Winning Words 8/7/12
“God is never in a hurry, but he is always there at the proper time.”  (Ethiopian Proverb)  Time is very important in some of the Olympic sports, down to the 100ths of a second.  That’s how they measure winners and losers.  But God isn’t that way.  He doesn’t even wear a wrist watch.  He says, “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.”  Now what do you suppose he meant by that?    ;-)  Jack

FROM PH IN MINNESOTA:  what you doing up at 4:20 am??   go back to bed and i will too!   good night...  or good morning...////FROM JACK:  My routine is to have Winning Words available 5 days a week between 5 and 6 am (EDT).  Thanks for letting me know that it works for you.  God may not be concerned about time; but he's comfortable knowing that people like you watch the clock.

FROM RG IN ARIZONA & MICHIGAN: I think Jesus was conveying a non-time and non-space realm. One could say that Jesus was speaking in terms of the "whole" -- where there are no lines and there is no early or late. He also noted that through His forgiveness, the Father will know us with no sin. I think this is the same state of wholeness...nothing to compare to but that which we are and have been created in an image of. For me, this is the eternal and the infinite, and something the brain of the world can never know; but one that the mind cannot forget!////FROM JACK:  In this world we count success and failure in a different way than Jesus did.  Take the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19-31), for example.

FROM PLAIN FOLKS CHESTER:  I think he was trying to tell us that being first isn't all that important. ////FROM JACK:  Evidently the folks at NBC weren't listening.

FROM HAWKEYE GEORGE:  I've found God to be a just-in-time God. Too many wonderful experiences to think otherwise.////FROM JACK:  I'm sure you found that "just-in-time" has some glitches when you were in charge of Seaberg Industries.  God is the perfect C.E.O. and takes care of problems like that.

FROM MEDD-O-LANE:  I believe God means life is not a competitive sport to be judged  first or anything else.  The proof is we all have our individual finger print.////FROM JACK:  I've read how crooks have endured great pain by mutilating the tips of their fingers, trying to eliminate their fingerprints.  They can't do that with DNA.  BTW, in the Bible it says that God knows each hair of our head.  Someone bothered to count the hairs om a person's head and came up with 135,168. The Bible doesn't say anything about the  hairs in a mustache, but the number is about 7000.

FROM SHARIN' SHARON:  I think He was giving us a message of encouragement. When we feel like we're last, we can remember He said we will be first. And when we start to feel cocky and sure we are first, self-assured and bloated with self-importance, we need to remember we serve the poor, the marginal, the lonely, the lost, and the needy however their need manifests itself and get right with God again in right relationships in the community. Whichever side I'm on from time-to-time, I find a lot of comfort in His message to us. Written on an Iowan church sign "God gives everyone patience, the wise know how to use it." Enjoyed knowing there are 135,168 hairs on my head and possibility of 7,000 hairs under my nose. ////FROM JACK:  The Spirit of God has a way of giving messages to us in some of the most unlikely ways.  "Ready or not, here I come."

FROM ILLINOIS LIZ:  I interpret this as "there isn't a line."////FROM JACK:  "The believers" say that death is not the finish line.