May 31

So you’ve made a mistake. Who hasn’t? But perhaps you feel it’s a pretty serious one. I have always liked the following quotation from Grove Patterson, a famous editor.

A boy . . . leaned against the railing of a bridge and watched the current of the river below . . . Sometimes the current went more swiftly and again quite slowly, but always the river flowed on under the bridge.

Watching the river that day, the boy made a discovery. It was not the discovery of a material thing, something he might put his hand upon. He could not even sees it. He had discovered an idea.

Quite suddenly, and yet quietly, he knew that everything in his life would someday pass under the bridge and be gone like water . . . And he didn’t worry unduly about his mistakes after that and he certainly didn’t let them get him down, because it was water under the bridge.

May 30

A physician told me he had seen people die, not because of organic trouble but because they had lost their enthusiasm, their will to live. Had they continued to possess the zest for life that enthusiasm gives, they could have overcome the physical problems that took their lives. Enthusiasm is an elixir of life.

May 29

In time of discouragement, it helps to take paper and pencil and add up all your assets—all that you have going for you. You will be astonished by what you have as you stop thinking about what you have not.

May 28

It is always well to remember that a lost battle or two or three does not mean the war is lost. With God’s help, you can take any setback or defeat, muster your forces, and win out in the end.

May 27

By always expecting the best, you are putting your whole heart and mind into what you want to accomplish. People are defeated in life not because of lack of ability but for lack of sustained expectation and wholeheartedness.

May 26

Imagine yourself looking at all of your difficulties lined up like an army before you. As you face this army of discouragement, frustration, disappointment, hostility, and weakness, affirm, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). Know that God is for you and His power is greater than all opposition. Visualize these enemies of your peace and happiness as retreating, giving way before God’s power.

May 25

Physical death is a transitional step in the total life process. The soul, which does not die, having finished with the earthly body, moves to a higher level of life, where it grows under greatly enhanced circumstances.

May 24

The mental and spiritual heat created by enthusiasm can burn off the apathy-failure factor in any personality and release hitherto unused, even unsuspected, personal power qualities. The president of a large corporation states: “If I am trying to decide between two men of fairly equal ability and one man has enthusiasm, I know he will go higher than the other man, for enthusiasm acts as a self-releasing force.” Enthusiasm is infectious. It carries all before it.

May 23

The controlled person is a powerful person. He who always keeps his head will get ahead. The number of people whose careers have been mined through lack of emotional control is astonishing.

May 22

I once asked President Dwight D. Eisenhower who was the greatest of all the great men he had known. His instant reply: “It wasn't a man. It was a woman—my mother. She had little schooling, but her educated mind, her wisdom, came from a lifelong study of the Bible. Often I have wished I could consult her.

One night we were playing a card game, mother, my brothers, and I. Not with playing cards. It was Flinch—mother was straightlaced. But hands were dealt and I drew a bad one. I began to complain. “ ‘Put your cards down, boys,’ Mother said. ‘Dwight, this is just a friendly game in your home where you are loved. But, out in the world where there isn't so much love, you will be dealt many a bad hand. So you’ve got to learn to take the hands life deals you without complaining. Just play them out.’ ”