(96) “THE POWER OF REPETITION”

The Argentinian pastor Juan Carlos Ortiz stood up to preach one Sunday and read three words of Jesus, “Love one another.” Then he sat down. After a few minutes Ortiz got up and again said, “Love one another” and sat down. The congregation began to stir nervously. So, Ortiz got up a third time and said, “Love one another” and sat down.

A man in the front row leaned over to the next man and said, “Is there anything I can do for you?” Gradually people from across the congregation began to reach out to one another to share and pray and cry and give …

(91)  “NEVER A DULL MOMENT”

As I write this WORDS, I am daily attending a cancer centre, where for 35 consecutive weekdays I am undergoing radiotherapy for cancer in my body. The thought of driving to and from the Cancer Centre to go through a precise medical procedure that is supervised by trained staff, was not something I was looking forward to; until I read of Paul’s experiences in a Roman jail as explained in his letter to the Philippians.

Paul wrote, “And I want you to know, my dear brothers and sisters, that everything that has happened to me here has helped to spread the Good News. For …

I will never forget reading a book by Dr. Denis Waitley called Seeds of Greatness where he writes, “The average person dies with millions of unused brain cells.” About that time, I also read that most people use about 400 words in more than 80% of their everyday conversations. That is 400 words out of about 450,000 words in the English dictionary. If we learnt 10 new words every day for one year we could become among the most learned and well-spoken individuals in the world. Motivated by this fact, I set as a goal for the following year that I would learn one new word every day and bought …