The most important thing that you and I can do in this life
is to learn how to live.
Think that one over for just a minute.
We put so much emphasis on things that really
do not amount to anything.
Just consider the most important thing
that you can do in this life is to learn how to live.
I can do many important things in my life,
and yet in the final analysis, the most important thing
is for me to learn how to live.
Life on Earth is a very precious possession,
and it doesn't last very long.
The other morning, I awakened early
and was standing in front of the window.
There'd been a fresh snow.
Oh, it was beautiful.
There were a few brown leaves still hanging on the oak trees
in the backyard.
Here and there was a little bird who'd forgotten to go south.
Maybe it thought it just wouldn't happen.
Maybe it thought it wouldn't snow this year, you know,
kind of like human beings.
And I stood there and I thought, if a person lives 45 years,
then there are 45 winters.
If a person lives 50 years, then you only
experience 50 winters in your whole lifetime.
If you live to be 60 years, do you
know that only 60 times in your lifetime
do you see the beauties of a spring,
the flowers breaking through?
If you live to be 65, then only 65 times in your lifetime
do you live through a summer that's not very long.
I say to you, life on Earth doesn't last very long.
And while we have it, our great privilege
is to do the best we can with it.
God is depending on you.
God is depending on me to do the best that we can with the life
that we have and the few short years that we have.
And the few short years that we have to live it in.
A strange thing about life is that everybody
has to live it for himself.
You simply cannot hand down to other people
the wisdom of their predecessors.
Parents live.
They acquire wisdom.
And then they try to hand this wisdom down to the children.
What happens?
Well, you know what happens.
The children may take some of it.
But some of it they neglect or they turn aside.
And they make the same old mistakes that their parents made.
And they get burnt and they get hurt just as their parents did.
And when they get to be parents, their children
will have the same experience.
You cannot live the life for your son.
You cannot live your daughter's life for her.
You can warn her.
You can try to help her through your own mistakes
and personal experiences.
They won't take it.
You may try to save your grandchildren from their hurts
and troubles.
But everybody must live his own life.
It seemed that the wisdom of the human race
runs out with every generation.
For each person has to acquire it for himself.
The success or the failure of your life
depends on how much of it you get.
Some people never know how to live.
They go through those 50 winters.
They go through those 60 summers.
They never learn no matter how old they get.
They know as little about it when they finish
as when they started.
And this is a sad fact.
They are the ones who mess up their lives.
You and I are our own enemies.
I can turn back the pages of my own life.
And I'll have to admit that I got myself into every mess
that I faced in life.
I really got myself into all the trouble that I got into.
We like to blame it on everybody else.
We like to blame it on God.
We like to blame it on our relatives.
We like to blame it on somebody else.
That's the easy way out, you know?
People just really hate to look themselves directly in the face
and acknowledge their own failures
and their own mistakes.
But you and I are really our own enemies.
And we have no one else to blame for all our troubles
but ourselves.
And it's just like that.
Remember something.
The secret of life is not in books.
It's not in a thought pattern.
The secret of how to live is in the identification of oneself
with a person, the one person of all people who really
knew how to live.
And that one is Jesus Christ.
I'm saying something.
And this is mighty important to you.
It is important to me.
If you are a part of humanity, you have to face life.
You have to live life.
You're the only one who can live that life.
No one can live it for you.
And the secret of learning how to live life successfully
is found in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living
God, who really knew how to live life,
for he knew human nature.
That's why when you come to the Word of God,
when you come to the Bible, do you
know that you can find in the Bible the answer
to every problem that you face in life as a human being?
There is absolutely no problem that any human being
has to face in life, but what you'll
find the answer to that problem in the Word of God.
And the Bible will teach you how to live life
and live it successfully.
And the reason there are millions of people
who are failures today is because they're
living contrary to God's plan for man's living.
Now, who is Jesus?
He may be a misty figure to lots of people.
They see him in stained glass windows
where he is given a sort of an ethereal look,
and he seemed to them so remote and far away
from human people today.
Jesus, the Son of God, Jesus, the Savior of mankind,
but he is more than just a figure in stained glass.
He is more than just something that's very ethereal
or perhaps a figment of somebody's imagination.
How could he be more than that?
He is.
He is more than just a religious figure,
as important as that is.
Jesus is a personification of that tremendous thing called
in life force.
The universal mind out of which we come, part of which we are,
in which we find life in its fullness.
And when you get aboard the life force
and the life force gets into you,
then you really learn how to live.
I wish I had the vocabulary.
I wish I had the ability to live.
I wish I had the ability in this moment
to teach you how to live life through a person, the person
of Jesus Christ, and how you can have this wonderful person
of Jesus Christ living in and through you,
guiding, controlling that life of yours.
It's real.
I'm not talking about something that can not be attained.
I'm talking about something that is as real as God himself.
Now, I could formulate lots of rules on how to live,
rules which you and I might strive to follow and yet often
break.
But there is one rule you must not break,
and that is to open yourself and let the life force take
hold of you and that all other rules fall into place.
You must let God control your life.
He is that great life force that will take hold of you.
And when you give yourself completely
to this great living force, then all of the other rules
for living will just automatically fall into place.
And thus you learn how to live.
And until you do, you just don't live.
You just exist.
And there are millions of people today who are alive.
Their heart is beating.
They're still walking on two feet.
They're still beating themselves.
They still have two eyes, two ears.
But they are only existing.
They are not living.
We might as well face it.
Most of us are really only half awake, half alive,
only half living, and doing everything the hard way
with no vitality to speak of, no enthusiasm, no zest.
Life is a heavy thing to us, burdensome, disturbing.
For many people, it's a frustrating thing.
Now, God never meant that life should be like that,
never for a moment.
I've seen people who have been half dead most of their lives.
But then suddenly something happens to them.
They see Jesus Christ.
They accept Him, a living person controlling their lives.
And then they just begin to live.
They just begin to come alive.
Enlightenment is filled with enthusiasm.
It's filled with joy.
It's filled with happiness.
Oh, happiness doesn't consist of a pocketful of money.
Happiness doesn't consist of having your name in bright lights
or being an influential person.
Know that.
The most unhappy people in the world
are rich people who have everything that money can buy.
If you could only lift the lid of their hearts,
you'd find that they are so unhappy.
They've had everything.
They've tried everything.
They've done everything.
They have seen everything.
There are no more worlds to conquer.
There's nothing more to do.
There's nothing more to buy.
Nothing looks good to them.
And by this time, they have stomach ulcers,
and they can't even enjoy a good meal.
You know?
Oh, sure.
You would be amazed how many times people have asked me,
Catherine Kuhlman, what kind of vitamins do you take?
Well, I'll just tell you.
The vitamins that I take come from the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit.
Oh, every time I awaken, it's a new day.
I breathe in heaven's wonderful vitamins.
I awaken thinking I wonder what's going to happen today.
Oh, I can hardly wait, you know, to get dressed and face
a new day, because I know something's going to happen.
I know it.
And I do not believe that anyone in the whole world
lives a more exciting life than I do.
I mean that.
I mean life is exciting for me.
I have no bad days.
Somebody said, now, Catherine Kuhlman, don't go overboard.
Don't carry this too far.
You talk about being a part of humanity,
and you've told us that as sure as we are a part of humanity,
there'd be troubles and sorrows and heartbreaks.
Sure, I know.
I have my share of those things, too.
Don't think for one minute that I don't have any troubles.
Oh, you can't be the mother of a nation
without having troubles.
You can't deal with as many people as I deal with day
after day and year after year and not have troubles.
You think you have troubles with just five or six
in your family.
My word, multiply that by the number of people
that I'm trying to help and trying to reach
and that I come in contact with.
Troubles?
Not only troubles, but you see, I have my heartaches, too.
I have feelings.
I have emotions.
I have sorrows.
I have disappointments.
I haven't gotten to heaven yet.
This mortal has not yet put on immortality.
I'm still in the flesh.
And as long as we're still in the flesh,
we'll have not only troubles, but tribulations.
There'll be the deep waters.
Sure, there's many a time the sun doesn't shine.
The sun doesn't always keep shining,
but I'll tell you something, I appreciate the sunshine even
more after those dark days, you know.
But even when the days are dark and the sun isn't shining,
I still can live a triumphant day.
It will still be a good day.
Good because I know that I'm surrounded by his love.
Good because I know to whom I belong.
I'm a child of his care.
And even though the smog and the fog is thick,
I can still walk down the street or drive down
the freeway or the turnpike with a song in my heart.
Peace of mind and peace of soul because I
know to whom I belong.
In him we live and move and have our being.
Turn it over in your mind.
Believe it.
Pull yourself up to it.
And his glorious word will pull you higher and higher
above the defeats of mortality.
Do all the good things.
Modern science shows us how to do.
But beyond those, live with the life force.
Sin, weakness, defeat, sorrow, disappointment
have no power over the things of the soul.
They have no power over the things of the spirit.
For in him we live.
And move and have your being.