Words To Nourish The Mind

I have been reviewing the book; Dealing with Disappointment by John Hindley.  I continue it today with part 2. A common thread that has been running throughout the book is that life on this earth does seem to be one huge disappointment. We are constantly chasing the next big thing, whether it is a promotion or a better house. Somehow what we have now is not good enough and striving for things in life is portrayed as the answer to our disappointments. And to some degree, this may be true. It's always nice to have nice things as it gives us a feel-good factor, but for how long? The real question is how true is this? From my own experience and the book, it probably not very true because more often than not, once we get the upgrade in life, we may get an instant high but that buzz seems to be superficial and empty at the same time. We just have to look back in the last couple of years to realise that there is at least an element of truth into this from the disappo...

This book was a relatively easy read with the simple idea that leaves you to question: is life just one big disappointment?  In many ways it does seem so; the author delves into different areas of disappointment in our lives. I suspect most if not all are relatable to everyone. Firstly, the author says we actually should be disappointed by life, as things are not as good as they should be. We live in a frustrated and frustrating world; the frustration is because of the fallen world when sin entered humanity. We all carry this divinely inbuilt sense that the world should and could be better. The book goes on to say that on the other hand, we are sometimes too disappointed with life.  We expect satisfaction from other areas of lives to overcompensate for this.  When this satisfaction is denied, it starts an over-disappointed cycle. For example, I came across a thread where the mum wrote in and expressed disappointment in her children’s grades, which led her to ques...

I loved learning about the story of Reformation Day. The significance centres on how the Bible became accessible for everyone to read - historically the general public wasn’t allowed to read it, only priests or those considered anointed within the church were allowed to read it. The priests read the Bible in Latin, so for most people, it wasn’t even possible to read it. God’s word was entrusted into the hands of those in power, who were deemed qualified to understand it.  What the priests were teaching, was not actually in line with what the Bible said, as one monk, called Martin Luther found out. He started to read the Bible for himself out of pure frustration.  According to the teachings of the priests, believing in God seem to be just to be an endless set of rules and it left him feeling as if he could never be good enough for God. Little did he know at the time, he was about to birth a revolution that quite literally changed the world. This set him on a path of ...