| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: and more absorbed in the problem which he had set himself to solve.
The expenses of his marriage and of Lucien's journey to Paris had
exhausted all his resources; he confronted the extreme of poverty at
the very outset of married life. He had kept one thousand francs for
the working expenses of the business, and owed a like sum, for which
he had given a bill to Postel the druggist. So here was a double
problem for this deep thinker; he must invent a method of making cheap
paper, and that quickly; he must make the discovery, in fact, in order
to apply the proceeds to the needs of the household and of the
business. What words can describe the brain that can forget the cruel
preoccupations caused by hidden want, by the daily needs of a family
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm: off next morning by daybreak with the three hundred talers.
At home the small peasant gradually launched out; he built a beautiful
house, and the peasants said: 'The small peasant has certainly been to
the place where golden snow falls, and people carry the gold home in
shovels.' Then the small peasant was brought before the mayor, and
bidden to say from whence his wealth came. He answered: 'I sold my
cow's skin in the town, for three hundred talers.' When the peasants
heard that, they too wished to enjoy this great profit, and ran home,
killed all their cows, and stripped off their skins in order to sell
them in the town to the greatest advantage. The mayor, however, said:
'But my servant must go first.' When she came to the merchant in the
Grimm's Fairy Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: "what hast thou that thou didst not receive?"--you will not flatter
yourself on the one hand and on the other hand you will not carry
yourself with the thought of resigning from the ministry when you are
insulted, reproached, or persecuted.
It is really kind of God to send so much infamy, reproach, hatred, and
cursing our way to keep us from getting proud of the gifts of God in us.
We need a millstone around our neck to keep us humble. There are a few
on our side who love and revere us for the ministry of the Word, but for
every one of these there are a hundred on the other side who hate and
persecute us.
The Lord is our glory. Such gifts as we possess we acknowledge to be the
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