The old barrel succumbs to a flower bed. The wheels, worn and broken, are but relics now gazed upon. Time transforms from necessity to nostalgia as the old makes way for the new…. while time marches on undeterred. Make the most of your time while you can, time doesn’t wait.
The Shepherd’s Call is published bi-monthly by Voice of Holiness Press, a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization. Organized as such for the sole purpose of spreading the message of Jesus Christ by the printed Word. All costs are covered by tax deductible donations. By the printed word of this publication, it is our intent to encourage and enlighten you on your journey through life while promoting God’s Word — The Holy Bible. Content may be both original and/or derived from other sources. Any content derived from other sources is considered reliable. Accuracy, however, cannot be guaranteed. Works used in this publication not composed by the publisher are used per guidelines of the “Fair Use Doctrine” of copyrighted works as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law and is used for educational and noncommercial purposes. The Shepherd’s Call is freely distributed to jails, prisons, and to anyone who subscribes or makes a donation. Publisher/Editor Lonnie Hubbard VOICE OF HOLINESS PRESS
Down Memory Lane…. We all have memories of the past, some good, and some not so good. Recently, while pondering some memories, some of the most notable ones were of things not so good. I quickly realized the reason was that those things were deeply etched in my mind seemingly more so than the good memories. With that said, it is easy to understand how people can dwell in the past and never get on with their lives. The good memories are the ones that bring a smile to your face as you ponder them. I remember those times out on the lake in a boat with my dad running trot lines, helping pull catfish off the hooks and baiting the hooks and dropping them back into the water. I remember riding down the road with dad in his old pickup truck and not a word being said for quite a while, then dad would quickly slap me on the leg and holler “Glory!” It would nearly startle me out of my senses, and he’d just roar with laughter. It didn’t seem so funny then, but I can smile about it now when I think about it. Mom sure fried a bunch of fish in those days, but fish wasn’t the only thing I remember. She had her own special recipe for cinnamon rolls that everybody far and wide loved to eat including myself. Mom and dad are gone now, so I’m left with just memories and memorabilia. I remembered a few years ago; as I was sitting under an open-air tabernacle; a brother came and sat down beside me. We had general conversation for a little spell, and then he asked me, “Have you ever had a pair of SAS shoes?” “No,” I replied. Then he pulled out his check book, signed a blank check and handed it to me and said, “Go get you a pair.” I still wear those shoes today and when I do I am pleasantly reminded of how I came to own them. Reminiscing over things of the past will help one realize time moves swiftly. It doesn’t wait on anyone. If there’s anything in life you want to accomplish you’d better get it done because time is surely marching onward with or without you. Things that are cherished and considered worthwhile today will soon become but a memory of the past. I’d like to encourage you to cherish those precious memories, but keep in mind; you must live for today. Make sure the memories you are making today will be well thought of tomorrow. A kind word, a thoughtful deed will not only fill your memory chest, but will do the same for others. —L Hubbard
A caterpillar, creeping slowly up a branch and munching green leaves, cannot possibly imagine someday being a butterfly and flying from flower to flower, sipping their delicate nectar. He’s so confined by his current inch-by-inch vision, that flying is unthinkable. In the same way, our concept of happiness is defined by our constraints.
Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. Theodore Roosevelt said, “Life is a great adventure. There are many forms of success and triumph; but, there is no other success that in any way approaches that which is open to most of those who have the right ideals. These are the people who have the courage to strive for happiness, which comes only with labor and effort and self sacrifice.” Happiness does not come from doing easy work, but from the after-glow of satisfaction that results from performing a difficult task that has demanded our best. Liking what we have to do brings happiness, not doing just what we like to do. Sometimes we believe our happiness is determined by events external to our thinking — a change of job, marriage, a new environment, etc. All these things may have an effect, but what really makes the difference is the way we respond to or interpret these events — not the events themselves, but our mental attitude toward these events tells us we are happy or sad. Happiness is a choice, but how can one be happy with all these problems and adverse surroundings? In a place like this, no one has any choice but to be unhappy it seems. Besides, no one else is happy, how can I be happy? We all have different explanations and definitions of what happiness is and what it means to each of us. The only person that has the power to make you happy is yourself. Others can provide support and enjoyment, but your happiness will always come from within.
Happiness is not determined by what’s happening around you, but rather what’s happening inside you. Most people depend on others to gain happiness, but the truth is, it always comes from within. Let go of the constraints inside you that does not allow you to be happy. Choose to overcome and work your way out of the cocoon of self-pity, and soon you will find yourself flying freely as the butterfly. Let go of what’s gone, be grateful for what remains, and look forward to what’s coming next.
Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties. —Helen Keller
While it is certainly difficult to forget those mind-etching episodes of being mistreated or ill-spoken of, you must readjust your thinking patterns to reflect positive thoughts that build your self-esteem. Do not waste time holding grudges, even toward those who have treated you unjustly. You will meet such people along the way, as you go through life. Furthermore, others who are not making the grade will try to hold you down to their mediocre level, but they can’t if you refuse to be bothered by what they say or do. Nobody can keep your success and happiness from you but yourself. Just because someone botched your past, it doesn’t mean you should give them permission to mess up your future. If some people seem to try and even to succeed to dissuade you for a time, remember that success has endless doors ready to open to you, endless ways and means of providing your good. If one door closes, just know there are bigger and better doors trying to open. Be ready for the new doors that wish to open for you. As you study the lives and experiences of happy people, you will find that they have a friendly attitude toward life. Try entering that same door.
Far up in the Alpine hollows, year by year God works one of His marvels. The snow-patches lie there, frozen with ice at their edge from the strife of sunny days and frosty nights; and through that ice-crust come, unscathed, flowers that bloom. Back in the days of the by-gone summer, the little plant spread its leaves wide and flat on the ground, to drink in the sun-rays, and it kept them stored in the root through the winter. Then spring came, and stirred the pulses even below the snow-shroud, and as it sprouted, warmth was given out in such strange measure that it thawed a little dome in the snow above its head. Higher and higher it grew and always above it rose the bell of air, until the flower-bud formed safely within it: and at last the icy covering of the air bell gave way and let the blossom through into the sunshine, the crystalline texture of its mauve petals sparkling like snow itself as if it bore the traces of the flight through which it came. And the fragile thing rings an echo in our hearts that none of the jewel like flowers nestled in the warm turf on the slopes below could waken. We love to see the impossible done. And so does God. Face it out to the end, cast away every shadow of hope on the human side as an absolute hindrance to the Divine, heap up all the difficulties together recklessly, and pile as many more on as you can find; you cannot get beyond the blessed summit of impossibility. Let faith spring out to Him from the midst of the overwhelming shadow. He is the God of the impossible for with God, nothing shall be impossible.
Man is the greatest marvel in the universe. Not because his heart beats forty million times a year, driving the blood stream a distance of over sixty thousand miles in that time; not because of the wonderful mechanism of eye and ear; not because of his conquest over disease and the lengthening of human life; not because of the unique qualities of his mind, but because he may walk and talk with God.
“Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” (Ps 45:7)
There is a story of an old man who carried a little can of oil with him everywhere he went, and if he passed through a door that squeaked, he poured a little oil on the hinges. If a gate was hard to open, he oiled the latch. And thus he passed through life lubricating hard places and making it easier for those who came after him. People called him eccentric, strange, and cranky; but the old man went steadily on refilling his can with oil when it became empty, and oiled the hard places he found. There are many lives that creak and grate harshly as they live day by day. Nothing goes right with them. They need lubricating with the oil of gladness, gentleness, or thoughtfulness. Have you your own can of oil with you? Be ready with your oil of helpfulness in the early morning to the one nearest you. It may lubricate the whole day for him. The oil of good cheer to the downhearted one—Oh, how much it may mean! The word of courage to the despairing, just speak it. Our lives touch others but once, perhaps, on the road of life; and then, perchance, our ways diverge, never to meet again. The oil of kindness has worn the sharp, hard edges off of many a sin-hardened life and left it soft and pliable and ready for the redeeming grace of the Savior. A word spoken pleasantly is a large spot of sunshine on a sad heart. “Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones,” the writer wrote in Proverbs 16:24. You can change a life by touching someone with simple, beautiful, kind, words and a loving smile. *
Helen Keller, shortly before her sixtieth birthday, expressed pity for the real unseeing, for those who have eyes yet do not see. Her long years of physical blindness had given her a spiritual insight which enabled her to enjoy life in all its fullness. She said, “If the blind put their hand in God’s, they find their way more surely than those who see but have not faith or purpose.”
Everything in the universe— everything on earth—has personality, identity, individuality. There is not a leaf on any tree, which is exactly similar to any other leaf on any other tree of the countless trees in all the forests. Each leaf has some slight little difference, which distinguishes it from all others. The same is true of the trillions and trillions of snowflakes, which blanket so much of the earth in our winter seasons. You’ve seen the photographed and beautifully magnified designs of these individual snowflakes. You’ve marveled, no doubt, at the forces of nature, which could have created these amazingly intricate designs, seemingly on the spur of the moment, when cold currents of air, rushing together above, caused moisture to freeze and take on these white flaky forms! Examine everything about you. You will find no exact similarity anywhere. What does this prove? It proves that this is not a carboncopy universe. No duplicates are being created. Everything, no matter how seemingly trivial or insignificant to us, is an original—it has never existed before in just exactly this form and design and appearance. It will never exist again in just this way. You are just as important to this great scheme of things as any other human on earth. You have the power to make choices in life for yourself that will affect you and your outcome in life. You have distinct characteristics that no one else has, and it lies within you to use them profitably. You were created for a definite purpose. It was intended that you were to have a definite place to fill in life. It is up to you to find that place. You have been created a creature of free will. You must discover what your purpose is and decide to put forth the effort for yourself. The reason the world is in its present state of chaos, and confusion is because so many humans have failed to find their purpose in life. If you’re unhappy, if you feel you’ve been making no progress, if you look upon your life as a failure, if you can see little hope for the future, then you haven’t yet found your individual pattern in God’s great plan. Until you do find it, you are going to attract, through your own wrong thinking, many more wrong, unhappy happenings. You are the one person for whom you are entirely responsible. Your world, your life can be better only if you make it so. Is a man necessarily happy because he slaves each day to earn enough money to buy food and clothes and shelter for his loved ones and himself? Is the rich man happy with his riches alone? Is a wife satisfied with the drudgery of housework? Are the duties of this world appealing in themselves? You know they are not—not a single one of them. They have to have a purpose behind them— some vital, understandable reason why a person is willing to put forth an effort and make sacrifices and strive to overcome those obstacles. You can’t get something in this life for nothing—no matter how hard you try. It may seem so to you as you observe the lives of others, but you can’t possibly know what obstacles that person works to overcome every day. The sacrifices made or what efforts they put forth in order to get where they have. The great need, today, for each and every one of us is to find our purpose. Without it, we are as aimless in our journey on the sea of life as a ship without a rudder. We have nothing to steer us or guide us. A lawyer came unto Jesus and asked the question, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” You see; you came into this world to love and serve God and your fellow man. You can’t get away from this responsibility. You couldn’t continue to live without the daily toil of thousands of men and women whom you will never see, but what you are doing, as unimportant as it may seem, must mean something to God and to your fellow man. Your individual pattern in God’s great plan is found in the aforementioned verses of Scripture. Discover it and live it, and you will have found your purpose in life. —Selected and Adapted
A boy was on a steamboat making a journey. One day as he sat alone on the deck, looking down into the deep water, two ungodly men agreed that one of them should persuade him to drink. So the wicked man drew near the boy, and in a very pleasant voice and manner invited him to go and drink a glass of wine with him. “I thank you, sir,” said the little fellow, “but I never drink intoxicating liquors.” “Never mind, my lad, it will not hurt you. Come and have a drink with me,” said the man. “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise” was the boy’s ready reply. “You need not be deceived by it. I would not have you drink too much. A little would do you no harm, but would liven you up,” the man replied. “At last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder,” said the boy. “And I certainly thank it wiser not to play with adders.” “My fine fellow,” said the crafty man, “it will give me great pleasure if you will only come and drink just one glass of the best wine with me.” “My Bible says, ‘If sinners entice thee, consent thou not,’” was the reply. That was a stunning blow to the tempter, and he went back to his companion, defeated. “How did you succeed?” he asked. “Oh, not all. The fact is,” replied the man, “the youngster is so full of the Bible that I cannot do anything with him.”
A bushman who lived in the Namibian desert was once taken on a trip to the great city of Johannesburg. As he walked along the crowded sidewalks with a guide-interpreter, he was asked what he thought of the towering buildings and glittering arcades. He shrugged and replied, “I don’t think anything. They are not real; they are only man’s magic.” Soon they passed a site where excavation was in progress for the foundation of a new skyscraper. This giant pit was surrounded by a safety wall. When the little man peeked over the barricade, he let out a squall, “Aiee!” he yelled, “That’s the biggest hole I ever saw!” He had finally seen something he could relate to and begin to understand. A skyscraper was, for him, too strange and unbelievable for his frame of reference—so it had to be a mirage. Only when he saw the monstrous hole in the ground—a more familiar concept—could he begin to credit the reality of the concrete and steel towers which would soon rise on the construction site. Sometimes we also, relating to our trials and adversities, fail to see what is directly in front of us. Therefore, we fail to acknowledge the victories and successes. Stop admiring the big hole in the ground and look up at the towering successes in life and realize the hole in the ground is necessary, but it is simply the beginning of a tall tower in your life!
An elderly grandmother entered a hardware store and declared she wanted to purchase a new stove for her living room. The salesman let loose a veritable barrage of sales patter about his latest model heating stove. It had non-corroding bolts. It featured a newly patented insulating material. Just look at the gauge steel used in the jacket! Manipulate those clever controls! See the ample combustion chambers! All these gadgets, conveniences, and improvements were overwhelmingly convincing, the salesman thought, and he finished his sales talk with a flourish, expecting an immediate and favorable response. However, the elderly grandmother just looked at him, evidently expecting him to say more. Taken back, the salesman said, somewhat stuffily, “Well, Madam, I’ve told you everything there is to know about that stove. Do you have any questions?” “Yes, just one,” she answered. “Will it keep an old lady warm?” The most fundamental question that could be asked about a stove is, “Will it keep a person warm?” That is what a heating stove is for. We need to ask such elemental questions these days about life in our world. We need to have a better understanding of the basics. We need to have an understanding beyond frills, fashions, and fads. People who are building bigger, more beautiful houses than ever before should ask, “But will the house be a home, built of loving deeds as well as of brick, stone, mortar, and wood?” Bigger and better—but what for? One of the barest essentials for understanding life is to know that everything has a purpose. Nothing merely exists. Everything exists for a reason, and to know the reason is an exercise of wisdom. The purpose of a heating stove is to keep one warm. Regardless of all the extras. The purpose of a house is to keep one’s family safe and sheltered. Regardless of how big and fancy. The elderly grandmother did not need a stove because it had clever controls. She did not go to the hardware store to see the latest newfangled gadget. And no amount of persuasion or coercion by the salesman could persuade her from the purpose of what she was there for—to purchase a heating stove that would keep her warm. You are alive on this earth—but what for? You exist for a reason. Just as every living thing on earth is the reproduction of some other thing that lived before it, so every inspired person is the product of the inspirer. Every good life has issued from some other person who lived splendidly. Every believer in God has come to Him through some other believer. Good living things reproduce themselves. It is in this manner that goodness is maintained upon this earth. Are you passing on to future generations the best that is in you? —Selected and Adapted
A visitor to an European art museum grumbled about the old masterpieces the guide was showing him. “What is all the fuss about? he muttered. “I can’t see anything in those old paintings that deserves so much praise and such an expensive showing.” The guide took all he could and then turned to the unappreciative complainer. “Listen, Mister,” he exclaimed, “these pictures are no longer on trial. You are!”
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Small kindnesses, small considerations, small courtesies, habitually practiced in our social interaction, give greater charm to our character than the display of great talents and accomplishments.
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Discipline comes through self-control. This means that we must control all negative qualities. Before we can control conditions, we must first control ourselves.
The Bible
The Bible is the story of what God is doing in history. Like any good story, it has a beginning and an ending. It starts with the creation; conflict is introduced with the workings of Satan and the fall of man, introducing the dilemma. The rest of the story is the solving of that great dilemma by God, and the final triumph of His purpose at the second coming of Christ. All the events in between fit into that story and contribute to the unfolding of the “plot.” The Bible has one main theme—redemption—and many sub-themes, which run through the entire book. The sub-themes, interwoven into the narrative, and all dependent upon the main theme of redemption are all defined and illustrated in the events of the Bible. For instance, the innate rebelliousness of sinful man is played up and becomes a major chord in the story of the wandering in the wilderness and in Judges, as well as in other minor episodes. The mercy of God is portrayed in Hosea; the victory He gives, in Joshua. This is a bewildering age. Men lack sense of direction in destiny. They have lost their moorings. They are floundering in their quest for faith and redemption. They are lonely in the midst of millions. However, the message of God’s Word is the total answer to man’s total need. It is the Good News of forgiveness, faith, peace, purpose and Heaven. In the Bible, man discovers what he is to believe and where he is going.
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