The Ladder Of Life

Written by Dr. Wm. G. Seavey


The Mustard Seed - Lesson For living No. 20 THE LADDER OF LIFE PART ONE

Picture with me a ladder, a straight ladder with no supports. Not a stepladder or an extension ladder butrepparttar type you would lean up againstrepparttar 123647 house to climb up onrepparttar 123648 roof. Picture it as long as your imagination will allow you. Letrepparttar 123649 bottom ofrepparttar 123650 ladder represent your birth into this world andrepparttar 123651 very top ofrepparttar 123652 ladder represent your departure from it.

Stand this ladder in an upright position for it is going to represent all your life from start to finish. If you picture long life for yourself, seerepparttar 123653 ladder extending to a great height, even out of sight, it goes so high.

Now how is this ladder supported? It is supported by standing it on solid ground. The solid ground represents, among other things, faith, integrity and truth. Rememberrepparttar 123654 ladder represents you. Let it represent you well after your departure. If people have nothing to say about you after your departure, then perhaps you didn't do all you could have. Letrepparttar 123655 foundation for your ladder come from a solid philosophy about life. Let it berepparttar 123656 philosophy of a winner. Let it berepparttar 123657 philosophy of one who has experienced both winning and loosing for life is a mixture of up and down. You cannot expect to win at all things but you can expect to receive all that life has to offer if you will takerepparttar 123658 good withrepparttar 123659 bad, mix them together, knowing that all things work together for good and hopefully your life will make a statement in your philosophy that there was more good than bad.

Letrepparttar 123660 rungs represent your successes. You can picture as many rungs as you want on this ladder because it is your ladder. You and you alone are responsible for it. Letrepparttar 123661 rungs also represent your failures for there will be many throughout your lifetime. As you venture deeper into life, years having passed by, you can look back and hopefullyrepparttar 123662 success/failure ratio will be to your benefit. I hope you do not look back and say, "My, what a waste." Others might say that about you, but not you. There will always be jealousy from others because of your accomplishments. There will also be those who will tell you, "I told you so." Pay no attention to them. Get as far away from them as possible. Their goal is to make everyone else look bad and they look good. You do not need them on your ladder. They will only take up space. The people that you want on your ladder are those who are goingrepparttar 123663 same direction you are, and that is up. No other direction in life satisfies like ‘up' does.

Let me quickly define success. It is a few simple disciplines practiced every day forrepparttar 123664 rest of your life. Ancient Script gives this definition for success. It is acting wisely inrepparttar 123665 affairs of life and/or handling accuratelyrepparttar 123666 affairs of life. I cannot leave this without giving yourepparttar 123667 definition for failure. Failure is daily errors in judgment left unattended resulting in chaos and failure. When you fail, and you will, you must attendrepparttar 123668 errors in judgment that causedrepparttar 123669 failure and correct them, otherwise, you will continue to fail until you care not about failure. It will then become part of you and you will have missed life still standing onrepparttar 123670 first rung of your ladder.

Letrepparttar 123671 first few rungs onrepparttar 123672 ladder represent your years of life from birth up to your teen years. Since this is your life you can place yourself on whatever rung ofrepparttar 123673 ladder you think you have achieved to and you get to show your own personal growth record. Suppose everything goes really well and you are now approaching adulthood. Life takes on a different meaning. It becomes a struggle as you climbrepparttar 123674 ladder. Prior to this things were not that difficult. You rocked along with not much responsibility and life was a fun game. But now life is no longer a game. You are now a participant in a serious adventure called life. This adventure will include other people and relationships will enterrepparttar 123675 picture. Had there been only one of you and no other people, life would have been a breeze. But others have come to intrude on your adventure and cause complexities. It is called living.

The rungs of your ladder could represent your past accomplishments and successes and perhaps a few errors in judgment called failures which means something less than hoped for. You say, "I didn't bargain for this but here it is. I guess I am going to have to deal with it." Errors in judgment are things that happen when you are out of focus on what is really required for living life successfully. However they must happen in life since that is how we learn. Hopefully we don't go back and repeatrepparttar 123676 same errors. This would be foolhardy and there is nothing to gain from such action. Sadly, too many people do this. They live inrepparttar 123677 same old ruts day after day satisfied that life has dealt them misery and there is nothing they can do about it. They have surrended to failure and failure has them in its grip. The grip is so tight that it chokes any visions of hope and success. They can see no further thanrepparttar 123678 failure that lies within them.

Life is a mixture of wins and losses. Don't count just your wins. You did not learn from them. But count your losses and celebrate them as learning times for from them comerepparttar 123679 greatest lessons of life. Continue life. It is going to go on anyway, with or without you so you might just as well enjoyrepparttar 123680 ride. Hopefully your life's ledger will have more assets than liabilities. Remember that no team wins allrepparttar 123681 games. But if you continue to swing every timerepparttar 123682 ball is pitched, you will eventually hit a homer. So don't give up swinging. Practice your swing every day. Who knows when you might just hit one out ofrepparttar 123683 ballpark? When you do, don't forget how you did it and continue doing itrepparttar 123684 same way. Some balls are pitched to get you out ofrepparttar 123685 game. Some are pitched to see how good you are. Swing atrepparttar 123686 good balls and forgetrepparttar 123687 others.

Let's proceed up our ladder. What is our purpose for climbingrepparttar 123688 ladder? Why should we reach out to success? Because it is within us to do so. It was created in us. The Master Creator did not create us as failures but as winners. All we have to do is followrepparttar 123689 rules given us. It would be sad indeed if at age fifty we looked back and saw that we had barely leftrepparttar 123690 first few rungs ofrepparttar 123691 ladder. That was where we were when we first started out in life.

There are at least two reasons why man will climbrepparttar 123692 ladder. The obvious is to get torepparttar 123693 top. But whyrepparttar 123694 top? One, man is greedy and selfish. His only reason for reachingrepparttar 123695 top is for personal gain atrepparttar 123696 expense of others not atrepparttar 123697 service of others. The second reason a man climbsrepparttar 123698 ladder is to take others with him. It might be called mentoring. If you were on rung X ofrepparttar 123699 ladder and saw others beneath you seeking success, what would you do for them? Most would bring those beneath them torepparttar 123700 rung they are on. That is called positioning so that you do not get any higher in life than I do. Butrepparttar 123701 person who loves to see others win would positionrepparttar 123702 success seeker a rung above him. Why? Because it isrepparttar 123703 right thing to do. But there is another reason. Suppose you get stuck on rung X. The person whom you elevated torepparttar 123704 rung above you could now reach down and elevate you torepparttar 123705 rung above him andrepparttar 123706 process continues throughout life. It is called helping other people. Someone said if you will help enough people in life get what they want, there will come a time in your own life in which you will get everything you want. It is called reciprocity orrepparttar 123707 law of mutual exchange.

Spring-To Life

Written by Arleen M. Kaptur


Spring is about to come to our part ofrepparttar world. It's a marvelous season filled with a breath of "fresh" air and a warm breeze once in a while. We look forrepparttar 123646 first signs of those tulip bulbs we planted and we gently brushrepparttar 123647 snow away hoping to give them even more incentive to peek out and grace us with their color and their beauty.

Everyday life has its seasons as well. Spring isrepparttar 123648 beginning of any worthwhile project, summer brings allrepparttar 123649 feverish activity to get it going and moving foward, fall is when everything begins to truly take shape, and seerepparttar 123650 light atrepparttar 123651 end ofrepparttar 123652 tunnel and winter is when we look at what we have accomplished and can now sit back, admire, and bask in what we have done.

While nature never misses a season, people do. There are times when a great thought invades our space and we are gently nudged to do something about it. Without doing a bit of forethought, a sprinkling of planning, we delve right into it and hope forrepparttar 123653 best. When we reach "Fall" we realize that it is not going to turn outrepparttar 123654 way we first envisioned and we lay it aside and slip into winter.

Humans arerepparttar 123655 most intelligent beings God created, but if we take a look at Mother Nature, she seems to have gotten it right and having achieved success in a certain way, there is no moving nature from skipping or not followingrepparttar 123656 basic routine toward success. The old adage - A time to plant and a time to reap - is followed religiously by nature and its working.

In today's hurry-instant gratification-can't wait until tomorrow- world, we cut corners, take risks we don't need to, and basically rush throughrepparttar 123657 pleasure of life without takingrepparttar 123658 time to "smellrepparttar 123659 roses" alongrepparttar 123660 way. Meals are slapped together because of time restraints and projects are started, set aside, forgotten about, and we go on. Surely, there are more responsibilities, more activities clamoring for our attention, and with allrepparttar 123661 modern conveniences made to ease our burden, why don't we have more time to do all we want to? Take a moment and look at that patch of ground where those tulips are going to be coming up soon. If its frozen solid, then it's notrepparttar 123662 right time, and ifrepparttar 123663 sun warms it a bit each day, soon what is suppose to happen will happen and we will berepparttar 123664 beneficiaries ofrepparttar 123665 wonder of growing flowers, plants, etc. When we plant our garden, if we skippedrepparttar 123666 first important step of placing that seed inrepparttar 123667 ground, we can watch that mound of dirt untilrepparttar 123668 cows come home and nothing is going to happen - granted a weed or two might poke through but that is not what we were waiting for.

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