~ InspirationaL Stories ~

[MysteRy]

I Say My Prayers When It’s Calm



On one trip, the boat was full of young people.They laughed at the old captain when they saw him say a prayer before sailing out, because the day was fine and the sea was calm.
 
However they weren’t long at sea when a storm suddenly blew up and the boat began to pitch violently. The terrified passengers came to the captain and asked him to join them in prayer.
 
But he replied, “I say my prayers when it’s calm. When it’s rough I attend to my ship!”

Is there a lesson for us, here?

If we cannot seek God in quiet moments of our lives, we are not likely to find Him when trouble strikes. We are more likely to panic. But if we have learnt to seek Him and trust Him in quiet moments, then most certainly we will find Him when the going gets rough.

[MysteRy]

The Big Rocks of Life



One day, an expert in time management was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration those students will never forget. As he stood in front of the group of high-powered overachievers he said, “Okay, time for a quiz?”, and he pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouth Mason jar and set it on the table in front of him.

He also produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full?”.
 
Everyone in the class yelled, Yes! The time management expert replied, “Really?”. He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. He dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks.
 
He then asked the group once more, “Is the jar full?” By this time the class was on to him. “Probably not”, one of them answered. Good! he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel.
 
Once more he asked the question, “Is this jar full?” “No!” the class shouted. Once again he said, Good! Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim.
 
He looked at the class and asked, “What is the point of this illustration?” One eager student raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard you can always fit some more things in it!”.
 
“No”, the speaker replied, that’s not the point. “The truth is, this illustration teaches us that if you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”
 
“What are the ‘big rocks’ in your life, time with your loved ones, your faith, your education, your dreams, a worthy cause, teaching or mentoring others. Remember to put these ‘big rocks’ in first or you’ll never get them in at all.”
 
“What are the ‘big rocks’ in your life, time with your loved ones, your faith, your education, your dreams, a worthy cause, teaching or mentoring others. Remember to put these ‘big rocks’ in first or you’ll never get them in at all.”

So, tonight, or in the morning, when you are reflecting on this short story, ask yourself this question
-
What are the ‘big rocks’ in my life Then, put those in your jar first.

[MysteRy]

Why are Goals Important?

On the best sunny day, the most powerful magnifying glass will not light paper if you keep moving the glass. But if you focus and hold it, the paper will light up. That is the power of concentration.



A man was traveling and stopped at an intersection. He asked an elderly man, "Where does this road take me?" The elderly person asked, "Where do you want to go?" The man replied, "I don't know." The elderly person said, "Then take any road. What difference does it make?"
How true. When we don't know where we are going, any road will take us there.
 
Suppose you have all the football eleven players, enthusiastically ready to play the game, all charged up, and then someone took the goal post away. What would happen to the game? There is nothing left. How do you keep score? How do you know you have arrived?

Enthusiasm without direction is like wildfire and leads to frustration.

Goals give a sense of direction. Would you sit in a train or a plane without knowing where it was going? The obvious answer is no. Then why do people go through life without having any goals?

[MysteRy]

The Value of Struggle in Life

A man found a cocoon of an emperor moth. He took it home so that he could watch the moth come out of the cocoon. On the day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the moth for several hours as the moth struggled to force the body through that little hole.



Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. It just seemed to be stuck. Then the man, in his kindness, decided to help the moth, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The moth then emerged easily.
 
But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the moth because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the little moth spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.
 
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the moth to get through the tiny opening was the way of forcing fluid from the body of the moth into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Freedom and flight would only come after the struggle. By depriving the moth of a struggle, he deprived the moth of health.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If we were to go through our life without any obstacles, we would be crippled.We would not be as strong as what we could have been. Give every opportunity a chance, leave no room for regrets. 

[MysteRy]

Hidden Treasure Amongst Us



I remember reading a story once about a man who was exploring some caves by the seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled up some clay and left them out in the sun to bake. They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man so he took the bag out of the cave with him.
 
As he strolled along the beach, to pass the time, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could throw.
 
He thought little about it until he dropped one of the balls and it cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone. Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left, then it struck him.
 
He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have had tens of thousands, but he just threw it all away.
 
You know sometimes, it's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it; we see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy.

But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.

There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.
 
May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see the people in our world as God sees them.

[MysteRy]

The Bricks Of Life



About ten years ago, a young and very successful executive named Josh was traveling down a Chicago neighborhood street.
 
He was going a bit too fast in his sleek, black, 12-cylinder Jaguar XKE, which was only two months old. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something. As his car passed, no child darted out, but a brick sailed out and -- WHUMP! -- it smashed into the Jag's shiny black side door! SCREECH...!!!! Brakes slammed! Gears ground into reverse, and tires madly spun the Jaguar back to the spot from where the brick had been thrown.
 
Josh jumped out of the car, grabbed the kid and pushed him up against a parked car. He shouted at the kid, "What was that all about and who are you Just what the heck are you doing!" Building up a head of steam, he went on. "That's my new Jag, that brick you threw is gonna cost you a lot of money. Why did you throw it."
 
"Please, mister, please... I'm sorry! I didn't know what else to do! pleaded the youngster. I threw the brick because no one else would stop!"
 
Tears were dripping down the boy's chin as he pointed around the parked car. "It's my brother, Mister", he said. "He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up." Sobbing, the boy asked the executive, "Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me."
 
Moved beyond words, the young executive tried desperately to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat.
 
Straining, he lifted the young man back into the wheelchair and took out his handkerchief and wiped the scrapes and cuts, checking to see that everything was going to be OK. He then watched the younger brother push him down the sidewalk toward their home. It was a long walk back to the sleek, black, shining, 12-cylinder Jaguar XKE - a long and slow walk.
 
Josh never did fix the side door of his Jaguar. He kept the dent to remind him not to go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at him to get his attention.

What a great story!

At times in our lives, we tend to become so wrapped up in other things. We become focused on ourselves or our job we do not realize there are others around us that need our help.
 
We can react in a negative way to a situation without fully realizing or taking the time to look at the other persons situation, or to take the time to find out the reason the other person has taken the action that they did.

[MysteRy]

The Princess without a Palace



Once upon a time there was a kingdom with an ancient prophecy that spoke of a Princess without a palace. The prophecy said that as soon as that Princess found her palace, she would be the wisest and fairest Queen there had ever been. That kingdom had a royal family who had lived in a beautiful... palace for generations. But there was a great earthquake which destroyed the palace and killed the King and Queen.
 
Their two daughters, Princess Nora and Princess Sabina, managed to survive.
 
After this tragedy, Nora understood that she, being the elder sister, might be the Princess mentioned in the prophecy. Accompanied by her sister, Nora devoted herself to finding her new palace. During their travels they met a wise old man who gave them an old key that would open the palace doors.
 
“I have no idea where the palace will be”, said the old man, “All I know is that you should try this key wherever you seek it”.
 
And Nora went with her sister, trying the key on all the palace doors they found. When there were no more palaces to try, they thought maybe the palace would just be some large important house, but neither did the key fit any of those. Fed up, the sisters lost hope of ever finding their palace. They had spent so much time away, travelling and searching, that no one now missed them. Neither did they have any money or jewels left, and when they arrived at a poor village they had to work in the fields alongside all the poor people who, not knowing that the sisters were royalty, took them in as though they were two homeless orphans.
 
The sisters lived there for some years. They worked hard, and knew what hunger was, and how life could be so difficult, but people loved them so much that they came to be very happy, and they gradually forgot their royal past. One night, while tidying Nora's things, Sabina found the old key. Amused, she took it to her sister, and they reminisced about their search for their own magnificent palace.
 
"There still must be some palace, hidden in some little forest, just waiting for us to find it," said Nora, with a glimmer of hope.
 
"Well, you know what I think," answered her younger sister, "that I don't need anything else to be happy. We spent months travelling from castle to castle to live the life of Queens, but I have never been so happy as I am now, even though we don't have much. If I had to choose a palace," she continued, joyfully dancing about by the door, "it would be this little cabin." she ended, laughing, and then with a solemn gesture placing the key in the cabin door.
 
Just then, the room filled with lights and music, and from that old door arose a wonderful palace filled with life and colour. The place became totally transformed; there were fountains, gardens, and animals. The village people marvelled at all of this.
 
The only thing which remained as it had been was the cabin door, reminding everyone of how Sabina the Wonderful - which was what they called their wise Queen - had found that in a simple, humble life lay the doorway to happiness, not only for herself, but for all the inhabitants of that land.

Moral of the story

Happiness is not to be found in the showy and sophisticated things in life, but rather in the right way to approach life and live it.

[MysteRy]

The Safe



Once upon a time, a greedy, rich man hired a great mathematician. The rich man wanted the mathematician to find the best way for him to make the greatest profit in everything he did. The rich man was building a huge safe, and his greatest dream was to fill it with gold and jewels.
 
The mathematician was shut away for months in his study, before finally believing he had found the solution. But he soon found there were some errors in his calculations, and he started all over again.
 
One night he appeared at the rich man's house, with a big smile on his face: "I found it!" he said, "My calculations are perfect." The rich man was going on a long journey the next day, and didn't have time to listen. He promised the mathematician he would pay him double his wages if he would take charge of the business while he was away, and put the new formulas into practice. Excited by his new discovery, the mathematician was delighted to accept.
 
When the rich man returned, months later, he found that all of his possessions had gone. Furious, he went to ask for an explanation from the mathematician. The mathematician calmly told him what he had done. He had given everything away to people. The rich man couldn't believe it, but the mathematician explained it further.
 
"For months I analyzed how a rich man could gain the maximum benefit, but what I could do was always limited. There's a limit to how much one man can do by himself. Then I understood the key was that many people could help us to achieve the aim. So the conclusion was that helping others was the best way to get more and more people to benefit us."
 
Disappointed and furious, the greedy man stormed off, desperate at having lost everything to the hare-brained schemes of a madman. However, while he was walking away disconsolately, several neighbors ran over, worried about him. All of them had been helped when the mathematician shared out the rich man's fortune. They felt so grateful to him that they offered him the hospitality of their houses, and anything such a special man might need. The neighbors even argued over who would get to help him.
 
Over the next few days, he saw the full results of what the mathematician had calculated. Wherever he went he was received with great honor, and everyone was willing to help him in whatever way they could. He realized that his not having anything had given him much, much more.
 
In this way, he managed to quickly set up flourishing businesses, but this time he followed the brilliant mathematician's advice. No longer did he keep his riches in a safe, or anything like it. Instead, he shared out his fortune among a hundred friends, whose hearts he had converted into the safest, most grateful and fruitful of safes

Moral of the story

Everything we give to others will, sooner or later, return to us, whether or not it be in a form we expected.

[MysteRy]

Learning!

A Father was reading a magazine and his little daughter every now and then distracted him. To keep her busy, he tore one page on which was printed the map of the world. He tore it into pieces and asked her to go to her room and put them together to make the map again.

He was sure she would take the whole day to get it done. But the little one came back within minutes with perfect map... When he asked how she could do it so quickly, she said, "Oh.... Dad, there is a man's face on the other side of the paper... I made the face perfect to get the map right." she ran outside to play leaving the father surprised.

Moral of the Story:

There is always the other side to whatever you experience in this world. This story indirectly teaches a lesson. That is, whenever we come across a challenge or a puzzling situation, look at the other side... You will be surprised to see an easy way to tackle the problem..