Interesting things from the book.
Leaders of the Catholic Church have been widely quoted as saying, "Give us a child until he is 7 years old and we'll have him for life." Their affirmation is usually correct, because permanent attitudes can be instilled during these seven vulnerable years.
The 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians is known as the "love chapter." There is not a single reference to feelings.
A new unit in Vietnam had never seen actual combat and the men were terrified. They dug foxholes on a hill and nervously watched the sun disappear beyond the horizon. At approximately midnight, the enemy attacked as anticipated. Guns began to blaze on one side of the mountain, and before long all the soldiers were firing frantically and throwing hand grenades into the darkness. The battle raged throughout the night and the infantry appeared to be winning. Finally, the long awaited sun came up and the body count began, but not one single dead Viet Cong lay at the perimeter of the mountain. In fact, not one enemy soldier had even participated in the attack. The unit was shooting at a perceived enemy when, in fact, no one was there.
There was a high school in the 1930s located in a small Oklahoma town which had produced a series of terrible football teams. They usually lost the important games and were invariably clobbered by their arch rivals from a nearby community. Understandably, the students and their parents began to get depressed and dispirited by the losses every Friday night.
Finally, a wealthy oil producer decided to take matters in his own hands. He asked to speak to the team in the locker room after yet another devastating defeat. What followed was one of the most dramatic football speeches of all times. This businessman proceeded to offer a brand new Ford to every boy on the team and to each coach if they would simply defeat their bitter rivals in the next game.
The team went crazy with sheer delight. They howled and cheered. For seven days, the boys ate, drank, and breathed football. At night they dreamed about touchdowns and trucks. The entire school caught the spirit of anticipation. Each player could visualize himself behind the wheel of a gorgeous coupe.
Finally, the big night arrived and the team assembled in the locker room. Excitement was at an all time high. They ran out onto the field to win, but instead, were demolished 38 to 0.
The team's exuberance did not translate into a single point on the scoreboard. Seven days of hoorah simply couldn't compensate for the player's lack of discipline, conditioning, practice, experience, or character.
There is no more powerful teaching tool than modeling it yourself as the parent and setting an example.
The energy which holds a people together is sexual in nature. The physical attraction between men and women causes them to establish a family and invest themselves in its development. It encourages them to work and save and toil to insure the survival of their families. Their sexual energy provides the impetus for the raising of healthy children and for the transfer of values from one generation to the next.
If sexual energy within the family is the key to a healthy society, then its release outside those boundaries is potentially catastrophic.
God has clearly forbidden irresponsible sexual behavior, not to deprive us of fun and pleasure, but to spare us the disastrous consequences of this festering way of life.
Short courtships require impulsive decisions about lifetime commitments and that is risky business, at best.
A son grew up and was having a hard time loving and forgiving his difficult dad. If the son can think of his dad as a blind person going through life, he might be able to forgive easier. Blindness is a physical handicap. Probably this dad has emotional and spiritual handicaps in a similar way. He is "blind" to the hurts he caused. His handicap makes it impossible for him to see the son's needs. If the son can accept the father with a permanent handicap, he will shield himself from the ice pick of rejection.
John 10:4 KJV says... And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.
Notice the expression "goeth before" and "follow". God goes before to open the way, and we are to follow in the way thus opened.