Wits & Wisdom
So Little Yet Big Enough To Inspire

Every Sunday afternoon, after the morning service at the church, the Pastor and his eleven year old son would go out into their town and hand out Gospel Tracts.

This particular Sunday afternoon, as it came time for the Pastor and his son to go to the streets with their tracts, it was very cold outside, as well as pouring down rain. The boy bundled up in his warmest and driest clothes and said, “OK, dad, I’m ready.”

His Pastor dad asked, “Ready for what?” “Dad, it’s time we gather our tracts together and go out.” Dad responds, “Son, it’s very cold outside and it’s pouring down rain.”

The boy gives his dad a surprised look, asking, “But Dad, aren’t people still going to Hell, even though it’s raining?” Dad answers, “Son, I am not going out in this weather.” Despondently, the boy asks, “Dad, can I go? Please?”

His father hesitated for a moment then said, “Son, you can go. Here are the tracts. Be careful son. “Thanks Dad. And with that, he was off and out into the rain. The eleven year old boy walked the streets of the town going door to door and handing everybody he met in the street a Gospel Tract.

After two hours of walking in the rain, he was soaking, bone-chilled wet and down to his VERY LAST TRACT. He stopped on a corner and looked for someone to hand a tract to, but the streets were totally deserted.

Then he turned toward the first home he saw and started up the sidewalk to the front door and rang the door bell. He rang the bell, but nobody answered. He rang it again and again, but still no one answered. He waited but still no answer.

Finally, this eleven year old trooper turned to leave, but something stopped him. Again, he turned to the door and rang the bell and knocked loudly on the door with his fist. He waited, something holding him there on the front porch! He rang again and this time the door slowly opened. Standing in the doorway was a very sad-looking elderly lady. She softly asked, “What can I do for you, son?” With radiant eyes and a smile that lit up her world, the little boy said, “Ma’am, I’m sorry if I disturbed you, but I just want to tell you that JESUS REALLY DOES LOVE YOU and I came to give you my very last Gospel Tract which will tell you all about JESUS and His great LOVE.”

With that, he handed her his last tract and turned to leave. She called to him as he departed. “Thank you, son and God bless you!”

Well, the following Sunday morning in church Pastor Dad was in the pulpit. As the service began, he asked, “Does anybody have any testimony or want to say anything?”

Slowly, in the back row of the church, an elderly lady stood to her feet. As she began to speak, a look of glorious radiance came from her face, “No one in this church knows me. I’ve never been here before. You see, before last Sunday I was not a Christian. My husband passed on some time ago, leaving me totally alone in this world. Last Sunday, being a particularly cold and rainy day, it was even more so in my heart that I came to the end of the line where I no longer had any hope or will to live. So I took a rope and a chair and ascended the stairway into the attic of my home. I fastened the rope securely to a rafter in the roof, then stood on the chair and fastened the other end of the rope around my neck. Standing on that chair, so lonely and brokenhearted I was about to leap off, when suddenly the loud ringing of my doorbell downstairs startled me. I thought, “I’ll wait a minute, and whoever it is will go away.” I waited and waited, but the ringing doorbell seemed to get louder and more insistent, and then the person ringing also started knocking loudly. I thought to myself again, “Who on earth could this be? Nobody ever rings my bell or comes to see me.” I loosened the rope from my neck and started for the front door, all the while the bell rang louder and louder. When I opened the door and looked I could hardly believe my eyes, for there on my front porch was the most radiant and angelic little boy I had ever seen in my life. His SMILE, oh, I could never describe it to you! The words that came from his mouth caused my heart, that had long been dead, TO LEAP TO LIFE as he exclaimed with a cherub-like voice, “Ma’am, I just came to tell you that JESUS REALLY DOES LOVE YOU.” Then he gave me this Gospel Tract that I now hold in my hand.

As the little angel disappeared back out into the cold and rain, I closed my door and read slowly every word of this Gospel Tract. Then I went up to my attic to get my rope and chair. I wouldn’t be needing them any more. “You see—I am now a Happy Child of the KING. Since the address of your church was on the back of this Gospel Tract, I have come here to personally say THANK YOU to God’s little angel who came just in the nick of time and by so doing, spared my soul from an eternity in hell.” There was not a dry eye in the church. And as shouts of praise and honor to THE KING resounded off the very rafters of the building, Pastor Dad descended from the pulpit to the front pew where the little angel was seated.

He took his son in his arms and sobbed uncontrollably. Probably no church has had a more glorious moment.

Read: THE PASTOR AND HIS SON »

Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument; and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand:
“Today my best friend slapped me in the face”

They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire, and started drowning, but the friend saved him.

After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:
“Today my best friend saved my life”

The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, ‘after I hurt you, you wrote on the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?’

The friend replied “when someone hurts us we should write it down on sand, where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it on stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

Learn to write your hurts on the sand and to carve your benefits on stone.

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate him or her, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them.

Do not value the things you have in your life, but value who you have in your life!

Read: FRIENDS »

Read: EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING »

Malachi 3:3 says: “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.”

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God.

One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn’t mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver.

As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: “He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.”
She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined.

The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, “How do you know when the silver is fully refined?” He smiled at her and answered, “Oh, that’s easy — when I see my image in it”

If today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.

Read: THE SILVERSMITH »

TEACHER: Maria, go to the map and find North America.
MARIA: Here it is.
TEACHER: Correct. Now class, who discovered America ?
CLASS: Maria.
____________ _________

TEACHER: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor?
JOHN: You told me to do it without using tables.
____________ _________

TEACHER: Glenn, how do you spell ‘crocodile?’
GLENN: K-R-O-K-O-D- I-A-L’
TEACHER: No, that’s wrong
GLENN: Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spell it.
____________ _________

TEACHER: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?
DONALD: H I J K L M N O.
TEACHER: What are you talking about?
DONALD: Yesterday you said it’s H to O.
____________ _________

TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn’t have ten years ago.
WINNIE: Me!
____________ _________

TEACHER: Glen, why do you always get so dirty?
GLEN: Well, I’m a lot closer to the ground than you are.
____________ _________

TEACHER: Millie, give me a sentence starting with ‘I.’
MILLIE: I is..
TEACHER: No, Millie….. Always say, ‘I am.’
MILLIE: All right… ‘I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.’
____________ _________

TEACHER: George Washington not only chopped down his father’s cherry tree, but also admitted it. Now, Louie, do you know why his father didn’t punish him?
LOUIS: Because George still had the axe in his hand.
____________ _________

TEACHER: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating?
SIMON: No sir, I don’t have to, my Mom is a good cook.
____________ _________

TEACHER: Clyde, your composition on ‘My Dog’ is exactly the same as your brother’s. Did you copy his?
CLYDE : No, sir. It’s the same dog.
____________ _________

TEACHER: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?
HAROLD: A teacher

Read: KIDS ARE QUICK »

A hat-seller who was passing by a forest decided to take a nap under one of the trees, so he left his whole basket of hats by the side. A few hours later, he woke up and realized that all his hats were gone.

He looked up and to his surprise, the tree was full of monkeys and they had taken all his hats. The man sits down and thinks of how he can get the hats down.

While thinking he started to scratch his head. The next moment, the monkeys were doing the same. Next, he took down his own hat; the monkeys did exactly the same. An idea came to him, he took his hat and threw it on the floor and the monkeys did that too. So he finally managed to get all his hats back.

Fifty years later, his grandson, Sukhwinder, also became a hat-seller and had heard this monkey story from his grandfather. One day, just like his grandfather, he passed by the same forest. It was very hot, and he took a nap under the same tree and left the hats on the floor.

He woke up and realized that all his hats were taken by the monkeys on the tree. He remembered his grandfather’s words, started scratching his head and the monkeys followed. He took down his hat and fanned himself and again the monkeys followed. Now, very convinced of his grandfather’s idea, Sukhwinder threw his hat on the floor but to his surprise, the monkeys still held on to all the hats.

Then one monkey climbed down the tree, grabbed the hat on the floor, gave him a slap and said to him “You think only you have a grandfather !!!”

Read: JUST FOR THE LAUGH - THE HAT SELLER »

This was narrated at a Seminar recently on Human Relations :

Venkatesh Balasubramaniam (who works for IIT) describes how his gesture of booking an air ticket for his father, his maiden flight, brought forth a rush of emotions and made him (Venkatesh) realize that how much we all take for granted when it comes to our parents.

My parents left for our native place on Thursday and we went to the airport to see them off. In fact, my father had never traveled by air before, so I just took this opportunity to make him experience the same. In spite of being asked to book tickets by train, I got them tickets on Jet Airways.

The moment I handed over the tickets to him, he was surprised to see that I had booked them by air. The excitement was very apparent on his face, waiting for the time of travel. Just like a school boy, he was preparing himself on that day and we all went to the airport, right from using the trolley for his luggage, the baggage check-in and asking for a window seat and waiting restlessly for the security check-in to happen. He was thoroughly enjoying himself and I, too, was overcome with joy watching him experience all these things.

As they were about to go in for the security check-in, he walked up to me with tears in his eyes and thanked me. He became very emotional and it was not as if I had done something great but the fact that this meant a great deal to him. When he said thanks, I told him there was no need to thank me. But later, thinking about the entire incident, I looked back at my life. As a child, how many dreams our parents have made come true. Without understanding the financial situation, we ask for cricket bats, dresses, toys, outings, etc. Irrespective of their affordability, they have catered to all our needs.

Did we ever think about the sacrifices they had to make to accommodate many of our wishes? Did we ever say thanks for all that they have done for us? Same way, today when it comes to our children, we always think that we should put them in a good school. Regardless of the amount of donation, we will ensure that we will have t give the child the best, theme parks, toys, etc. But we tend to forget that our parents have sacrificed a lot for our sake to see us happy, so it is our responsibility to ensure that their dreams are realized and what they failed to see when they were young. It is our responsibility to ensure that they experience all those and their life is complete.

Many times, when my parents had asked me some questions, I have actually answered back without patience. When my daughter asks me something, I have been very polite in answering. Now I realize how they would have felt at those moments. Let us realize that old age is a second childhood and just as we take care of our children, the same attention and same care needs to be given to our parents and elders. Quality time and politely answering them with out making them wait is important. Now I realise that I must look at their eyes and answer them pleasantly and pretend to be reading papers and answer in mono syllables. Rather than my dad saying thank you to me, I would want to say sorry for making him wait so long for this small dream. I do realize how much he has sacrificed for my sake and I will do my best to give the best possible attention to all their wishes.

Just because they are old does not mean that they will have to give up everything and keep sacrificing for their grandchildren also. They have wishes, too. Take care of your parents. THEY ARE PRECIOUS.

Read: THEY ARE PRECIOUS »

Read: MARRIED LIFE IS FULL OF EXCITEMENT »

One night in a church service a young woman felt the tug of God at her heart. She responded to God’s call and accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior. The young woman had a very rough past, involving alcohol, drugs, and prostitution. But, the change in her was evident. As time went on she became a faithful member of the church.

She eventually became involved in the ministry, teaching young children. It was not very long until this faithful young woman had caught the eye and heart of the pastor’s son. The relationship grew and they began to make wedding plans.

This is when the problems began. You see, about one half of the church did not think that a woman with a past such as hers was suitable for a pastor’s son. The church began to argue and fight about the matter. So they decided to have a meeting. As the people made their arguments and tensions increased, the meeting was getting completely out of hand.

The young woman became very upset about all the things being brought up about her past. As she began to cry the pastor’s son stood to speak. He could not bear the pain it was causing his wife to be.

He began to speak and his statement was this: “My fiancee’s past is not what is on trial here. What you are questioning is the ability of the blood of Jesus to wash away sin. Today you have put the blood of Jesus on trial. So, does it wash away sin or not?”

The whole church began to weep as they realized that they had been slandering the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Too often, even as Christians, we bring up the past and use it as a weapon against our brothers and sisters.

Forgiveness is a very foundational part of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. If the blood of Jesus does not cleanse the other person completely then it cannot cleanse us completely. If that is the case, then we are all in a lot of trouble.

What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!

Read: WHAT CAN WASH AWAY MY SINS? »

I knelt to pray but not for long,
I had too much to do.
I had to hurry and get to work
For bills would soon be due.
So I knelt and said a hurried prayer,
And jumped up off my knees.

My Christian duty was now done
My soul could rest at ease…..
All day long I had no time
To spread a word of cheer
No time to speak of Christ to friends,
They’d laugh at me I’d fear.

No time, no time, too much to do,
That was my constant cry,
No time to give to souls in need
But at last the time, the time to die.
I went before the Lord,
I came, I stood with downcast eyes.

For in his hands God! held a book;
It was the book of life.
God looked into his book and said
“Your name I cannot find
I once was going to write it down…
But never found the time”

Author Unknown

Read: NO TIME »