Want to please every one?

One day a man was going to market with his son and his horse. They met a couple on the way.

"Why walk when you have an horse to ride?" called out the husband, "seat the boy on the horse."

"I would like that," said the boy, "help me up father."

And the father did that willingly.

Soon they met another couple. "How shameful of you!" cried the woman, "let your father ride, won't he be tired?"

So, the boy got down and the father rode the horse. Again they marched on.

"Poor boy", said the next person they met, "why should the lazy father ride while his son is walking?"

So, the boy got onto the horse too. As they went on, they met some travelers.

"How cruel of them!" They are up to kill the poor horse." cried one of the travelers.

Hearing this, the father and the son got down. Now they decided to carry the horse on their shoulders. As they did so, the travelers broke into laughter.

Moral:You can not please everyone.

Never loose faith in god

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small,  uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.

Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements and to store his few possessions. But then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky.

The worst had happened; everything was lost. He was stunned with grief and anger. "God, how could you do this to me!" he cried. Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue him. "How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied.

It is easy to get discouraged when things are going badly. But we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of pain and suffering. Remember, next time your little hut is burning to the ground--it just may be a smoke signal that summons The Grace of God.

Unity is strength

Once upon a time, there was a flock of doves that flew in search of food led by their king. One day, they had flown a long distance and were very tired. The dove king encouraged them to fly a little further. The smallest dove picked up speed and found some rice scattered beneath a banyan tree. So all the doves landed and began to eat.

Suddenly a net fell over them and they were all trapped. They saw a hunter approaching carrying a huge club. The doves desperately fluttered their wings trying to get out, but to no avail.

The king had an idea. He advised all the doves to fly up together carrying the net with them. He said that there was strength in unity.

Each dove picked up a portion of the net and together they flew off carrying the net with them. The hunter looked up in astonishment. He tried to follow them, but they were flying high over hills and valleys and escaped from the hunter.

Moral :Unity is strength

What you give is what you get

When God first created the world, there was no desert. 
   
The whole world was filled with fertile lands full of beautiful gardens.   

God created man in order to maintain the world. He said to man, "Every time you commit a sin, there will be a peck of sand falling on the ground". 
    

Man thought, "What harm will a peck of sand do? Let me live as I please". He started committing wicked sins and pecks of sand started falling on the ground. Still man continued sinning. And the effect is that to-day there are many deserts a around us. 

      
   MORAL : As you sow, so you reap.

A friend in need is a friend indeed

Once upon a time there lived a group of mice under a tree  peacefully. But once a group of elephants came that way and  destroyed the homes of all the rats as a result of which many of  them were crushed to death. Then the king of rats decided to  approach the elephant chief and request him to guide his herd through another route. The elephant king agreed to this and took another route to the water. And so the lives of the rats were saved.  


One day a group of elephant-hunters came and trapped the group 
of elephants in huge nets. Then the elephant king suddenly remembered the king of the rats. He summoned one of the elephants of his herd which had not been trapped, to go and contact the king of rats.  


On listening to the elephant, the rat king took his entire group of mice and they cut open the nets which trapped the elephant herd. So the elephant herd was totally set free. This is also "What you give is what you get"

Generosity is a good virtue

A 10 year-old Peter entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him.

"How much is an ice cream sundae?" the little Peter asked.

"40 cents," replied the waitress.

The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied the coins he had. "Well, how much is a plain dish of ice cream?" he inquired.

By now, more people were waiting for a table and the waitress was growing very impatient. "Thirty cents," she brusquely replied.

The little boy again counted his coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream," he said.

The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and left. When the waitress came back, she began to cry. As she wiped down the table, there placed neatly beside the empty dish were two nickels and five pennies. You see, he couldn't have the sundae because he had to have enough money to leave her a tip.

Moral: Generosity is a good Virtue

Remember, you are priceless and unique

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $10 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, “Who would like this $10 bill?” Hands started going up.

He said, “I am going to give this $10 to one of you but first, let me do this.” He proceeded to crumple up the $10 bill. He asked, “Who still wants it?” Still hands were up in the air.

“Well, what if I do this?” He dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty and asked, “Who still wants it?” Still hands went up into the air.

My friends, we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what was done to the money, it was still wanted because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $10. 

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We may feel as though we are worthless.

Moral: But no matter what has happened or will happen, you will never lose your value; dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless and unique to those who love you.

Judging People

A man with his donkey carrying two sacks of wheat was on his way to the market. After a little while he was tired and they rested under a tree. When he woke up from his nap he could not see the donkey and started searching for the donkey everywhere. On the way he met a boy, he asked the boy, “Have you seen my donkey?” The boy asked, “Is the donkey’s left eye blind, his right foot lame and is he carrying a load of wheat?” The man was happy and said, “Yes, exactly! Where have you seen it?” the boy answered “I haven’t seen it.” This made the man very angry and he took the boy to the village chief for punishment.
 
The judge asked, “Dear boy, if you had not seen at the donkey, how could you describe it?”
 
The boy answered, “I saw the tracks of a donkey and the right and left tracks were different from this I understood that the donkey that passed there was limping. And the grass on the right side of the road was eaten but the grass on the left was not. From that I understood that his left eye was blind. There were wheat seeds scattered on the ground and I understood that he must have been carrying a load of wheat".
 
The judge understood the boy’s cleverness and told the man to forgive the boy.

Moral: Don't be Too Quick in Judging people.

Who’s packing your chute?

Charles Plumb, a US Navy Academy graduate, was a jet fighter pilot in Vietnam.


After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile.
Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands.  


He was captured and spent the next six years in a Communist prison. He survived that ordeal and now lectures about lessons learned from that experience.  


One day, when he and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Nam from the carrier, Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!” “How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb. “Oh, I was the one who packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man smiled and said, “Yep, I guess it worked!” Plumb assured him, “It sure did work — if your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”  


Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about the man who has packed his parachute. Plumb kept wondering what the man might have looked like in a Navy uniform. “I wondered how many times I might have passed him on the Kitty Hawk. I wondered how many times I might have seen him and not even said good morning, how are you or anything, because you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.” Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands the fate of someone he didn’t know.  


Now Plumb asks his audiences, “Who’s packing your chute” 



Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that we all need many kinds of parachutes. We need mental, emotional and spiritual parachutes as well. While a prisoner of war, Plumb called on all of these supports before reaching safety. His experience reminds us all to prepare ourselves to weather whatever storms lie ahead. 

Recognize and appreciate all of those people who pack our parachutes everyday, for they are the ones who truly deserve the credit for our survival. 

Making a Difference

A man was walking down a deserted Mexican beach at sunset. As he walked along he began to see another man in the distance.  


As he grew nearer he noticed that the local native kept leaning down, picking something up, and throwing it out into the water. Time and again he kept hurling things out into the ocean. As he approached even closer he noticed that the man was picking up starfish that had washed up onto the beach, and one at a time, he was throwing them back into the ocean. 

The first man was puzzled. He approached the second man and said, “Good Evening Friend, I was wondering what you are doing?” And he replied, “I’m throwing these starfish back into the ocean. You see its low tide right now and all these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don’t throw them back into the sea, they will die from the lack of oxygen.” 


“I understand, the first man replied “but there must be thousands of starfish on this beach and you couldn’t possibly get to all of them. There are simply too many and don’t you realize that this is happening on hundreds of beaches up and down this coast … can’t you see that you can’t possibly make a difference? 


The local native smiled, bent down, picked up yet another starfish … and as he threw it back out into the sea, he replied, “It made a difference to that one!” 


You may feel like you cannot make a difference in the world today, but you can make a difference in one life at a time.  


Moral:Never underestimate your own efforts. You too could make a difference. Don’t ask what the world could do for you; seek what you could do to the world.