How Much Is Enough?

Feb 3
22:00

2003

Dr. Wm. G. Seavey

Dr. Wm. G. Seavey

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LESSON FOR LIVING #23How Much Is ... much money should a person earn? How much ... should one get? How many books should a person read in their ... How many sermons should you hear

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LESSON FOR LIVING #23

How Much Is Enough?

How much money should a person earn? How much education should one get? How many books should a person read in their lifetime? How many sermons should you hear and how many seminars and workshops should you attend? How many books should you have in your library?

Here are the answers. I should earn all the money I can. If a gold watch was your reward after forty years of work and you did your best,How Much Is Enough? Articles ok. But if you did not do your best you only cheated yourself. I should get all the education I can. I should read all the books I can. I should hear all the sermons I can. I should attend all the workshops I can. I should have all the books I can get my hands on in my library. Why? Because we were all created for growth. And, because there is no shortage of any of these things. God has supplied everything we need for growth, development and maximum potential. Why wouldn't God want you to subscribe to maximum potential? As a parent you would want that for your children wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you want to be unique and sophisticated, able to hold your own in any conversation and on any topic? Anyone can sit idly by and watch the world pass them up and not contribute. And what would you contribute? Value, quality and service to others would be great for starters. If you have deposited nothing, you can withdraw the same amount, nothing. You are already in debt if you've made no deposits to your personal account. Your life's ledger will read zero in, zero out. The dates on your tombstone will say nothing between them. Born 1931, died 2003. Contributed nothing to life. All there will be is a dash between those two significant dates.

How tall should a tree grow? As tall as it wants to. How much should you grow during your lifetime? As much as you possibly can because there are no limits as to how much you can grow. The only limits there could be are the ones you put on yourself or allow others to put on you. It is called suppression. Limits suppress. Self-imposed limits hold you back. Here is a word of caution. Do not let the limits of others hold you back.

Here is something I've noticed about trees. They weather all kinds of storms. Depending where they are growing, the storms can be quite severe. Trees take a great deal of punishment in my home State of Maine. As a kid growing up there, I hacked away at many trees with a knife or hatchet. I've stripped bark off a birch tree to make a canoe and the tree kept on growing. I've tied ropes and chains in the limbs of them to swing from and they kept right on growing. Unless the taproot is damaged, a tree can take a lot of punishment and still keep right on growing. The only thing that will hinder greatly the upward growth of a tree is if other trees
crowding in minimize its space. It gets stunted because it has no place from which to grow upward. It's choked off. There is even a vine that grows around a tree and as it spirals upward it literally takes the nutrients from the tree for itself by attaching its suckers to the tree. That process eventually kills the tree, but not the vine.

DO NOT LET PEOPLE CROWD YOU. MAKE ROOM FOR YOUR OWN PERSONAL GROWTH. BE A PRODUCT OF YOUR OWN CONCLUSION. WHY NOT? IT'S YOUR LIFE. DO NOT LET PEOPLE ROB YOU OF YOUR DREAMS BY SUCKING THE LIFE OUT OF YOU. WATCH OUT FOR THESE PEOPLE AND STAY AWAY FROM THEM. DO NOT LET PEOPLE CONTAMINATE YOUR SOUL AND SPIRIT WITH WORTHLESSNESS. IF THEY DO NOT ADD VALUE TO YOUR LIFE IN A POSITIVE WAY, SUBTRACT THEM FROM YOUR LIST OF FRIENDS. HOW MANY FRIENDS DO YOU REALLY NEED ANYWAY? ONE GREAT FRIEND WOULD BE ENOUGH.

You can survive the storms of life while growing just as the trees do. Sure, there are some storms that choke us off. To deny that is to live in delusion. But look at where you have come from. I'd wager you have weathered many storms in life and you're here to testify to that. You've made it. It is amazing how much you can beat up the body through careless living and it will still survive. Many of you already know that. But why just survive? Why get beat up? The facts are you don't have to. You will get enough of that just living day by day. Care-less living produces no growth in a positive direction. Living life to its fullest is no gravy train. You have to keep your spirits up through the storms of life and plow through to the other side of the problems.

Make room for expanding your horizons. Look beyond where you have come from and see the bigger picture. Plan to maximize your potential.

You cannot grow if you do not feed yourself. As a baby, someone else fed you until you learned to feed yourself. Now that you have learned to feed yourself and you have found that it is a must for life, you do it on a daily basis. For some it is three times a day. For others it might be 5-6 times a day. For others once or twice. But, I know of no one who does not feed themselves on a regular daily basis. Why? Because you will die if you do not. Now there are others ways to die besides at life's end. I call it wasting away.

Man is born triune. That is, body, soul and spirit. If you do not feed yourself spiritually, you will die. If you do not feed yourself intellectually, you will die. If you do not feed the mind, you will die. If you do not feed the soul, you will die. Or, to put it another way, you will waste away. Ancient Script says we perish for lack of knowledge. Knowledge comes from cracking the books, taking the classes, studying different cultures, going to the seminars and sharing all this with others. There is something about sharing what you know with others that not only helps you grow and make room for more as you give what you know away, but it also helps those with whom you share your wisdom.

But guess what? There are thousands of people who do not and will not feed themselves on a daily basis, the foods necessary for spiritual growth, mental growth, emotional growth, etc. Food for the soul is good. So is food for the brain, the inner you, your emotions and intellect. You can feed the body all it wants but still waste away if you do not attend all areas of your make-up. It is called balance. Why do you think you have a soul, a spirit, and a brain? It is there to feed on a daily basis. You cannot leave the car in the garage without giving it some attention. Sooner or later it isn't going to run well, if at all. What do you think would happen to it if you left it in the garage without any attention at all for several weeks or months? One day you would try to start it and nothing would happen. It would be dead. It is the same way with you and I. Those who refuse to attend the most marvelous of creations might be called the living dead. They just exist contributing nothing to not only their own lives but also contributing nothing to the lives of those around them.
What is it you want people to say about you after your gone? What should they say? Here is what I hope others will say about me. "You know, ol' Bill was never a quitter. He always gave it 110% no matter what. He not only changed himself for the better by adding quality daily to his life, he also helped change the lives of others."

You can grow if you want to. And the key is WANT TO. Your want to must be stronger than I cant. I can't means I won't try. Purpose must be stronger than the object sought. Why must be stronger than how. When you know why you want something and it serves a great purpose, how you get it will become easier. You will see ways to get it that you never knew, when why becomes stronger than how. If why has no worthwhile purpose, the how of it will become harder than usual, many times impossible.

START GROWING TODAY. IT IS NEVER TO LATE. HOW DO I START? RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE, THAT'S WHERE. AND DON'T STOP GROWING UNTIL. UNTIL WHEN? UNTIL YOU HAVE GROWN ALL THAT YOU POSSIBLY CAN.

A parting thought...Stay encouraged. Everything is temporary, even the storms of life.

I Wish You The Best Of Success,

Dr. Wm. G. Seavey
Email the Doctor for lecturing at winnow@earthlink.net
Web Site www.thewinnerscircle.org
Subscribe to The Mustard Seed - Lessons For Living at www.thewinnerscircle.org

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