The Paradoxical Commandments

Jesus seemed to always be bucking public opinion. It got Him into a lot of trouble with the religious folks of His day. He just didn’t follow their rules, but neither did they. He really only had one rule: “Love one another as I have loved you. By this, all the world will know that you are My disciples.”

The only “crime” Jesus committed was loving people and showing them the Truth. Those who didn’t know Him misunderstood Him. Those who stood the most to lose (religion) tried to kill Him and ultimately accomplished their goal. If only Jesus had played by the rules, He might still be alive today. Yeah, right.

We live in a world whose ruler is satan… for the time being. He is not going to stand still while we follow Jesus’ rule. He is going to fight us every inch of the way hoping that we forsake Jesus’ rule of love and start following his rules for the sake of survival in this world. But we are not of this world. Our citizenship is in Heaven from which we look for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

I’d like to share something with you that has been attributed to Mother Theresa, but is in actuality from Kent M. Keith. It is an encouragement when we experience battle fatigue in a fallen world.

The Paradoxical Commandments

by Dr. Kent M. Keith

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

© 1968, 2001 Kent M. Keith

I’d like wrap up this Graceline with an excerpt from one of my favorite children’s stories, The Velveteen Rabbit.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces.  He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else.  For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become real.”         

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are REAL, you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally by the time you are REAL, most of your hair has been rubbed off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand” (excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams).

Blessings,

Kenny