Phil Strong
I’m currently reading CS Lewis and loving his witty crafting of the English language to convey timeless wisdom and life-altering messages. He argues against the folly of the flesh attempting to prove the strength of humanity, pointing to the inconceivable and illogical demonstrated by God’s design. His argument his proof, Lewis is someone I’m glad to call a teacher.
Phil Strong
Words matter, friend, and we should weigh them carefully. Always. Talk is cheap, according to Bunyan, who wrote in 1692, “I know words are cheap, but a dram of grace is worth all the world.”
As an author, I judge myself most harshly as I choose locution and expression.
The Bible is clear in teaching wisdom for life, urging us to be careful to whom we give our support and attention to. Moses sought the advice of his father-in-law who told him he would wear himself thin if he were to attend to the all the complaints of the people. What do we learn? Listen to the wrong people and you’ll suffer for it.
Read the paper and you may feel risk of yourself wearing thin, these pages often report complainers more than hard-workers. The lobbying against the Waste Recycling Plant is full of negativity and lacking constructive thinking. No wonder it’s going nowhere.
Jesus, the best teacher, said, “Out of the overflow of your heart your mouth speaks.” We can judge others by what they say as evidence of what they believe. We should do well to consider that wisdom as we consider our burden of casting votes.
King Solomon wrote, “do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be like him.” This reminds me of the adage, “Wrestle with a pig – come away beaten and dirty.” I’ve taken the view in my life that words are only worth the weight of the action behind them. We must judge promises made in this election season carefully and keep long memories.
Frivolous spending of public monies occupies more News column centimetres than is enjoyable, and yet again brings a highlight to the wise words of Solomon: “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.” In a rich region like ours, how can we be so upside-down under crippling debt? Accountability demands consequence and this responsibility falls to the voter.
I’ve shared before the scathing accusation from the mouth of Jesus, addressing the church leaders of his day as “white-washed tombs.” The meaning was not lost on anyone with ears and criticises all who would live a life of disingenuous duplicity.
In my experience, community service positions are often filled by those who have a desire to “do good.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t qualify them to “do well” and their outcomes often give evidence to their lack of efficacy, meaning they miss the mark.
The recent published photo of the Welcome to Te Awamutu sign is fine evidence of this. While I’ve never had the chance to visit Hades, I suspect the Welcome sign there is warmer than the one we now have.
