My mother, Johnie B [Henry] Driggers, told how much fun she and her three sisters had at their paternal grandmother’s house in Ranger, Texas when they were youngsters. Every so often their grandmother would send one of them on an errand for her, along with these instructions: “If you have a problem, just tell them you’re Carrie E. Henry’s granddaughter; you won’t have any more problems.” Who do we think we are? Do we think we’re somebody? How do you think you come across to others? There’s a sizeable difference between well-mannered self-esteem and mean-spirited arrogance.
I’m often bewilderingly amused by man’s attempt to conduct his life as though God were not a part of it: “Some say, ‘Today or tomorrow we’ll go to some city…stay there a year, do business, and make money!’” (Js. 4:13) “Then I’ll sit back and say to myself, “My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!” (Lk. 12:19) But the Lord responds: “You don’t even know what will happen tomorrow…you ought to say, ‘If it’s the Lord’s will, we’ll live and do this or that…your boasting and bragging is evil.’” (Js. 4:15-17).
It’s one [hazardous] thing to so think and plan, without considering God’s involvement in our lives, and quite another to cut ourselves down so severely that we don’t live up to our God-given, God-expected, and (if we’ll allow it) our God-directed potential. It’s true of life in general: attitude is the foundation of altitude.
If you think you are beaten, you are. If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you’d like to win, but think you can’t. It’s almost a cinch that you won’t.
Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the man who wins, is the man who thinks he can!
-John Driggers (10/30/2023, V5 #44)
