Have you ever watched a bird sleeping on its perch and never falling off? How does it manage to do this?
The secret is the tendons of the bird’s legs. They are so constructed that when the leg is bent at the knee, the claws contract and grip like a steel trap. The claws refuse to let go until the knees are unbent again. The bended knee gives the bird the ability to hold on to his perch so tightly.
Isn’t this also the secret of the holding power of the Christian? Daniel found this to be true. Surrounded by pagan environment, tempted to compromise with evil, urged to weaken his grip on God, he refused to let go. He held firm when others faltered because he was a man of prayer. He knew, “The power of the bended knee.”
From sleeping birds we can learn the secret of holding things that are most precious to us. That secret is the knee bent in prayer, seeking to get a firmer grip on those values that make life worth living. When we hold firmly to God in prayer, we can be assured He will hold tightly to us.
WHEN YOU WANT TO ASK GOD WHY? Because you have longed to save “My World”, I have let you have the training that prepares you to save.
Take your pains and sufferings, your difficulties and hardships each day and offer them up for one troubled soul or for some prayer especially needed to be answered. So that the beauty of each day will live on after the trouble and distress; the difficulty and pain of the day have passed.
Learn from “My Life” of the suffering that saves others. So, you will sing in your pain. Across the grayest days are the gleams of sunlight.
See not the small trials and vexations of each hour of the day. See the one purpose and plan to which all are leading. If in climbing a mountain you keep your eyes on each stony or difficult place, as you ascend, seeing only that, how weary and profitless your climb!
But if you think of each step as leading to the summit of achievement, from which glories and beauties will open out before, then your climb will be so different.
If in doubt, ask those that won the Gold, Silver and Bronze in the 2012 Olympic.
Store up on Love. Have you ever wondered what a camel’s humps are for? Camels are a marvel of adaptation for desert living. For example, their lips are covered with an extremely thick skin that even cactus spines can’t puncture. Although camels prefer a diet of wheat, oats, grass and dates, they can eat almost anything that they find in the desert, including cactus and desert scrub. Also camels can drink up to 30 gallons of water at one time. And then there’s the hump. Most animals have a layer of fat stored under their entire layer of skin. Camels store fat in humps that can weigh up to 80 pounds. This stored fat enables camels to travel through the desert for five to seven days without food and water; they can lose up to 40 percent of their body weight without injury. Human beings can learn something from the camel.
Store up Provisions. God did not create human beings with humps on their backs and we know that excess fat is harmful to our health, but God’s Word instructs us to store up provisions for desert experiences too. You may be surprised at what God tells us to store up: “He commands those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant or to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. He commands us to do good, to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share.
(Now here’s the camel part.) In this way we will lay up treasure for ourselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that we may take hold of the life that is truly life.” I Timothy 6:17-19.
