From a recent post on the Jack’s Winning Words blog, Jack shared this message that he had received from a follower of his blog – “Did you see NYT article regarding what the Pope said about giving to panhandlers? He wants us to look them in the face, share a kind word and…not judge them or decide if they “merit” our help.” (BB in Illinois
How often we all rush to judgement about whether someone or some cause merits our act of kindness or giving. It is all too easy to have the thought “get a job” escape our minds and come out of our mouths as we walk past the man begging on the corner. Or perhaps a
flash of disdain overcomes us as we watch the story of a young black mother with her three children burned out of their home on the nightly news. Maybe we pull back the hand of friendship from the person whom we are told is a member of the LGBTIQ community. Those people, we may think don’t merit our help or friendship or pity. After all they brought this on themselves, right?
Imagine if God had looked down on mankind and the messes that they make for themselves and decided that we didn’t merit sending his only son to die for us and for the forgiveness of our sins. We certainly brought all of our sins upon ourselves and it would seem didn’t merit the love that He showed when he sent Jesus to live among us. How did we merit that?
The answer is found not in our merit for that gift; but, in in God’s love for us that is so strong that it needs see no merit in us in order to save us. All He needs to see is acceptance 
of His love and acknowledgement of Him in our lives. Do we merit God’s love? Of course not. What could we possibly do to merit His love? The path to God is not marked by accomplishments and it is not earned by good works. Mark Twain put it this way – “Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.”
Perhaps, then, we should spend less time judging the merit of others to receive our help and just go with God’s plan and guidance for us in John 13:34 – “A new 
command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” There was no mention of or need for merit in that guidance. If we do that, maybe the next line in that scripture by John will also come true – “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Have a great, judgement free day and weekend. Show everyone who you are by loving one another.
Posted by Norm Werner 
almost any circumstances. Victor Hugo said – “Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.”
I’m sure that there are scientific explanations about the endorphins that are released in the body by laughter; but those fail to take into account the release of the icy grip of hate, anger, remorse, fear or sadness from our hearts during those moments of laughter.
up his ratty cardboard sign that asks for help for him and his family without caring; yet few stop to offer help. We may feel good about holding the door open for someone else somewhere, but too few make the effort to open the door to an animal shelter cage and rescue a lonely dog or cat. It feels good to drop a dollar into a donation bucket outside the local superstore; but only a few actually go to the homeless shelter to volunteer to serve food or offer services. Do you care enough to actually do?
“God, please give me the courage to go there and help”. It’s easy to hurry past the needy or ignore those in pain or despair by looking the other way; after all we’re busy people with lives of our own to lead and mouths to feed. Someone else will provide for those people you may think; or, you can adopt the saying that the University of Michigan basketball team has been using in the NCAA Tournament – “Why no us?” Do you care enough to actually do?
It may mean volunteering for Meals on Wheels and delivering meals and conversations to a few elderly shut-ins. It may mean adopting a pet or volunteering to work at a n animal shelter on weekends. It could mean volunteering to work on a house for Habitat for Humanity or bringing food to your church and then delivering food baskets to the needy at Easter. Maybe it’s befriending that lonely kid at school that nobody seems to like and who seems so down all the time. You know lots of things that need to be done and which you could do; but, do you care enough to actually do?
perhaps retired before they get into volunteer work. It’s great that they eventually did do something about their caring, but it is not necessary to wait. Earlier in life most of us think that we are too busy with work and family to take the time to do work for others, but that is just rationalization. Make your volunteering a part of family life. Take the family with you to do that work. Let your children see and participate in the work that you choose to do in service to others. It is a great life lesson for them and it shows them that you really do care enough to actually do?
Samuel Henry John “Sam” Worthington[1] (born 2 August 1976) is an Australian actor. He played the main character role of Alex Mason in the Call of Duty: Black Ops series. He portrayed the protagonist Jake Sully in the 2009 film Avatar; Marcus Wright in Terminator Salvation; and Perseus in Clash of the Titans and its sequel, Wrath of the Titans; before transitioning to more dramatic roles, in Everest (2015) and Hacksaw Ridge (2016).
why r what it was all about. If they stick with it long enough their intellect catches up with what the Sunday School teachers were try to tell them and they begin to understand and may even begin to believe. Somewhere around high school age that same intellect is joined by a growing ego and the first tastes of freedom and many wander off from their faith, convinced at the time that they know better than to believe what they are being told. For some that loss of faith is just an extension of the rebellion against all things that can set in at that age. Eventually self-control and intellect again gain the upper hand and the adult mind begins to look for the meaning of life and wondering about what comes next. Faith provides the only reasonable answer to those questions. All other answers still lead to dead-ends. And so, the journey is taken up again.
elationship with God? Are you still unsure and wandering about looking for signs from God; or, have you settled into a comfortable relationship that brings you peace and assurance that everything will be alright? Remember that, wherever you are on the journey, you can find directions in your Bible and you can turn to your guide, Jesus Christ, and ask for help. You will not be turned down and you will not get lost on the journey if you just do those things. If your journey hits a few bumps along the way, don’t get discouraged; just keep in mind what the final destination is – your place in heaven that Jesus has prepared for you – and keep on keeping on. The destination is worth the journey. Maybe I’ll see you along the way.
opinions and approval of others to validate ourselves. The self-promotion of many social media sites supports that need to be seen and to receive approval from others. We’ve even become comfortable with asking people to “Like me” on Facebook or elsewhere. We keep score by how many “Likes” we get. Yet none of that really makes a difference if you do not like yourself or your life.
thankful for; but, many of us don’t take the time to really think about all that we have and have been given and thank God for what we have, much less thank Him for who we are. God made each of us unique, each with talents and abilities that please Him in some way. He sees our value, so who else really matters? You don’t have to pray to God “See me; Like me”; He already does.
self-worth through their belief in God. Instead of wandering through life asking others to “See me; Like me”, you will be able to seek out others to say, “I see you and I like you; you have worth to God”. All of this will happen when you have come to peace with who you are and see the value in your life as your ability to serve God by helping others.
wrote about that in my post of February 16 – 
“What would Jesus do?”, but I submit that doing so abstracts the process too much. These are our decisions to make and it is up to us to make them. Perhaps a better way to phrase that last saying might be to ask yourself, “What would a person who follows the teachings of Jesus do?” That at least brings us full-circle back to thinking about the person that we’d like to be – a person who follows the teachings of Jesus.
against the stream of what appears to be commonly accepted practice. That requires courage and a strong belief that what you are about to do is the right thing, the thing that the person that you wish to be would do. Steve had a great quote for that –
protest the treatment of people of color or ethnicity. It takes courage to stand up and say that I will not be treated like an object anymore or take any more of your abuse. It takes courage to decide that you are not going to continue to “go along to get along” anymore. Be the person that you would like to be and act now, before “not now” becomes never in your life.
get yourself into and the reactions that you have to them. Ask yourself how the person that you would like to be would act and react in those situations. Would that person show courage or cowardice? Would that person act without thinking or think about it without acting and perhaps let not now become never?
hard look at it yourself. Are you where you want to be in life? Are you surrounded by those that you really want to be with in life? Are you doing the things that you really want to do in life? Take a good hard look at your life-selfie and ask yourself those questions and more. As Socrates said – “The unexamined life is not worth living.” A life-selfie may give you a way to examine your own life.
The answer to all of those selfie reflections is no; we don’t have to just continue down the current path. We have been given a free will and the ability to change our direction at any time. The momentum of life may try to carry us along the old path, but we can break free and chose a different path. The key to making that decision probably starts with that life selfie and a critical evaluation of what we see in that picture of our life. That review doesn’t mean that you have to beat yourself up for past life decisions; but it does mean that you need to be brutally honest with yourself about where you are in life and where you really want to be.
your life. Some things might be easy to fix immediately; perhaps stopping a bad habit or stopping your association with bad people who may lead you astray. Other things, like making a job change to find something that will both provide the necessary income and make you happier, could take a while and require careful planning. At least you will know that you have made that choice, based on your life selfie and you may start feeling better about the future right away.
Local life coach and author, Norma Nicholson, has published a book called Living a Balanced Life which might give you some perspective, in addition to your life selfie, on the things that you might need to consider doing to change the direction of your life and get it back in balance. You can find out more about Norma at 
yourself. If you see things that need to be changed in your life, make a plan and start those changes. You don’t have to continue down a path that you don’t really like. Making changes, bused upon this evaluation of your life-selfie is not selfish; however, it is self-serving and that’s a good thing. The next time that you take a life-selfie, after you make those changes, I think you’ll find a different person smiling back at you.
completely absorbed in) that will make you happy. I’ve noticed that many people are most happy when they are completely absorbed in their family life; when being with, and participating in things with, their wives and children take away any cares of the world and they just enjoy the moment and the experiences with family.
dmittedly, it is a somewhat rare and perhaps a fleeting experience; but think of the last time you and your loved ones had a great group experience together and how happy that made you feel. Maybe it was a family pillow fight on a weekend morning, or maybe the fun of a visit to an amusement park or the zoo. There’s nothing that can make you happier than everyone in the family laughing and having fun together while doing something together. Not only are you completely absorbed by the experience, but you also get to share in and draw from the happiness of others in the group experience.
takes on the characteristics of a job for you. It’s also important to maintain control of yourself within the pursuit of a hobby/sport, so that it doesn’t start to take over your life or get way out of hand. Many times on the TV show American Pickers, they show people who have crossed over the line from collectors to hoarders, some of whom eventually recognize that and are trying to pull back from had become an obsession and regain control of their collection hobby. In sports we have probably all encountered the uber-competitive fanatic for whom the sport has become totally a win-lose proposition, rather than a pleasant and enjoyable pastime. There is often more frustration than happiness to be found in that approach to sports.
with them about why they do what they do, why they spend the hours or toil away behind the scenes on jobs with little public recognition for their efforts; they will usually tell you that it makes them feel good; it makes them happy. There’s lots of business advice that says doing the jobs that no one else wants to do is a good way to succeed in business. I think that it is good advice for life in general and your reward in life is a payoff in happiness. Sometimes you are the only one who knows that you did some of those things; but, knowing that you did allows you to make your own happiness from the effort and the success.
you find the happiness from inside? The power to create your own happiness is within you. Find those things in which you can become completely absorbed – a family activity, a hobby, a sport, service to others, whatever – and lose yourself in it. You will experience happiness as a by-product.
when I don’t get up and say thank you to somebody.” (Rod Stewart)
Think about your own life and how many times a parent or teacher or others helped you, even when you didn’t want to be helped at the time. How many times did you say thank you back then? If they are still here, why not go back and do it now? Every day is a good day to thank someone. You can start each day by thanking God for giving you another day and then think about who else deserves a thank you.
self-sufficient. We live in a society, not in a vacuum; and that society is dependent upon cooperation between its members. Sometimes that cooperation is called help and sometimes it is called intervention and all of us in this society may need a little of both from time-to-time.
said it to that person. Saying thank you has a double sided benefit; it makes the person that you said it to feel good about themselves and what they did and it makes you feel good about having acknowledged their contribution to your day or life. Saying thank you is a win-win for all concerned. Think about how big that win will be for you, if you start by saying thank you to God each morning. His will be one “You’re welcome” that you don’t want to miss.
might have shifted down to a lower gear when you were going up a hill and pumped a little bit harder and faster; but for the most part you settled into a comfortable gear for the flat portions and just pedaled along. Life can be like that. We all hit tougher (uphill) stretches during which we must shift gears and pedal harder and faster; but for the most part we just settle into a comfortable gear and pedal along through life.
decision to volunteer at a local charity means switching gears. Making the decision to work with special needs children or adults requires a switch in your gears. Deciding to volunteer at your church or maybe at your child’s school will require choosing a new gear. Even the decision to just try to be a better partner in your life-relationship or a better parent to your children means choosing a new gear and pedaling harder. Doing those things means raising your life to a new, higher level and requires a new, uphill gear and that you pedal faster and harder.
mething out of the ordinary to help someone else? Can you put more effort into your relationships with your family members? Can you show the world your faith in actions, rather than just talking about it? Can you do better? Can’t we all?
NormsMilfordBlog 