Echoes From the Campfire

[Don Adkisson]

Echoes From the Campfire--February 21

"You can read a man's life history in his eyes if you know how to look for it."
--Robert J. Thomas (The Reckoning)

"Therefore, brothers, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and wisdom, whom we can appoint to this duty."
--Acts 6:3 (HCSB)
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I'm of firm belief that life consists mainly of two ingredients. Pie and coffee. Nah, just funnin' with you for a minute. Back to my thought--life consists of two main ingredients: choices and attitude. They are with us from the time we are walking around in diapers until they finally put us in the ground.
     A child quickly begins to challenge and has to be taught right from wrong. They have to come to an understanding of what "No" really means. By the way, that's where a lot of parents falter. They don't teach the child what it means. The child then makes decisions based on what he has learned. He can challenge, rebel, or choose to do the right thing and so it goes throughout their life.
     It is not much different when it comes to the end of life. I remember, Pappy (Annie's father), both legs amputated and he was ready to go home to glory, would ask why am I still here? But then he would get in his wheelchair, in his 90s, and visit other people in the home. He said people don't come see them. He made choices to continue doing what he could even when he was in bad shape himself. Choices and attitude.
     If we truly believe that "this is the day the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it," then why are so many Christians stepping on their lower lip. They are either out partying or are in the throes of depression. The Lord gave us this day to be living for Him; we don't know about tomorrow. We should choose to live for Him and take advantage of the day with a good attitude about us.
     I came across the following in my reading. It is from a letter Robert E. Lee wrote his son who was facing some difficulties as a cadet.

          "Shake off those gloomy feelings. Drive them away. Fix your mind and pleasures upon what is before you.... All is bright if you will think it so. All is happy if you will make it so. Do not dream. It is too ideal, too imaginary. Dreaming by day, I mean. Live in the world you inhabit. Look upon things as they are. Take them as you find them. Make the best of them. Turn them to your advantage."

     Face the realities of life without gloom and despair for isn't the Lord with you? Why dream fanciful thoughts? Instead get busy making sure you are facing the day the way the Lord would have you. Lee understood the realities of war and he refused to let the carnage, suffering, and evil get him down.
     Isn't this similar to what the Apostle Paul tells us in his epistles. Rejoice, in everything. This is the will of the Lord concerning you, so why challenge it, why rebel against it? You can't find much in his writings that showed he was a gloomy person. He would take what others, including the devil, meant to harm and destroy him with and turn it into a victory. He took what came his way and turned it into something that would benefit his and others spiritual growth.

D. C. Adkisson