Overworked? Underpaid?

Lest we feel we are overworked and underpaid, here is a gem from 1892:

This notice was found in the ruins of a London office building. It was dated 1852.

1. This firm has reduced the hours of work, and the clerical staff will now only have to be present between the hours of 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays.

2. Clothing must be of a sober nature. The clerical staff will not disport themselves in raiment of bright colors, nor will they wear hose unless in good repair.

3. Overshoes and topcoats may not be worn in the office, but neck scarves and headwear may be worn in inclement weather.

4. A stove is provided for the benefit of the clerical staff. Coal and wood must be kept in the locker. It is recommended that each member of the clerical staff bring four pounds of coal each day during the cold weather.

5. No member of the clerical staff may leave the room without permission from the supervisor.

6. No talking is allowed during business hours.

7. The craving for tobacco, wine, or spirits is a human weakness, and as such is forbidden to all members of the clerical staff.

8. Now that the hours of business have been drastically reduced, the partaking of food is allowed between 11:30 and noon, but work will not on any account cease.

9. Members of the clerical staff will provide their own pens. A new sharpener is available on application to the supervisor.

10. The supervisor will nominate a senior clerk to be responsible for the cleanliness of the main office and the private office. All boys and juniors will report to him 40 minutes before prayers and will remain after closing hours for similar work. Brushes, brooms, scrubber, and soap are provided by the owners.

11. The owners recognize the generosity of the new labor laws, but will expect a great rise in output of work to compensate for these near Utopian conditions.

Anonymous

Still want to complain??

ISAIAH 40:11

"He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom..." (Isaiah 40:11).

Our son Chuck's tombstone has Revelation 21:4 carved on it. I felt this would be a comforting verse and a witness for others because it soothed my own breaking heart every time I read this particular verse. For my own stone, though, I would choose Isaiah 40:11. My favorite vision of Jesus is as the Shepherd, for as Shepherd He brings love and comfort. As Shepherd, He understands when anguish covers us with darkness and pain and we are lost in a fog of circumstances that leaves us numb.

Jesus enfolds us to His heart according to our need. I like to think in particularly agonizing moments that those of us who have immediate needs He holds even closer to His breast. I'm reminded of that wonderful verse in John: "Then, leaning back on Jesus' breast..." (John 13:25). We need to lean back on Jesus' breast every moment, but at certain times we need to yield totally and allow Him to carry both us and our burden.

The following anecdote from Farm and Fireside illustrates wonderfully this point: "An aged, weary-looking woman with a heavy basket upon her arm, entered a train. Carrying her burden down the aisle, she found a seat and dropped into it, resting her heavy basket on her lap. A friendly workingman sitting across from her watched her for a long time, and then finally leaned across and spoke. `Madam,' he said, `if you will put your basket on the floor, the train will carry you and the basket, too.' How much truth there is in that kind remark. How often we do as the woman did, come to Christ for our soul's salvation, and yet steadfastly refuse to let him bear our burdens and look after our daily lives. We are willing to get on the train, but refuse to lay down the burdens."

How blessed we are to have a Shepherd who clasps our weary heart and body to His own pierced heart!

Count your blessings! - Anonymous

I don't know the author of this gem but, if we think about it, we have more sunshine than rain in our lives. If there is one virtue that we all need, it's gratitude. Even in our sadness we can thank God that circumstances aren't worse. Perhaps my attitude about our serious lack of thankfulness for the blessings we have and don't even recognize come from my study of the Holocaust, and meeting and working with people involved in this 20th century horror. Dear people, until you've wept and worked for and with these people, you have no idea what real grief is. I recall reading a story by a survivor titled "Spoon" and how he held on to that one possession with his life. It makes you think! PENordman.

*If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep ... you are richer than 75% of this world. *If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace ... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy. *If you woke up this morning with more health than illness ... you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week. *If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation... you are ahead of 500 million people in the world. *If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful ... you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not. *If you can hold someone's hand, hug them or even touch them on the shoulder ... you are blessed because you can offer a healing touch. *If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you, and furthermore, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.  
Have a good year, count your blessings, and pass this along to remind everyone else how blessed we all are.

Anonymous

Afterward you will understand....

"What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand" (John 13:7).

At the time Peter could not comprehend why Jesus wanted to wash his feet. Later, when he heard the rooster crow, perhaps then Peter understood the servile act his Lord bestowed upon all the apostles, including the one who was about to betray Him. Peter may have thought, "What are we, O Master, that you are so mindful of us that you become our servant? Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man" (Hebrews 2:6; Luke 5:8)

The great promise in John 13:7 is that one day we will understand what bewilders and frustrates us so now. In our lives confusing events shatter our comfortable existence and we are forced to trust in something that makes absolutely no sense to us but, to God, it is another part of the puzzle that He is piecing together for us. Faith is the only glue that holds together our fragmented hearts. We must know without a doubt that our Father views the summation of our life with the eye and heart of His omniscience. When our world seems to be crashing, He whispers to us, "Trust that I know what I am doing, and that you, too, shall know in My good time."

"By faith Abraham. . .obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going" (Hebrews 11:8). This great patriarch of faith stepped into the unfamiliar. "They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance" (Hebrews 11:13b). The faithful do not always realize what they think God has promised them. The promise to Abraham of entering Canaan never happened and it wasn't a broken promise. God drew a different and better blueprint for Abraham, that of the "city without foundations, whose architect and builder is God" (Hebrews 11:10). And Abraham walked in faith to the heavenly city.

"...Every branch that does bear fruit he [trims clean] so that it will be even more fruitful" (John 15:2b).

It seems unfair that those who are already bearing fruit will be pruned but only God knows what needs to be removed at what season of our lives so we may bear more fruit for Him. Even the most saintly have sinned and come short of God's glory. He can see the beautiful and yet unnecessary blossoms developing that will hinder the growth of the fruit of the Spirit. The Vine-dresser uses the pruning-knife of trial and affliction that the branch may bear even more excellent fruit. “Why should I start at the plough of my Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul? I know He is no idle husbandman, He purposeth a crop" (Rutherford). God desires a yield from each of us or He would not have created us.

Job's friends were positive that his afflictions came from unconfessed sins but here in John 15:2 we have the suggestion that it is the very branch that is bearing already that feels the knife. Lest we become disheartened to the point of wanting to give up, it is because God sees something worth pruning. It is the unfruitful branch that is cut off.

Good people are sometimes confused at the reasons and the means by which God cultivates His vineyard, His people. Jesus was a tender shoot who was cut off at the prime of life. Many times it is the sensitive and the gentle who bear the brunt of the moral and emotional shocks of unexpected situations that seem to bear down on those who least deserve it. Yet the beauty lies in turning these experiences into God's glory and a beneficial use for others. God prunes us to get rid of our unproductive and ornate growth so that our dormant worth may flourish for His glory. If we remember this, we can accept the pruning more serenely and confidently.

Controversies!

“Have nothing to do with silly and ill-informed controversies which lead inevitably, as you know, to strife" (2 Timothy 2:23 Phillips); "But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments, because these are unprofitable and useless" (Titus 3:9).

Defend me, therefore, common sense, I say,/From reveries so airy, from the toil/Of dropping buckets into empty wells,/And growing old in drawing nothing up" (Cowper). Religion especially is not to satisfy our curiosity or to answer speculative questions. It is to restore our relationship with God; to sanctify our hearts and minds and prepare us for eternity. What good comes from stirring up strife over whatever does not help us with this goal? Chaucer shared this humorous bit of wisdom: "One shouldn't be too inquisitive in life/Either about God's secrets or one's wife." Our question is not, "Is my name written there, on the page white and fair?" but, "Is my God written here, on my heart full of fear?" "What must [we] do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30) and "What must we do to do the works God requires?" (John 6:28) - these are the compelling questions.

"...What may be known about God is plain..." (Romans 1:19). It is "wise" men who have obscured the plain things. We have made a fine art of wrangling and wresting from the very Word of God. "Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" (1 Corinthians 1:20). Yes, there are thoughts past our understanding, but God would not leave us without precepts and promises that we can comprehend and believe beyond spiritual fatal doubts. What kind of God would do that if He professes to be Love?

Patricia Erwin Nordman, Walking Through the Darkness

Broken Reeds and Smoking Wicks

I am reposting this because I have several friends going through sad times right now. I wrote this in a grieving time in my own life, when we lost our oldest son and I desperately needed to know that God indeed cares!
==========================================

Jesus didn't--and doesn't--go by our theory of survival of the fittest. He takes
our bruised reed that twists in the storm and strengthens and straightens it
enough so that it makes music for Him and others; He takes our dimly burning
wick and tends it until it can give light for others groping in their dark night
of the soul. We can take glorious comfort in this thought.

There's a German legend that tells of a baron who built his castle on the Rhine.
One too-quiet and lonely day he hung wires from crag to crag and turret to
turret, hoping that the winds, as they blew upon this great Aeolian harp, might
make sweet music and lessen his loneliness. The baron waited patiently every day
for his beautiful music. Every day the winds blew from the four corners of
heaven, but no music came. Then one night a hurricane charged in, tossing the
Rhine into a fury. The lightening pierced the black night and the thunder shook
the land with its uproar. The winds seemed to go mad. The baron rushed to the
great castle door to view the terrifying scene and suddenly he heard the sound
of what seemed angels' music. As he listened with awe, he realized that his harp
had come to life at last. The terrifying tempest had given it new and sacred
life.

Dear grieving friend, our precious Savior has allowed a sweeping hurricane to
carry off what is so dear to us! We feel our treasure being ripped from the core
of our existence and, when we reach into our heart to find something to assuage
the terrifying hopelessness, all we find is a hole so large we could sink in it.
What is so stirring about this particular verse is God’s promise that He will
never allow life's lightening bolts to devastate us completely.

This verse helped me mightily in the severe times after our son's death. It was
enormously comforting to visualize this weak little reed being lifted and held
ever so gently by a Man who understood every pang of grief I was feeling. I
envisioned strength and courage returning as I felt Jesus lift this
terribly-broken reed and whisper to me, "Dear child, don't you know that I take
broken reeds and make some of them pens to write of My love, using My own sacred
blood for ink? Some of these broken reeds I take and make instruments of lovely
music of praise. Handel was one of those drooping reeds when I gave him
inspiration and strength to write Messiah. Yet other broken reeds I make so
strong that they become pillars whereon others may rest."

O friend, let Jesus take us and make of us what He will, for it is the broken
reeds and smoking wicks that He loves so much!