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Tremendous
Life Principles |
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My
dear Sammy,
Each
word in this letter is bathed with my love and prayers for you. As you get older, you’ll discover that your
mind doesn’t always keep pace with your body.
The food you eat nourishes your body, but what you feed your mind and
heart determines your growth as a person.
I’m
going to share a few principles that I pray you’ll commit to memory. I could share many more, but I’ve tired to
select the ones that I wish I could have begun working on earlier in my life.
Read,
read, read, read. A proper diet is good for your
body, and the best books are good for your mind. Your life will be determined by the people you associate with and
the books you read. You’ll come to
love many people you’ll meet in books. Read
biographies, autobiographies, and history.
Books will provide many of the friends, mentors, role models and heroes
you’ll need in life. Biographies will
help you see there is nothing that can happen to you that wasn’t experienced
by many who used their failures, disappointments, and tragedies as stepping-stones
for a more tremendous life. Many of
my best friends are people I’ve never met:
Oswald Chambers, George Mueller, Charles Spurgeon, A.W.Tozer, Abraham
Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Francois Fenelon, Jean Guyon, and hundreds of others.
Don’t
read the Bible. Study it. Digest it.
Memorize it and realize God’s greatest gift to our time on earth is
His Word made flesh, living in our hearts through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Forgive. Our unwillingness to forgive when we’ve been deeply hurt breeds
self-pity and bitterness. If you experience
God’s love and forgiveness through Jesus, you will have no problem in forgiving
anyone for anything. The hurt or injustices
you experience will leave scars, but your life will be enriched by the joy
of practicing what you have received.
Pray. Praying is more than talking to God. Praying is God’s Spirit speaking to you and for you and moving you
to share your thoughts, problems, and praise with Him. Never allow your unfaithfulness to keep you
from praying. God always hears you
as you pray in Jesus’ name because He is faithful. The “right” words never matter to God. He hears the words of your heart that can’t be expressed in words,
and best of all, the Holy Spirit is your interpreter.
Give. Never give to get; give
because you have received. Giving
is like using a muscle. To be strong,
you must exercise “giving” to grow as a person.
You can’t really enjoy anything without sharing it, including your
faith, love, talents and money. Someday
you’ll discover we never really give; we
are only returning and sharing a small portion of what we’ve received.
Make
decisions. The more decisions you make, the more tremendous
your life will be. Don’t wait for
the right time. Do something now,
today. Don’t worry about big decisions.
Make many little ones, and the big ones will seem little.
Your job is not to make a perfect decision as much as to make a decision
and invest your life in making it count.
After
choosing to love God, you have only two big decisions in life: your work and your marriage. Don’t look for what you like to do. Find something that ought to be done while
others are wasting their lives searching for something they would like to
do. Don’t waste time looking for a
better job. Do a better job and you’ll
have a better job.
Someday
you’ll meet someone to love and share her life with you. Love between a man and a woman is second only
to the love of God, but there is one big difference. God’s love never changes, while our love is
very changeable. Please remember that
commitment n your marriage is more important than love. Commitment will save your marriage when your
love dies or until it lives again. I
thought God gave me your grandmother to love me, and she has loved me well,
but over the years God has shown me something more. He gave her to me to learn to love, even if she ceased loving me.
You can’t do this on your own, but you can when you experience the
love of Christ. Then and only then will it make sense.
Be
thankful. Learning to be thankful covers
it all: “In everything give thanks,
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). You
may not always be sure of God’s will, you may not always be sure that you’re
doing God’s will, but you can easily always be His will be thanking Him for
all things.
I
hope you’ll give thanks for your food with your children as we did with your
dad: “Lord, we thank you for our food.
But if we had none, we would thank You anyway.
Because, Lord, we’re not just thankful for what you give us.
We are thankful most of all for the privilege of learning to be thankful.”
There
are hundreds of other thoughts I would love to share with you, but I know
God will be revealing them to your heart more wonderfully than any human tongue
can tell.
Remember:
Learn to laugh at yourself.
Learn to help others laugh.
Learn to laugh when you are up.
Learn to laugh when you are down.
Learn to laugh.
Circumstances
won’t always allow you to be happy, but Jesus will help you look as if you
are.
I
love you tremendously,
Your
devoted grandfather,
Romans
10:17, Acts 20:24
Book
Report:
Acres
of Diamonds
By Samuel Jones - Age 13
Acres
of Diamonds is a lecture written by Russell H. Conwell first given in 1869
just a few years after the Civil War. It was delivered 6,152 times, the first
time when he was only 16. There are many lessons to be learned and I'll share
what I've gotten from this speech.
One thing
I got from this is that you shouldn't leave one job until you have another
one. Don't just get rid of a job because you don't like it or there are bigger
and better things out there. Wait until you get another job first, or you
might find yourself in a really bad position.
Another
thing to do is to try to make money. Be pretty eager to get rich. You should
because it is your Godly duty to try. The love of money is the root of all
evil, not just money. You can do a lot more good with money than without it.
Do not
think that making profit is wrong. You do not have the right to take losses.
People will not trust you with money if you cannot manage yours, just like
they wouldn't trust a known scammer or cheater.
This
does not mean, however, that you can grab all the money you can get your hands
on. Getting money by cheating others is not just sinning, it is idolatry.
Going to the measure of lying to people to get money is putting money above
God.
As I
close, I would like to say some things about Acres of Diamonds. It mostly
says that making money is not an evil thing to do, and then helps draw the
lines to as what you can do and not go too far as to worship money. Conwell
also reminds us that there are better things than money, and I believe that
no one should forget about that.
Samuel
Jones
CHARLES "TREMENDOUS" JONES LETTER TO GRANDSON SAMMY
My dear Sammy,
No words can express how much I appreciated your tremendous book review of "Acres of Diamonds." You not only grasped the basic points but you discovered the spirit of money. Very few men much older than you have even discovered what you have.
I would remind you that reading this classic was a good experience but the time you spent thinking about it in order to write your thoughts made it an invaluable experience that will influence your actions the rest of your life.
Your next obligation will be to share some of your thoughts with some of your friends and even your teachers. One of the greatest joys of a teacher is a student sharing their discovering the laws of life and success. Also, you'll discover the joy of thinking new thoughts are more enjoyable and profitable when they are shared. Every time you share a great thought it becomes more real and you discover there is a lot more to learn about your discovery.
I'm enclosing one hundred dollars, a reward for your efforts. I would ask you to give the first $10.00 to your church, $10.00 for allowance and $80.00 for your college fund.
I'm enclosing a new little booklet called "Books are Tremendous." It includes many great authors and quotes of great leaders on their love for books. I had 16 college students spend the day with me yesterday. I had them read to me J.C. Penny thoughts on the importance of reading for young people. Those young people will forget most of what I said but the thoughts we read together are now a part of their life forever.
Thank you for making me and your mother so happy and proud. Years from now you will discover the future happiness you've stored up for yourself when you remember how happy you made us.
I'm looking forward to your next book review. I know you are busy but remember the busiest people know we waste half of our time so I only ask you to use some of the time you normally waste, on reading, thinking, writing and sharing.
I love you tremendously,
Your
devoted grandfather,
Romans
10:17, Acts 20:24
The
Ultimate Gift
By Samuel Jones
The Ultimate Gift is a great book that everyone can learn from. It has many lessons to learn in each of the twelve steps. In my report, I'll look at all the steps and summarize what Jason Stevens (the main character), and what can be, learned from them.
The Gift of Work
The first step of Jason's yearlong journey for The Ultimate Gift is The Gift
of Work. Jason finds how much pride he can find when he does a hard day's
work. He learns about the pleasure of getting something when you earn it.
The Gift of Work teaches Jason that relaxation is a reward for work, rather
than an excuse not to do it.
The Gift of Money
Jason, in the second step of The Ultimate Gift, learns a lot about how to
use money as a tool for giving. He learns that being rich does not guarantee
happiness, but being poor doesn't either. He finds that the way happiness
comes through money is from using it in such a way that helps others.
The Gift of Friends
In the third month of receiving The Ultimate Gift, Jason has the task of discovering
the principles that make up true friendship. After a lot of thinking, he finds
that true friendship involves loyalty, commitment, and actually sharing the
friend's life. True friends must be able to do anything for and trust each
other. They must be committed to the friend. Also, true friends must be able
to be open and share their lives with each other. This is what the gift of
friendship is all about.
The Gift of Learning
As Jason enters the next month of The Ultimate Gift, he goes to a library
in South America to discover The Gift of Learning. Jason learns that an interest
in learning is how true learning takes place. He learns this from the people
that walk from miles away to check out books from the library. You will not
really learn if you don't have an interest in it.
The Gift of Problems
For The Gift of Problems, Jason has to see problems that are going on in other
peoples' lives. In doing so, he learns that problems are something for us
to use to make us stronger so we can deal with bigger ones later. He learns
that problems are something to be grateful for. Also, Jason learns that happiness
comes from overcoming problems. Jason learns that problems are a healthy and
beneficial part of our lives.
The Gift of Family
For the next month, Jason goes to the Red Stevens Home for Boys to discover
the true meaning of The Gift of Family. He has the responsibility of filling
in as a substitute house parent for thirty-six boys at the home. Jason, after
a few days, develops deep relationships with them. What he learns from them
is that a family is really a group of people who love each other very much.
The Gift of Laughter
In the seventh month of receiving The Ultimate Gift, Jason must find an example
of a person who suits The Gift of Laughter. When doing so, he finds that even
though there are many times in life where you must be serious, there is such
a thing as taking life too seriously. You must be able to just look at yourself
and your problems and laugh.
The Gift of Dreams
For the Gift of Dreams, Jason is given the task of finding his main dream
to accomplish during his lifetime. In doing so, Jason finds that dreaming
is a powerful tool to happiness. Dreams, when brought into action, can help
and bring joy to others. Jafon also learns that dreams must be allowed to
change and evolve as he does, and not just have the same dream for all his
life.
The Gift of Giving
In The Gift of Giving, Jason finds something to give (that comes truly from
him) every day for the next month. When he does, he finds that he has a lot
more to give than he thought he had. Giving must be done because you want
to, not because you feel you have to. Jason learns that the more he gives,
the more joy and happiness he receives.
The Gift of Gratitude
During The Gift of Gratitude, Jason must create his Golden List, a list of
things to be thankful for to visualize to read every day or when his spirits
were down. As he compiled it, he found one major thing: Jason had a lot more
to be thankful for than he originally thought. Everybody, everywhere, has
something to be thankful for.
The Gift of A Day
In the next to last month in The Ultimate Gift, Jason has to discover The
Gift of A Day. He has to find out how he would spend the last day of his life.
Jason learns that once you find how to live each day to the fullest, you are
really living. He als. leans that why save what you would do on the last day
of his life for the last day of his life? No one has a promise of living long.
This is the true essence of The Gift of A Day.
The Gift of Love
In the final month of Jason receiving The Ultimate Gift, Jason must learn
how love relates to all the other steps in The Ultimate Gift. In doing so,
he finds that love is really the core of all the parts of The Ultimate Gift.
Also, Jason learns that when we really love someone else, he or she and we
are changed from the love we expressed. Jason learned that The Ultimate Gift
changed him completely into a different person than he was when he started
the journey.
So, now you see that
each of the steps of The Ultimate Gift has something to learn. The Ultimate
Gift is a great book that I learned a lot from. Everybody can learn something
from it. It is just a really awesome book.