This week

• FINANCE: The secret interest charges your credit card company doesn’t want you to know about…
• HEALTH: Steroids aren’t the only treatment for asthma … this vitamin works just as well, without the side effects…
• RELATIONSHIPS: How to tell if you really value other people….
• PARENTNG: Growing old isn’t fun … but it can really impact the lives of children. Here’s how…
• SUCCESS: Billionaire Warren Buffet’s advice to consumers: if you want to succeed, get rid of this…
• Most people consider stubbornness a vice. But here’s how you can use it as a virtue…
• Is God committed to your ultimate success? Here’s an easy way to find out…

“The Bible teaches that Christians are totally different from anyone else.” -  
Peter Jeffery, Evangelicals Then and Now (Buy Now)

Health

The Vitamin That Can Stop an Asthma Attack in Its Tracks

To stop an asthma attack, most people think you have to take steroids. But there’s a common vitamin that can stop asthma attacks – and it’s a lot safer.

The vitamin is plain old vitamin C. But you can’t take it in pill form and see success. Instead you have to use vitamin C powder.

If you suffer an asthma attack, simply dissolve several grams of the powder in a glass of water. Then drink the solution over an hour or so. Take as much of the powder as your bowels can tolerate – too much vitamin C will cause bowel irritation.

I’ve never seen a better or safer asthma fighter. You see, asthma is typically caused by allergens. An attack occurs when you come into contact with the allergen and your body immune cells produce histamines to fight it. These histamines are what cause the wheezing, difficulty breathing, and any other symptoms you might experience.

Vitamin C is a natural antihistamine. Taken in high enough doses, it will block your body’s ability to release the histamines. By drinking the vitamin instead of taking a pill, your body can utilize it faster and your bowels can tolerate far more. The powder can actually open up your blocked airways and help you breath freely.

And if you take vitamin C regularly in large doses (up to bowel tolerance – at least 1,000 mg or 1 gram – but as much as 20 grams per day), you’ll find that your body can actually handle even more vitamin C during the attack. That will make it even more effective.

You can find vitamin C powder at most health food stores.

One final note: Don't throw your medications away. If you don't respond to the vitamin C, you'll still need the steroids.

– Rhett Bergeron, MD

Parenting & Education

The Only Thing I Like About Getting Old

I have not enjoyed aging. I guess no one really does. Wrinkles, crow’s feet, and sagging skin are not exactly delightful. However, if you can become wise as you age, the physical wear and tear you experience becomes less important than the blessings that age can bring.

I was reminded of this during a shopping trip to the grocery store. As a mother of three high school and college age children, I spend a great deal of time inside the grocery store. Some time ago, I was leisurely walking in the vegetable section of the store searching for items for a new recipe. That was the first time I got a glimpse of the young woman pushing a buggy with four children. She looked exhausted. It was quite creative the way she stacked groceries on her children’s laps. As she hurriedly passed by me, I thanked God that those days were in my past.

About five minutes later, I encountered her again in another aisle, reaching for frozen foods and giving her children instructions to not open packages in the cart. She looked sad.

It was at this time the Lord spoke to my heart about praying for her. We both kept filling our carts, but she did so with a desire to put an end to this ordeal of grocery shopping. I was reaching for my last item when I heard a crashing sound coming from the next aisle. Then I heard crying and knew it was that mother with her children. I followed the noise to her cart. She smiled weakly at my offer of help and thanked me.

I assured her that this stage in her life would soon pass. The mother said she had heard that before. Then, I encouraged her by telling her that I had been observing how well she was teaching her children. I told her she was a good mother; she spoke kindly and patiently with her children despite that fact she was obviously a more than a little tired. As I was speaking, her eyes filled with tears and she whispered, “Who are you”?

I was tempted to say I was a messenger from God, which I truly was, but instead I told her, I am an older woman trying to encourage a younger woman like the Bible commands me to do. The children were now quiet. We were standing on hallowed ground. I reached over and we hugged and she thanked me sincerely for my words. Now, my eyes were filled with tears. I then asked her if I could pray for her and her children; an offer she gladly accepted and then I said goodbye.

I never mind being old when I can encourage a young woman with some of the insights I have gained from some of my own experiences and the wisdom that God has imparted to me. I think that was the Lord’s plan all along.

Titus 2:3 – Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, but teaching what is good. That they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children.

– Gladys Villnow

Success

Looking to Make It Big? Avoid the #1 Success Killer

Last week, Dave Ramsey gave us two great success secrets for business. But Dave also told me what he considers the biggest killer of success – debt.

“That sounds very wacky in a business setting, in particular, because going into debt is so normalized. But if you’ve had three finance classes in your life, you start to realize quickly that debt causes risk. In a sophisticated setting like the stock market, if a company gets too heavy in their debt load, their stock price goes down. The marketplace will devalue them. Why? Because their risk of failure overall is increased.

“The first thing an entrepreneur is going to think when they get a new idea is how they’re going to capitalize it. But I’ve got to tell you, if you look down at the two palms of your hands and look at the grey matter between your ears, that’s your capital when you’re an entrepreneur.

“Warren Buffet was profiled not long ago in the Wall Street Journal. He gave 10 tips to investors and business people. One of them was, very bluntly, to stay out of debt. When you don’t have debt payments, you have lower risk and increased cash flow. He’s exactly right!

“In the Forbes 400, the 400 wealthiest people in America were surveyed (and, by the way, 69% of them were first-generation rich). They were asked what the most important key to winning and wealth building in business is. Eighty percent of them said to get out of debt, and stay out of debt. Eighty percent! These are rich guys, not your broke brother-in-law who’s been to the Chamber of Commerce lunch once and has an opinion. When I talk to wealthy people, I find them, by and large, to have avoided huge amounts of fatal risk.”

And Dave Ramsey knows first hand what it can do. He lost everything when he over-leveraged his real estate holdings. He said, “At one point, I had over $1.2 million in 90-day notes with one lender. That’s putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger. Of course, I didn’t know that. I was invincible at 24 years old. I was a genius. So, I got into too much debt and the wrong kind of debt, and then the bank was sold to another bank. They changed management, called in my debt, and I went from genius to idiot in one personnel change.”

Debt truly is a success killer!

– Steve Kroening

Wisdom From History

How One Man’s Stubbornness Saved the World

The 16th century was not a good one – at least not if you were a Muslim. At that time, the Turkish Ottoman Empire, under Suleiman the Magnificent, was attempting to control the Western world. Its soldiers had marched across Europe toward the west, defeating all in their way. The repercussions of that military action are still with us today, and form the background to the Balkan conflict of the 1990s.

The Turkish forces marched with victory until they reached the city of Vienna, where they reached an impasse. Not to be outdone, Suleiman simply changed the strategy, and instead of a land force taking Western Europe, he decided to send soldiers via the Mediterranean.

There was, however, a small obstacle in the way. It was a small band of Christian knights, the Order of St. John, which had successfully been raiding Turkish ships. From their safe harbor on the island of Malta, the knights had continually harassed Suleiman’s trading ships and sealed off the seas.

In order to clear the way to Europe, Suleiman sent a force of over 30,000 soldiers to dislodge a small band of knights from Malta. They landed in the summer of 1565 with that goal in mind.

The battle raged for three months. The knights, together with the small population of Malta, had warning of the impending assault and had stored weapons and food in the island’s fortified cities.

The outcome, you would think, was inevitable. How could 1,000 knights and about 9,000 civilians defeat a force of 30,000 trained soldiers? You can read the full account in Great Siege: Malta 1565.

When the Fort of St. Elmo eventually fell to the Turks, they mutilated the bodies of those they captured. The knights, under Grand Master La Vallette, responded by decapitating the Turkish prisoners they held elsewhere, and used the heads for cannonballs. There was to be no retreat in this battle to the death.

The Turks, a little overconfident, made some military blunders. Their command was divided on strategy. And they made tactical blunders, too.  When they filled fused cannon balls with powder, nails and shrapnel and fired them into the fortified cities, they used fuses that were too long. The knights had time to roll them back from the castle walls so they exploded in the midst of the Muslims.

The outcome of this battle is obvious today in the fact that Western Europe never did come under Islamic rule. Suleiman failed to secure victory in Malta, and eventually left the island. With his sea lanes blocked by the Maltese knights, his western advance was no longer possible.

In the face of impossible odds, Grand Master La Vallette planned his battle strategy, and stuck to it. Victory or death. That was the choice he chose for himself and his followers. Some would have called him just plain stubborn and ornery.

But sometimes in life, we too need such stubbornness to achieve the things God has placed in our paths.

– Ian Hodge

Word for the Wise

The Assurance You Get From Discipline

"Know this day that I am not speaking with your sons who have not known and who have not seen the discipline of the Lord your God – His greatness, His mighty hand and His outstretched arm."  Deut. 11:2

Discipline – The joy of discipline is hard to embrace.  We don't want correction, especially when it is accompanied by punishment.  But a life without discipline is a fool's view of living.  God addresses His call to those whom He disciplines. 

When we experience correction at the hand of the Lord, we have two possible reactions.  We can cry within our spirits, "Lord, why are you doing this to me?  I deserve better treatment."  Or we can say, "Father, I know that You care so much for me that You would never allow me to proceed without rescuing me from mistakes.  Thank you for this lesson."  What a difference between these two!  And how difficult it is to embrace the second.

The context of this verse helps us see how we can consistently adopt thanksgiving for correction.  Did you notice that God is not speaking to unbelievers?  Why?  Because God only disciplines those who have experienced His grace and majesty.  God redeems some who do not claim allegiance to Him, but He disciplines those who know His character and have seen His handiwork.  Discipline is a function of a continuing relationship.  Discipline is not for everyone.  It is for the chosen.

If you read the next ten verses, you will find that God reminds the chosen people of His numerous actions on their behalf.  He is in covenant with them.  Therefore, He will not let them wander away from Him.  He will instruct them through word and deed in order to bring them into closer relationship with Him.  That's the sense of musar, the Hebrew word found here and in many passages in Proverbs.  Instruction that corrects.

In the end, discipline is a sign of God's commitment to us.  If we were ignorant of His care, if we were not among His chosen, we would not experience correction.  But when we do find God correcting us, we can be assured that it is proof positive evidence that we are His chosen.  Rejoice!  God corrects those whom He loves.

– Skip Moen

(Ed. Note: Skip Moen, PhD, is the president of At God’s Table and the author of Words to Lead By.)

 Resources

Great Siege Malta, by Ernle Bradford (BUY NOW)

Evangelicals Then and Now, Peter Jeffery, Evangelical Press (BUY NOW)

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