If you knew the future you would not get upset when things don’t go your way.
The “all things work together for good” mantra that is dished up in various forms is not needed when the future is clear.
If you could see the future you would know for sure whether it was really working for your good!
The happy times when everything goes well, blind a person to what is waiting for them around the corner.
That is why we have insurance policies for as many things as possible.
The problem is you cannot insure your skills and if one of those skills is your golf swing, then nothing is guaranteed.
Slight changes in your relationships, finances, or sense of well-being can throw you out of your rhythm.
Your game goes the same way your confidence goes.
Out the door!
“Oh, I see.”
“You need a confidence boost.”
“Need a little food for your faith do you?”
Or is the real need not being addressed?
The answer my friend is…you guessed it.
The solution to most people’s situation is, wisdom.
You need wisdom.
“Come on you simple one’s,” she says.
“I’m calling out as you pass by.”

I like to get my wisdom in story form.
Preferably someone else’s story.
I love to hear tragedy turning into triumph stories.
Where their pain turns into their gain.
I love to be inspired and motivated by a book or a movie, or even a sermon.
It’s more interesting watching other people learning the lessons of life.

An evangelist friend of mine goes into Eastern European countries on ministry trips.
He always likes to invite the children to sit up near the stage so he can tell them a story.
What he noticed after doing this a few times was; the adults listened intently as he told the children their story.
But when he dismissed the children and began his sermon, the adults lost interest.
Eventually he changed his strategy.
He would still invite the children to the front and then he would weave his sermon for the adults into the children’s story, all the while holding the adults attention.
Now that is wisdom!

Wouldn’t it be great to live in a world where everything is black and white?
Where there were no grey areas.
Confusion is not good for anyone who is in the middle of making a decision.
Today I was asked to give directions for a lady who had just stepped off the bus and was trying to find her way to her job interview.
I didn’t see her get off the bus so I presumed she was driving to her interview.
I proceeded to give her directions that were accurate but irrelevant for her particular situation.
I could see from her expression that something was not adding up.
Wisdom does not rush in without having all the facts.
Wisdom would ask, “Are you walking or are you driving?”
Here are a few questions that wisdom may well ask you!
Do you want it now or do you want it later?
Do you want the best or the second best?
Which timetable, yours or God’s?

You can see where this is leading!
Real wisdom, the high quality wisdom, is only available from one source.
You have to listen, you have to be very still, you have to be like those children listening to the evangelist telling them a story.
The adults were drawn into the children’s story by the atmosphere of innocence.
For a few minutes they put away their cynicism and weary thought life.
They forgot who they were and where they were.

It’s like Christmas day when the adults watch the children opening their presents.
The adults get excited when the children get excited.
Well, it’s the same with God; he gets excited when you get excited.
And here’s the kicker!
You get excited when you open your present.
And what is your present?
Today folks, your present is…the gift of wisdom you have been asking for!
That’s right, all you had to do was ask!

Tony Egar.

I bought my first kayak when I was living in the small town of Katherine which is 300 miles south of Darwin.
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory; it is closer to Indonesia than it is to Sydney.
When we kayaked on the Katherine River we would really enjoy doing it in the wet season because the river would have a lot of “white-water”.
The wildlife was also abundant and we saw a lot of freshwater crocodiles.
These crocodiles were fairly harmless…if you kept your distance.
They were not big enough to tip you out of a kayak if they did attack.

We had an opportunity to travel across the top of Australia to another small town called Kununurra which is situated on the Ord River.
This river is very wide and has no “white-water.”
But it does have big and dangerous saltwater crocodiles.
One of them surfaced in front of us as we kayaked down the river and my friend panicked.
He had a bad dream the night before and this had set him up BIG time!
I was amazed at my reaction.
Because we were out in the middle of a very wide section of the river we knew…if we were knocked out of our kayaks we had no way of getting back in.
When you are completely cornered with no escape you sometimes relax even though there is no reason to relax.
The struggle goes out and you are left with a feeling of the inevitable.
When there is nothing you can do about your situation.
What can you do?
NOTHING!!

An adrenaline junkie is accepted in society and looked up to by the younger ones.
Philippe Petit is a French high-wire artist who gained fame in 1974 for his high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, on the morning of 7 August.

HE WAS THE CENTER OF ATTENTION.

EVERYONE WAS LOOKING AT HIM.
Even though this man did the walk illegally the public admired him for his bravery and boldness.
While he was high above the ground, he would have been high on adrenaline.

This French high-wire artist who walked on a rope between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center is an interesting example.
When he was half-way across and in danger of falling.
What could he do?
Nothing.

He would have taken a deep breath and tried to relax.

Here is a more recent story:
We live just outside of Brisbane on 3.5 acres.
We have a lot of wildlife including koalas, wallabies, goannas and you guessed it.
Snakes!!
Most of them are carpet snakes which can be up to 6 feet long.
There are also tree snakes, they are very skinny and can get into your house.
We have been living here for 12 years and never had a snake inside.
But last year I was writing on the computer when my wife said:
“Don’t move a snake is behind you.”
Well I did move and scared the snake which had scared me.
It went into one of the kitchen cupboards.
The big problem was…we didn’t see which cupboard.
In the end, not knowing where it was, meant we may never find it.
The not knowing gets to you and plays on your mind.
You are constantly thinking, “where is that snake?”

I don’t like mysteries and I am always trying to solve them.
A lot of people are the same.
That’s why the scientists are going further into space.
They can’t stand not knowing.
Where did everything come from?
Were we created or was it an accident or incident?
If it was a big bang, what existed before the big bang?

As humans we have our own set of questions.

The biggest is, “Why does God allow suffering?”

I want to know why God created snakes..??

I visited New Zealand [which does not have any snakes] a couple of years ago.
When we drove out into the country I got out of the car and ran around the field at the side of the road.
I wanted to feel what it was like to walk through high grass and not have to worry about snakes.
A bit weird, I know!
Some people don’t know what it feels like to be free from pain.
Others don’t know what it feels like to be free from debt…the list goes on.

Let me repeat myself by remembering what happened when I was confronted by a large salt-water crocodile.
When you are completely cornered with no escape, you sometimes relax even though there is no reason to relax.
The struggle goes out and you are left with a feeling of the inevitable.
When there is nothing you can do about your situation.
What can you do?
NOTHING..!!

Tony Egar.

My first job after school was as a “laboratory sample
preparer” and I had to relocate from the city of Adelaide to the very,
very, isolated town of Dampier at the top of Western Australia.
Dampier is a port for most of Australia’s iron ore.
As the iron ore was loaded onto the ships, I had to take samples for the
laboratory.
The town had a population of 2000 people; most of them were young men from
different countries around the world.
They got these jobs because the place was so isolated.
[No-one else wanted to work there] and the money was good, this enabled them to
continue their travels after only working for a few months or a year at the
most.

I was meeting people from England, Ireland and Canada.
They loved to talk about the countries in Asia they had visited.
Guess what?
I picked up the travel bug; I got influenced by their stories.
When I finished my 6-month contract I began to travel.
The first place I went to was Bali in Indonesia, which I loved.
The beach lifestyle suited me in a big way.
Then I travelled up through South-East Asia to Nepal, then down to India and onto Europe.
While I enjoyed Europe, I did not enjoy the weather, it was so cold, I kept thinking of Bali and the beach lifestyle.
Eventually I gave in and bought a plane ticket to Thailand and then made my way back down to Bali, where I stayed for a long time.

May I point out a few observations from this story?

The first is, notice how I picked up the vision to travel.
Before I mixed with all those travellers, I had no thoughts about travel, I had no friends or family who had travelled.
It was the 1970’s…no internet, no computer and I was just out of school.
Yet as soon as I was hanging around people with a vision, I caught their vision.
I did not have one of my own so I picked up theirs.

The second point is, notice how I enjoyed the first part of my trip and then spent the rest of my travels thinking it was going to get better and better, but it didn’t and it took me a long time to realise this.
I wanted to recreate the past and I did… because it was an easy thing for me to do.
Just buy a plane ticket, no problem.
All through Europe I was only a plane flight away from Bali.
I was only one decision away from my favourite place in the world.
The main point of this discussion is…I wasn’t looking for a location.
I was actually looking for an experience.
When I was in Bali, I felt good from the inside out, it felt good to learn to surf, it felt good to live in a hut near the waves, and it felt good to be alive.
In Europe I felt like a tourist and that’s all I was really doing.
Looking at things instead of being involved in what I was seeing.
In Bali you weren’t just looking at the view, you were swimming in it.
You weren’t just looking at the sunset you were throwing frisbees’ at sunset on the beach along with the locals.

The result of my travelling experience was…
What I was looking for in life was still something that I had not found.
The thing that amazed me the most was… how similar people were on the inside even though they were so different on the outside.
Everyone wanted to be happy.
And have a good job or career with purpose.
Everyone wanted to belong to a family.
And have some good friends.

Tony Egar.