It started out as one of the scarier experiences of my wife’s childhood. Her grandfather had dropped his valuable pen into the well in their yard, and there was only one way it could be retrieved: if someone was lowered down there on a rope…someone small…like a little four-year old girl. Soon my wife found herself with a rope tied securely around her, being lowered into the darkness of that well, sort of dangling in the dark. She got the pen and she shed a lot of the fear as she did it. She told me, “I knew I’d be OK because my father was holding the rope.” If you belong to Jesus Christ, so is yours.
I was talking to our amazingly perceptive eight-year-old grandson about his recent bout with a very painful condition. It turned out to be something simple to correct, but it wasn’t fun at the time. His teacher called and told our daughter, “You need to come and pick him up right away. He’s in excruciating pain.” Well, our daughter took him to the doctor, where he had to endure the pain for a little longer while they sat in the waiting room. Here’s how he described his experience to me: “You know, it’s like a boat that’s tied to an anchor. A big storm comes and really blows you around. I felt like my anchor was going to break. But Jesus is my anchor, and that anchor never breaks.” Man, in stormy times like these, isn’t that what we need?
Our daughter isn’t afraid to tackle a real parenting challenge, like teaching an eight-year-old boy the value of writing thank you notes for gifts he receives. That’s exactly what she’s been doing with our grandson. And while they were writing those notes, she said, “How are you going to remember to do this when I’m not around?” And he said, “The voice inside me that sounds like you.”
NFL player Marquis Cooper was one of four men who set out for a fishing trip off the Gulf Coast of Florida. When they hit rough seas, their boat capsized, and Cooper and a friend never made it back. Sadly, the Coast Guard never received a distress signal from Cooper’s fishing boat. But here’s the sad footnote to the tragedy. Two days before that fatal trip, a friend had urged Cooper to buy a life-saving device that self-activates radio signals when a boat flips over, but he never got what could have saved his life.
After many amazing movie successes, director Steven Spielberg decided to use his talents to try and capture an unforgettable story from the horror of the Holocaust; he called it “Schindler’s List.” It’s the story of industrialist Otto Schindler who used his business and his fortune to save the lives of hundreds of Jews who otherwise would have been victims of Hitler’s “final solution.” The movie ends with hundreds of those he saved gathering to thank him. But as they pay tribute to him, he begins a heartbreaking calculation. He looked at his car and said, “Look at this car. I could have sold it–ten more Jews. Look at this jewelry–five more Jews. This pin–one, maybe two more Jews.” He melts into tears, sobbing, “I could have done more. I could have done more.”
My friend Rick was driving to work one morning, praying that God would show him and his wife how He wanted to use them. He’s in the building trades and God answered his prayer by placing in his mind the image of a crescent wrench. Now, a crescent wrench is designed to be multi-purpose; you can adjust it for the job that needs to be done, and it has tough gripper jaws that dig in. And God was actually telling my friends that He would use them if they were like that wrench–adjustable, adaptable, but digging in wherever He puts them. It might be something in that wrench for you and me.
I don’t remember a lot of facts they taught me in science class, but I remember the experiments. Like the day our teacher had us illuminate a light bulb the hard way–by feverishly turning this crank to generate some voltage–until finally the bulb just started to flicker to life. I’m thinking, “There’s got to be an easier way.” Yeah, like just plugging it into an outlet!
Jack had been my best friend in high school, and now he was a very successful airline pilot. And his wife had a great job with the airline, too. Their brand new Cadillac was parked in a security garage under their exclusive apartment in New York City. We had a great evening when they invited us for dinner. So, we invited them to visit us at our totally not-exclusive apartment in a very modest New Jersey suburb. The problem was that about every ten minutes Jack would get up all worried and keep looking out the window. Finally, I figured out what he was doing. He was checking to be sure his new Cadillac–which was parked on the street–was still there. I thought: “I’m not sure if Jack owns his car, or his car owns him.
I was speaking recently for some business leaders in Manhattan–the epicenter of America’s devastating financial quake. One highly successful Christian brother told me the surprising truth that the hard times have revealed. He said, “A few months ago, if you’d asked any of us what we were depending on, we would have said we were totally depending on God. Until we lost a lot of the things we were really depending on.”
Life for Miley Cyrus–a.k.a., pop star, Hannah Montana–hasn’t always been as cool as it is today. In her autobiography, she describes her pre-teen years as “friendless, lonely and miserable.” She says she was “scrawny and short” and some girls she describes as “big and tough” terrorized her; locking her in a bathroom, trying to goad her into fighting them, taunting she would never amount to anything. She lived in fear most days at school. She’s a star now, so she’s not treated that way anymore, but she’s been recycling that garbage. She said, “I didn’t dare forget the struggle. There was a reason for it. I brought that girl with me, and she reminds me to be compassionate, to not hold grudges, to be supportive, to be there for others when I know I’m needed.”
It was a competition for young painters, and the theme was “Peace.” First prize was for the painting that best portrayed peace. The favorite: well that was a painting that showed a peaceful pasture under a rich blue sky, sheep grazing by the pond and a farm boy fishing. Well, that painting came in second. At first glance, the winning painting seemed to be like a strange choice: rugged cliffs, a foreboding dark sky, a violent storm and a turbulent ocean. But you needed to look again, because halfway up, a mother bird in her nest was there with her little baby birds nestled under her wings, sleeping peacefully.
One newspaper said, “Susan Boyle is a Disney movie waiting to happen.” Well, maybe so. She was a contestant on England’s Britain’s Got Talent TV show. She was described as unglamorous, unfashionable, unknown, and when she walked on stage the judges just rolled their eyes. And then she sang, and she blew everyone away! A YouTube clip of her singing attracted over 40 million hits. Nobody realized the treasure she had inside her.
There’s a highly successful doctor in New York City who gives a month every year to helping out in some impoverished corners of the world. Recently, he went to Costa Rica. He was operating on a six-year-old boy who ended up losing blood fast. His only hope was donated blood and he had a rare type that only 2% of the human race has. Well the doctor excused himself for a few minutes and he returned with the blood that made the difference. He just happened to be one of those 2% with the boy’s blood type.
We just got home from an extended ministry trip, and I checked the date on the milk in the fridge. Oh, the expiration date was a long time ago, and I really hate to chew my milk. The expiration date on some cans in our pantry have probably saved us from some unpleasant dining experiences. Wouldn’t it be something if people came with expiration dates? Actually, we do.
The pear trees around our Ministry Headquarters really show off in the Spring! They’re covered with these beautiful white flowers. It’s like an explosion of life and color, but there’s an ugly little secret about those pear trees. They’re called ornamental. They don’t produce any pears, just pretty flowers—like lots of people at church every week.
Not every kind of business is suffering in our big recession. Home gardening is suddenly booming. They call them recession gardens–saving money by growing your own food. Listen, if I’m going to do a garden, I know who I’m going to look to as my consultant. My friend, Mel, has the ultimate garden, and I’ll tell you, long before it was a recession survival strategy. And guess what he’s got around his amazing garden? A fence. You know why? “Yeah, to keep everybody from enjoying it.” No, no. It’s so we can keep enjoying it. The fence is there to make sure that beautiful garden stays beautiful.
When it came time for our family vacations when I was a kid, one person had the deciding vote for where we’d go–my Dad. He did the work; he picked the vacation, which meant we would go fishing. I thought it was boring—my Dad thought it was great. Listen, he would have gotten along great with a guy named Simon Peter. Yes, he was one of Jesus’ disciples, but he never stopped fishing.
As Memorial Day approaches, I remember when our family visited Arlington National Cemetery where the heroes of many of America’s wars are buried. The kids were young, but it was good for them to understand a little of what our way of life has cost. After looking at that sea of grave markers as far as the eye could see, our son said, “Dad, what do all those white things mean?” “In three words, son, freedom is expensive.”
I heard one Senator addressing his concern with what has seemed like an infinite flow of money to bail out companies and institutions. He simply said, “We need an exit strategy.” Well, the military talks about exit strategies, too, as in how to successfully leave Iraq or Afghanistan. Then there’s the exit strategy they encourage you to think about when you get on a commercial airliner–be sure you know where the exits are, just in case. An exit strategy…that might be what you need right now.
I’m working in my hotel room. I want a soft drink to keep me going. I go down the hall to the vending machine and put in the four quarters—nothing happens. The coin return doesn’t work. I have a choice: forget that vending machine or just keep putting more money into it until I get what I’m after. This is not a hard choice.
My friend has been in Special Ops in the military, and he told me what he learned from the training that one branch of the British Special Forces receives. These recruits were assigned a mission to go solo through difficult terrain and to make it to a specified destination before time ran out. One catch: they didn’t tell them when time ran out.
There’s plenty of junk e-mail–spam, they call it. But sometimes you get a gem in some of the creative stuff that friends forward to you. I got a child’s version of the Lord’s Prayer that both amused and even enlightened me; especially when this little boy got to the part where many Christians pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Except this boy heard it this way: “Forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.”
I learned a lot from my former pastor, Bill Johnson, including a simple way to be the person who cares. He told me about passing Tom in the hall between Sunday services, and he asked the obligatory question, “How you doin’?” And Tom gave the expected answer, “Fine, Pastor.” Well, something didn’t sound right. Pastor Bill stopped in the middle of his busiest time of the week and he said, “Are you really, Tom?” Tom wasn’t doing well at all. His personal world was like caving in, and his pastor was able to be the caring person that he so desperately needed.
A few years ago, my wife had a severe gall bladder attack. In fact, it was so severe it was going to require having her gall bladder removed in a city 2,000 miles from home. Well I didn’t like that, but it turned out to be a gift from God! At home, the doctors would have had to go what they call the “long way.” It’s an invasive approach that takes weeks to recover from. The doctor we ended up with was an outstanding laser surgeon, and the laser took care of that problem. My wife was up in two days! Now, she could have lay there under diffused light for days, and it would have made no difference. But look at what focused light can do! Maybe we can use a little lasering when we need a change in something or someone we care about.
I’ve been looking at those marks on our table for so long, I just about forgot they were there. See, our grandchildren had gotten to it and they left their artwork there with markers, and pens, and crayons. Well, not long ago, a friend was helping us with some work at the house, and she decided to use this special sponge on those marks. I think it’s called Miracle Erase. Well, we were stunned at the result! It was like we got a new table. My wife said, “I never thought I’d get rid of those.”
Steve was one of the world’s great pool players. He was a winner on the outside. Inside, he knew something big was missing. It turned out it was Jesus. When he opened his life to the God who made Him, he realized that a lot of the junk that went with his life on the pool circuit didn’t go with following Jesus. He laid it all down. He went for years of Christian education. And as He told me, to his surprise, God then told him to pick up that pool cue again and use it to point people to Jesus…which he’s been doing big time. And folks who love the game he loves are getting introduced to the Savior he loves.
Okay, hundreds of beautiful women were waiting to audition for a show called America’s Top Model. Suddenly they erupted in total bedlam that ended up with three people arrested, six people hurt and the street littered with shoes and clothing. One girl said, “It was pretty scary.” So, whatever like happened to beautiful?
I’ve been in a lot of airports, but only once was I stopped by a TV reporter to comment on something in the news. I was arriving in Cleveland on a flight from New York the morning after the first World Trade Center bombing. The reporter said, “How are people reacting there?” And all I could say was, “We suddenly feel vulnerable.”
There are way too many stories like this one in the news, but this one seemed colder and more brutal than most. A quiet man set out on a killing rampage, making his way across the miles to murder one family member or coworker after another. His final victim was himself. The police uncovered the list that ended in so much bloodshed. They said, “He kept a list of those who did him wrong.”
It took me a while to admit it, but my arms were no longer long enough for me to read what was in my hand. Yeah, in other words, I needed glasses. You see, I’m farsighted. I see what’s far but not what’s close. Spiritually, I–and most of my fellow Christians–have to battle the opposite vision problem.
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