Of all the US Presidents, Teddy Roosevelt was one of the toughest – both physically and mentally. But he didn’t start that way. America’s cowboy president was born in Manhattan to a prominent wealthy family. But as a child, he was puny and very sickly. He had debilitating asthma, possessed very poor eyesight, and was painfully thin. His parents weren’t sure he would survive.
When he was twelve, young Roosevelt’s father told him, “You have the mind, but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. You must make the body.” So he worked hard to build that body.
At different times in his life, Roosevelt was a cowboy in the wild west, an explorer and big-game hunter in Africa and Brazil, and a rough-riding Cavalry officer in the Spanish-American War. Years after his presidency, while preparing to deliver a speech in Milwaukee, Roosevelt was shot in the chest by a would-be assassin. With a broken rib and a bullet in his chest, Roosevelt insisted on delivering his one-hour speech before allowing himself to be taken to the hospital.
I’m not sure where Teddy Roosevelt was in his faith, but his life brings to mind Paul’s encouragement in Philippians 4:13: “I do everything through him who gives me strength“.
How has God strengthened you?
Tags: discipline, Roosevelt, strength
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4).
In this verse David moves into another word picture, walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Both ‘valley’ and ’shadow’ are referring to emotions we feel at troubled times in our lives. We’ve all been through that valley and out on the other side. Fortunately, on the other side of every valley is a another mountain top. We don’t dare get stuck in the valley as some people do. I remember an aged lady in Betz’s Nursing Home whose husband had divorced her years ago. She still talks bitterly about it. She is stuck in the valley. David reminds himself (and us) that no matter how dark it gets in that valley, he doesn’t have to fear evil, because God is with him.
The other element that carries him through the valley is that the Shepherd’s rod and staff comfort him in the journey. The rod and staff were the two purposes of the shepherd’s staff that the Good Shepherd used in caring for the sheep. The crooked end of the staff was used for rescuing sheep which might fall over a precipice. The rod was the disciplinary use of the staff when a lamb became a stinker. Both of these were there to give comfort to David.
When was the last time you considered the Lord’s chastening a comfort to you?
Tags: comfort, darkness, discipline, shadow, valley
David received a parrot for his birthday. This parrot was fully grown with a bad attitude and worse vocabulary. Every other word was an expletive. Those that weren’t expletives were, to say the least, rude.
David tried hard to change the bird’s attitude and was constantly saying polite words, playing soft music, anything he could think of, but nothing worked. He yelled at the bird, the bird got worse. he shook the bird and the bird got madder and ruder.
Finally, in a moment of desperation, David put the parrot in the freezer. For a few moments he heard the bird squawking and kicking and screaming and then, suddenly, there was quiet. David was frightened that he might have actually hurt the bird and quickly opened the door.
The parrot calmly stepped out onto David’s extended arm and said, “I’m sorry that I might have offended you with my language and actions and ask for your forgiveness. I will endeavor to correct my behavior.”
David was surprised at the bird’s change in attitude and was about to ask what had changed him when the parrot said, “May I ask what the chicken did?”
Sometimes seeing God discipline someone else is a wakeup call for us. When has that happened to you?
Tags: discipline, Parrot
I can recall being disciplined with a switch. A “switch” was a flexible branch from a tree. The switch acted like a whip when it struck across my backside and really hurt! And all us kids feared the dreaded switch. I don’t know why it was called a switch unless it referred to the behavior of the kid after applying the switch to the bottom line.
I used to get as far from the switch as I could as it was swinging my way. But it didn’t take me long to learn what a mistake that was! The wisest place to be when Mom was swinging the switch was as close as I could be to her. That way, her leverage was minimized.
And so it is with God’s correction. When he begins to wield the stinging switch, Let’s move in as close as we can get. The closer we get to the Father in those times, the less it stings.
What have you learned about the switch?
Tags: correction, discipline