitation

In the propagation of the human race, [God's] special benediction is conspicuous; and, therefore, the birth of every child is rightly deemed the effect of divine visitation.

--Martin Luther

Eternal Powers

The powers folded up in the little ones that you hushed to sleep . . . last night are powers that shall exist forever.  You are preparing them for their immortal destiny and influence.  Be faithful.

--J.R. Miller

Who's Training Who?

We talk about training our children, but they train us first.

--J.R. Miller

Human Parenting Teaches Things Divine

God has so constituted us that in loving and caring for our own children the richest and best things in our natures are drawn out.  We best understand the feelings and affections of God toward us when we bend over our own child and see in our human parenthood a faint image of the divine Fatherhood.

--J.R. Miller

Love Sight

Love's not blind; love's the holy vision.

--Ann Voskamp

Trust

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

No Time?

In Christ, don't we have everlasting existence?  Don't christians have all the time in eternity, life everlasting?  If Christians run out of time--wouldn't we lose our very own existence?  If anyone should have time, isn't it the Christ-followers?

--Ann Voskamp

Looking Again

[O]ur perennial psychological task is to look at things familiar until they become unfamiliar again.

--G.K. Chesterton

A Bubble Held in Awe

Life at its fullest is this sensitive, detonating sphere, and it can be carriedonly in the hands of the steady and unhurried . . . a bubble held in awe.

--Ann Voskamp

One Act of Thanksgiving Can Make All the Difference

One act of thanksgiving, when things go wrong with us, is worth a thousand thanks when things are agreeable to our inclinations.

--Saint John of Avila quoted by Ann Voskamp in 1000 Gifts

Working Right

I asked that [work] should be looked upon--not as a necessary drudgery to be undergone for the purpose of making money, but as a way of life in which the nature of man should find its proper exercise and delight and so fulfill itself to the glory of God.  That it should, in fact, be thought of as a creative activity undertaken for the love of the work itself; and that man, made in God's image, should make things, as God makes them, for the sake of doing well a thing that is well worth doing.

--Dorothy Sayers

HT: Pastor Booth at Feast of Booths blog

The Choir Invisible

O, may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
Of miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men's minds
To vaster issues. . . .

May I reach
That purest heaven--be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible,
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

George Eliot

found in the "Compassion" chapter of William Bennett's Book of Virtues