Patience...

Someone has said, “You can do anything if you have the patience.  You can carry water in a sieve if you wait till it freeze".  Henry Ford said,” Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears”.

Have you ever noticed how long we wait when we go out to have dinner?  We wait for the menu.  We wait to place our order.  We wait for our food.  We wait for the check.  And finally we wait for the opportunity to pay the check.  Then the restaurant has the audacity to refer to the one who addresses all of this activity as the waiter! 

I don’t know about you but I need help at times with patience.  We all need to be more like the little boy in a department store.  He was at the end of an escalator watching the railing as it went around.  Finally, a salesman came by and asked him, “Son, are you lost?”  The boy replied, “No sir, I am just waiting for my gum to come back.”  We need that kind of patience. 

One of the most blessed fruits of the Spirit is patience.  The Bible describes it as longsuffering.  It is a word which means “long tempered”. 

In his book, “Is it Worth Dying For?” Dennis Brio takes a physician’s approach to patience.  As a cardiologist, Dr. Brio argued that hot reactions “Respond to every frustrating situation with angry stress, which constricts their coronary arteries.  If the condition persists, and one continues to handle matters in such a way, it can ultimately lead to heart trouble and even heart disease.   He counseled people to be “cool reactors” to alleviate stress and future health problems.  He was basically advising them to be patient.

Much of life requires patience.  A Palestinian   farmer sowed seed in the ground and received no rain at all much of the year.  The field would turn brown.  They had no irrigation.  Dependence on rain was crucial.  An early rain would come in October.  Then it would not rain again in March or April.  His crops were out of his control.

 James in his Epistle writes, “See how the farmer waits expectantly for the precious harvest from the Lord.  See how he keeps up his patient vigil over it until it receives the early and later rain”.  Then James says, “So you also must be patient.”

Patience is a virtue.  Possess it if you can, seldom found in a woman, never found in a man.

Patience-get it.  The life you save might be your own.

 

See ya Sunday!

Pastor

Gun control?

It was Patrick Henry who said, “Whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it”.

 It has always amused me how the liberal side of the media provides news from their point of view.  A case in point would be gun control and the Second Amendment.  In actuality gun control has its roots in racism.  Very little is written about the role guns played in securing victories African-Americans achieved in the civil rights movement.

In 1958 in North Carolina, Mr. Robert Williams opened a local chapter of the NAACP.  Dr. Albert Perry, a physician, helped as a leader in the community.  This particular county (Monroe) was KKK country.  The Klan included in its membership the sheriff, several police officers, and many elected officials.

Mr. Williams, a veteran of the Marines knew he and his constituents must be protected.  In 1960 he applied to the nation’s oldest civil rights organization for help, the NRA.  He applied for a local charter.  They did so and supplied him with material for fire arms training.

 Officially sanctioned as the Monroe NRA Rifle Club, Williams recruited other black veterans.  This infuriated the Klan and it inflamed many white liberals.  One night, seeking to make an example they decided to attack Dr. Perry’s home.  The local NRA branch heard of it and sprang into action.  That night, instead of finding Dr. Perry at home with his family, they found a house filled with armed guards who knew how to use a weapon.  A firefight ensued.  The Klan was no match for these trained veterans.  The Klan drove off with unknown casualties.  The story of Monroe is one the liberal elites don’t want well known.

As Monroe demonstrates, it is dangerous to leave oneself unprotected.  Our forefathers saw this and thus we have the Second Amendment.  Their intention was that we have a God- given right to protect ourselves.  At times our only defense is self-defense.

Under today’s laws Monroe county would never happen.  The laws limit the sale of many guns.  Registration and licensing laws would tell the Klan who had guns and allow them to round them up before the raid took place.  When someone tells you we need stiffer gun laws remember Monroe County.  And when you hear the critics of the NRA, remember Monroe County and realize the NRA’s influence on civil rights.

 You won’t read this on the national news, but you should.  Our Constitution was written for free people.  Black and white.  Gun control is all about people control.  In the famous Dred Scott case, Chef Justice Taney said, “We cannot allow the recognition of blacks as humanity because they would be allowed to keep and bear arms.”

Gun control is anti-American.  The Second Amendment stands for itself.  It is a fundamental right.

 

See ya Sunday!

Pastor