I think it had to be one of the most like insecure afternoons of my life. Our committee had been meeting for two days at this hotel. Two days straight; I mean two days straight. We had a slave-driving chairman, and finally he said, "All right, guys, how about a couple of hours in the pool?" "All right! The pool! The sauna! We deserve a break today."
We've always found our family in the comic strips. Yeah, frequently one of the kids would come to me with some cartoon in the newspaper and say, "Here we are, Dad!" And we were, sure enough. And it was often that comic strip—maybe you've seen it—Family Circus. The man behind it obviously has had children of his own. For example, whenever the parents find a mess, or something eaten or missing, they of course start asking the children who did it. Needless to say, no one ever takes responsibility. The parents always end up concluding that it was "The Ghost of 'Not Me.'" Does he live at your house—The Ghost of "Not Me"? Oh listen, I know a Father who has a hard time getting His kids to say, "It was my fault." Yeah, the kids are you and me.
My children love roller coasters. They did not get it from me. When my dad took me on the big "thrills and chills" coaster at our city amusement park, I needed counseling for years to come!
Of course, you don't have to buy a ticket these days to get a wild ride. Just invest in the stock market. Talk about ups and downs! And Wall Street's wild rides these past few months are only a mirror of a world that seems to be off-the-charts financially. You know, questions about America's credit rating that have come up, well, they aren't helping, and then other country's credit ratings. And, you know, they're saying that our future rating may depend on how well Washington budget negotiations go. Well, in that case, hang on tight.
The land is flat around Joplin, Missouri. And then after the great tornado that hit there, much of the town was leveled by that F-5. It was just heartbreaking devastation as far as the eye could see. But you know what? In the midst of all that devastation, there was still one thing still standing. A reporter commented on it as the camera scanned across this sea of wreckage, and you couldn't miss it. It was a cross, and his words went right to my heart, "The church is gone, but the cross is still standing."
Several months ago I was watching the news and they were talking about doomsday, and it made me sad. Oh, not because I'm nervous about Jesus fulfilling all His prophecies about earth's final chapter. But because millions were laughing about something that they desperately needed to take seriously.
We say a lot of things we don't really mean. For example, when we sign our letters, sincerely yours—now have you really been sincere about everything you said sincerely yours about? Or how about this one, the check is in the mail—well, sometimes yes, sometimes no; maybe just an intention. Here's a classic one that we often don't really mean, "Hey, let's get together sometime; we'll give you a call." How many times have you been told that, and then how many times did it really happen?
Man, this last spring was an awful spring for tornadoes, record-setting in many cases. I mean, again and again, our news coverage was filled with those all-too-familiar images of a city or a neighborhood leveled and the death toll rising. One of them hit pretty close to home in Joplin, Missouri.
Nobody ever said college guys are going to win the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Right? I mean, entering many of their dorm rooms is only for the very brave, and those with a strong stomach. Where is Mom when you really need her?
Now, listen. When it's man versus lots of water, you know the water is often going to win. Oh, we've built dams and levees and water management systems. But sometimes, like this past spring, and then along the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers, oh man, just too much water!
I was on an airplane flight from Chicago to Newark, and suddenly the pilot came on and he said, "You may have noticed that we are not going East any more, we're headed North. We're going to have to make an emergency landing in Detroit."
Comments (2) 
