Wisdom Seeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Arthur Ward
“Nothing limits achievement like small thinking; nothing expands possibilities like unleashed imagination.
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Consider the lilies of the field… Matt 6:28
Consider the lilies of the field… Matt 6:28
Wisdom Seeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William Arthur Ward
“Nothing limits achievement like small thinking; nothing expands possibilities like unleashed imagination.
“
thedailylily.com 
In considering the thought for the day about small thinking and enlarged thinking…I “THOUGHT”…At times, now JUST SOMETIMES, what ONCE was enlarged thinking, becomes obsolete with new technologies, with expanded information and knowledge, innovations & discoveries whether technological, intellectual or spiritual. Then we must make adjustments or we fall behind in accomplishing our goals and for more fulfilling and satisfying life and relationships and most importantly, using such to further the KINGDOM OF GOD>
I agree with you and we lose communication skills and that causes limited friendship, fellowship and relationships.
Reminds me of how we will say at times, my refrig. or other electric equipment has just plain quit working and my Mom and Dad’s would work a life time but now a days they don’t. Looks and sounds like ‘we don’t work either.
Jesus knew best ‘become like a little child.’ When we try that all kinds of unleashed imagination comes forth. I think God was saying be that creative but use the discipline that you have grown into as an adult to move mountains. II Peter 1:5-11.
and then vs. 12 says “The stakes are high, even though you’re up-to-date on all this truth and practice it inside and out, I’m (Peter) not going to let up for a minute in calling you to attention before it.”
Peter is saying you may know how to do math, practice good check book skills, even teach math to children but don’t forget there is new math.
It seems to me that through small thinking we do not trust God for the mighty happenings. Like in Moses times with all the Mighty Acts that were done through him by God to get the people out of Israel into the promise land, the people in their fearfulness and self centeredness put God in a box. By choosing their box, they did not put their trust in the Mighty God who had great promises for them. They exhibited small thinking. They missed out on the wonderful promises God had for them and the endless possibilities that might have happened. Those chapters were never written.
Yes we need to become like a little child becoming extremely excited by what God can do each day and the endless possibilities to achieve to go where no man as gone before. This excitement should have no limiting boundaries. We wait in hopeful expectation to see what God is doing. He is always new, always refreshing, and always working. He keeps no rotting boxes on his shelves to take up space, He is moving from Age to Age with all His promises open to us. Will we like the Israelites put ourselves in a box (small thinking) and hide our candle or will we throw our candle forward, become like a little child and let the little child within lead fully equipped with every skill that we have obtained in adulthood to do the work that has been assigned us by the Mighty God – endless possibilities unleashed.
If small thinkers are self-centered, (Rena wrote this above) than they will think more highly of themselves than they ought to (Romans 12:3and 16) which will produce a very narrow mindset because they look in not outward. Narrow-minded people don’t seem to want to learn. They have grown hard-hearted and set in their ways. They think they know it all, thus becoming unteachable. Matt 13:14-15 speaks of those who “Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the heart of this people has grown dull. Their ears are heard of hearing and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their heart and turn so that I should heal them.” This is a sad place to be in with a small mind and the world of ‘endless possibilities’ as Rena mentioned, closed to you because of rebellion really and unbelief. Sara said we must become as little children. They are like humble sponges, eager to learn and grow. I guess that’s why they can get the new math. I want to become as a child in this manner and use the discipline of Peter that Sara told us of.
Speaking of small mind-sets and narrow tunnel-vision….I think about the Scripture story where Lazarus had been raised from the dead in front of many witnesses in the Gospel of John 11. Here Jesus had performed a notable miracle, a show of authority and power to be able to raise from the dead, a man who had been dead for four days! Instead of running to Him and clinging to a Man Who could do such glorious works right in their midst, right before their very eyes, instead…..they connived to kill Him.
How strange? Do we do the same thing, sometimes. in our own ways? Herein we know the Power of the most High God and yet we allow other things to take precedence over Him; we allow the things of the world to intervene, interfere, with our relationship with HIM. Hebrews 2 says, “therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard and seen lest at any time we should drift away. For how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation which were confirmed by the works that He did and by those who heard the Word and saw His miracles ….God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with miracles, gifts of the Holy Spirit of healings according to His own Words. v12 Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God, and harden not your heart. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, who saw and heard and tasted and witnessed the heavenly gift….if they should fall away, deny, repudiate, then it is IMPOSSIBLE for to renew them again unto repentance seeing they CRUCIFY the SON OF GOD, afresh.
So, as we see and learn we must open our minds and hearts to the revelation of the WORD as it is unfolding more and more in these end times. We must embrace the true prophecies that come forth from God’s servants and open our eyes to the innovative things coming out of God’s Word for this final generation.
In Gelatins 5 of the Message it says that small-minded and lopsided pursuits is just one of the compulsions of selfishness. The others compulsions are repetitive, loveless, cheap sex, a stinking accumulation and emotional garbage, frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness, trinket gods, magic-show religion, paranoid loneliness, cutthroat competition, all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants, a brutal temper, an impotence to love or be loved, divided homes, and divided lives, the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival, uncontrolled and uncontrollable addiction, ugly parodies of community, etc. Wow! Paul says: “My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. Paul goes on to say that if we choose to live freely God brings gifts – like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We also will develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people; We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Paul says not to keep living freely as an idea in our head, but to work it into our lives daily. He goes on to say live creatively. With all these fine qualities denoted by living freely unleashed possibilities will surface and small mindedness and all the other selfless acts will be crucified. May the possibilities be unleashed and come forth in each of our lives and be poured out on the earth. May Jesus be high and lifted up as He is the arch-type of living freely.
To achieve is “to do something successfully, especially after a lot of effort.” Help us, Lord, to be “humble sponges, eager to learn and grow” (Debi’s comment above) or achievement, relationships, friendships, and soul winning might become a “thing of the past?”
one can see walking on through a puddle of water…imagine seeing a large body of water and walking on it….huuummm…..can you imagine that…Jesus did it…walked on water…WOW…what a show of the fruit of unleashed expanded imagination…OH the possibilities…He said “follow me”….and in John 14;12 He said verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to my Father…Sara reminded us about having a childs heart …I thought back to when so many things were imagained and accomplished when I was a child….and nothing was hindering in the thought of I see myself roller skating….and I did what I imagined myself doing. With the wisdom and the Holy Spirit and belonging to Almighty God as His children..oh the possibilities…expand possibilities with unleashed imagination……this is a very thought provoking quote…dj
It might be that people who shrink from living largely and thinking largely (“I have come that you might have life and life more ABUNDANTLY”…) are afraid of expending themselves. It’s like they are afraid that they will “run out” of life and so they hug it to themselves; they wrap it around themselves like a garment and try not to “use up” too much of it for LIVING LIFE or in COMMUNICATION WITH OTHERS. Instead of embracing life, they embrace themselves. Many who have lived for a while feel they have seen it all. There is “nothing new under the sun for them” The whole book of Ecclesiastes talks about the futility of life (WITHOUT the personal relationship with Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ). Solomon had written the BOOK of ECCLESIASTES after he had lived largely, greatly, sought wisdom and understanding; He had done it all. But then, as grew older, he looked at all that he had ACCOMPLISHED under the sun. He found it all to be ‘vanity and folly’. THAT IS STRANGE THINKING COMING FROM THE 2ND WISEST MAN ON EARTH AFTER JESUS. What happened here? It seems wise ol’ Solomon DRIFTED too far from the shore. As he became greater & greater he wandered further and further from the tenets of the covenant he had made with the Lord God. He became disobedient to the Heavenly vision.
Where this is taking me, I think, is to look at ACQUISITION in our lives. Solomon, the wise, had built a glorious temple to the LORD GOD OF ISRAEL. He was obedient is every dimension of construction. The LORD knows how to build and HE gave explicit instructions and blueprints to Solomon. He instructed Solomon to contract with the greatest of skilled artisans. GOD wanted the most creative, proficient artisans to build and furnish the accoutrements of HIS house. Imagine being chosen to build, in the earth, a Tabernacle for the LIVING GOD? WOW! What an honor!! True, that is a tough act to follow! But OUR GOD is greater than anything we can ever imagine here on earth or even in Heaven. So, if that was a great accomplishment, imagine what else GOD would have used SOLOMON for IF SOLOMON had clung to the LIVING GOD throughout ALL his life. BUT… when we revert to our own kind of living & old way of thinking…life becomes, as the French would say, “ennui” (BORING!!). Solomon says in Eccl. 2:17, “So I hated life because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after the wind. And I hated all my labors under the sun seeing that I must leave it to those who succeed me. And how do I know whether they would be WISE OR FOOL? This is falsity and futility AND A GREAT EVIL. So I TURNED AROUND FROM GODLY THINKING, (went back to worldly thinking) and gave my heart up to despair over all the labor I had done and acquired UNDER THE SUN.”
“To everything there is a season”. The season for acquisition and the season for sacrificial giving….giving of finances, goods and SELF.
I think of godly people who have gone on and left their worldly possession to the ungodly because of relational affiliation, (relatives or organizations), and they do not know, as Solomon said, whether “wise or fool”. It scares me to read Ecclesiastes because if Solomon who cut covenant with the Lord God could stray from godly wisdom that had made him the richest man on earth according to the Words of the Lord God Almighty when HE cut covenant with Solomon….then how must we who have so very much, look at what we have and make provision for the house of the Lord, eternally, those here physically on the earth now and also our own mansion in Heaven.
I saw sign the other day that said, “Shaken but not stirred”. That spoke to me greatly. We read something in God’s Word, or a preacher hits home with a lesson or a prophetic word from the Holy Spirit and it shakes us up. But after the initial SHAKING, do we STIR from our old, conventional thinking? Does it stir us to good works? Does it stir us to NEW THINKING? DOES IT Change our lives in any way? When the Lord Jesus comes in the final, THERE WILL BE A GREAT SHAKING. AND we know that EVERYTHING will be stirred at that time. I want to stir now. I want to be all shook up and all stirred up.
Help us JESUS, Son of the Father and Holy Spirit of the living God to shake, and stir from our “ho-hum” existence and “‘reach for the high calling of the Lord Jesus Christ”
STIR US
MG,
I believe this shaking and stirring is what God wants us to desire. After reading your comment, I read in the book of Haggai. Chapter 2: 6-9. “For this is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: In just a little while I will again shake the heavens and the earth, the oceans and the dry land. I will shake all the nations, and the treasures of all the nations will be brought to this Temple. I will fill this place with glory, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. The future glory of this Temple will be greater than its past glory, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. And in this place I will bring peace. I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, have spoken!”(see also Hebrews 12: 25-29)Footnotes: “The focus shifts from the local Temple being rebuilt in Jerusalem to the worldwide reign of the Messiah on earth. The words ‘in just a little while’ are not limited to the immediate historical context; they refer to God’s control of history-he can act anytime he chooses. God will act in his time. When God promised to shake all the nations with his judgment, he was speaking of both his present judgment on evil nations and future judgment during the last days. God wanted the Temple to be rebuilt, and he had the gold and silver to do it, but he needed willing hands. God has chosen to do his work through people. He provides the resources, but willing hands must do the work. Are your hands available for God’s work in the world?”
Yes, MG, may we allow God to shake and stir us, so that we will have “willing hands”, that help achieve what has been set before us.
Yes, you make a fine analogy, Tammy, between the building of Solomon’s and the rebuilding and then the construction of the SPIRITUAL TEMPLE which is His People.
We MUST have willing hands to do the work….and willing hands that dig into our pockets to help finance the CONSTRUCTION, wherever HE chooses to place HIS “WORD” on this earth.
A famous preacher once said, “The GOOD NEWS, THE GOSPEL IS FREE. But it takes Millions to send it forth to the nations.” If it is our deep desire to send the Gospel forth then we have to have a deep desire to FINANCE it in whichever way the Lord leads to put it forth. I’m talking about the BODY OF CHRIST in general if there be such a thing!
True, the silver is His and the gold is His but He has given it to us to give it for the furtherance of the Gospel.
whoa,So I am with ELVIS on this one….Uh huh huh..HEY YEY,
“I’M ALL SHOOK UP”
In reading the comments above of Needles and MG it seems clear from God’s word that bringing to reality the possibilites of an unleashed imagination requires more than unleashing thoughts. It is as Needles said, ‘willing hands’ doing God’s work. This brings God’s glory. Nehemiah 4:6 tells us that the difficult job of rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem was accomplished through much opposition becuase ‘the people had a mind to work’. This work ethic enabled their ‘unleashed imagination’ to see such a task completed.
I think unleashed imagination would bring one to this difination:
“Imagination: the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful : technology gives workers the chance to use their imagination.
you need imagination in dealing with these problems creativity, imaginativeness, creativeness; vision, inspiration, inventiveness, invention, resourcefulness, ingenuity; originality, innovation, innovativeness.”
One might imagine a lot of things but unleash healthy imagination and off one goes or so I think.
Sara the Key you gave us is HEALTHY imagination…..when the builders of the first plane unleashed their imagination indeed they and we have taken off..even to far away nations to take the gospel….but unleash an unhealthy imagination and still one goes off…literally….off the path of truth and righteousness….like Lucifer with his imagination of being like the Most High God….you are right Sara we need healthy and Holy imagination…one that keeps up with the move of the Holy Spirit and is new every morning….dj
Good thoughts,Sara& DJ. I guess we could say that imagination for narcissistic purposes, only considering advancement of “self” and not the community of man, is unhealthy imagination. There are a million innovative schemes a day devised to cheat, usurp, take advantage of, deceive; clever plots to defraud or bring vainglory to its innovator. That is unhealthy imagination.
The greatest plan of all-time history is the plan that Father GOD created to bring mankind unto Himself. That was and is the death and resurrection of HIS SON, Jesus Christ. That was and is the greatest unleashing of imagination, compassion, innovation. That is the GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD. The results are infinite and touch every region on the globe and continues to do so throughout the ages until the shaking and the stirring of the final chapter.