February 5:

"You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live." — George Bernard Shaw

Fear of poverty is just another face of love of money, which was well addressed in the Bible as ‘the root of all sorts of injurious things’. In either case, the focus is on the things that we do not have … our lacks, if you will. This keeps us from being fully cognizant of those things, material and spiritual that we do possess. The question is rightly asked: "Who, being loved, is poor?" People who are unemployed have time to write, to build small businesses, to enlarge their circle of friends, to imagine the solutions that the world so desperately needs and to begin to fill them. If they let this time go by them in a blur of television commercials, soap operas and football games, their lot in life will be to continually remain one check away from starvation.

February 12:

"The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second."  – John Steinbeck

John is here pointing to an ambiguity, a disconnect, between the things we say we value and the qualities we actually reward. For good or ill, the honest man will close this gap … there will no longer exist a span between what he says he values and what he is willing to reward.

But bear in mind that sheep seldom put on wolves clothing to accomplish their aims, while wolves readily don sheepskins as just another of their cunning trickeries. This is nothing more than Satan appearing as an angel of light.

February 19:

There are two kinds of men who never amount to much: those who cannot do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else. — Cyrus Curtis, founder of Ladies Home Journal

The man who cannot do what he is told, when his instructions are clear and properly given, will not amount to much, for he must find himself continually adjudged as either incompetent or as insubordinate. Neither of these are of much value in any organization. Even Jesus, the only begotten son of God Almighty, would have been of little use to his father if he had not followed the instructions he had been given.

On the other hand, the man who can only do what he is told lacks vision and understanding of the overall goal and even his proper activities will fall short. He truly IS just a cog in the machine and is all too readily replaceable.

There truly are times when one is under obligation to speak up, to object, to drop anchor and resist the motion because the ship is off course. The discerning man will note them and the brave man will respond to them.

February 26:

Death had to take him in his sleep, for if he was awake there’d have been a fight. – Woodrow Wilson, speaking of Teddy Roosevelt

Where I come from, geographically and morally, we still speak of a man has “standing up on his hind legs” … a reference to the rearing up that a stallion will do when entering conflict. To embrace conflict as a matter of common course is, undeniably, wrong. But so is avoiding conflict when it should be engaged in. And yes, there are times when conflict should be entered into.

For instance; we should enter into it whenever necessary to defend those weaker than us from harm. We should enter into it whenever necessary to oppose moral failings in ourselves, those we love, our community and our society. We should refuse to take up arms against others despite the desires of the powerful. There are just three quick examples where we should stand up and fight back.

If you’ll just think about it for a few minutes, you’ll realize that there are several other situations which call upon a spiritually mature Christian to oppose something, sometimes strenuously, sometimes with a simple, but unyielding, “No.”

Will we always win? No, this is Satan’s world (1 John 5:19). We will lose far more than we win. After all, in the end, all 14 of the apostles perished (Judas Iscariot was replaced, Paul was selected after Jesus’ death). But they all fought, and fought well, while breath was still in them.

Ought we to do any less?