I'm holding a $20 bill in my hand. I don't get to do that too often, so this is a really special moment. If you were sitting here with me and I offered this $20 to you, would you take it? I think you would. Now you're going to have to use your imagination to picture what I'm about to do, but here goes. I am now crumpling that nice $20 bill and I am crushing it into a little wad. You still want this bill? If you were right here, would you still take it? It's all wadded up. OK, now I'm beating on this wadded up bill, and I am actually stomping on it with my foot. Now, if I still... (Boy, I get some exercise on this program. That's unusual.) Now, if I still offered to give you this $20, would you still take it? I mean, it's been beat up, it's crushed, stomped on? Well, of course you would.
Columnist Bob Greene told a story that touched my heart. It's about a newspaperman in a small Midwestern town and the call he got from a school teacher. She wanted to tell him about something that had happened to a child on the playground. He was braced for bad news. Well, it wasn't. During a lunch break, most of the 8th graders were gathered in groups, talking and playing. This one boy - a student who suffered from severe physical disabilities and was new to the school - was off by himself as usual. He was painfully shy.
I was at the end of seven weeks of ministry travel and, believe me, I was really anxious to be home. Delays are just a part of air travel these days and I'm used to them, and I'm usually patient with them. But when they announced that the very last leg of my journey home was going to be significantly delayed, that was a test of my patience. Every half hour, they would tell us that they would get an update in another half hour. I knew the plane was there...the crew was there...all the passengers were sure there, but the flight just kept getting postponed. My homing instinct was going crazy.
Since Jim was a boy, it's always been a custom in his family to usher in the new year with fireworks. It's legal where they live. Recently, he told me about the New Year's Eve celebration he remembers more than any other. The church was having a traditional watch night service where everyone prayed in the new year. In fact, the pastor was praying right at the stroke of midnight. At the same time, not far from the church, Jim's dad was taking time out to bring in the new year a little differently. Not with fireworks - with dynamite! He had some dynamite left from a construction project and he thought it would be a great idea to set it off at the stroke of midnight - which he did! Suddenly, everybody in the church was startled by this thunderous explosion outside. The pastor never missed a beat in his prayer.
Our grandson couldn't wait to tell me. His Grandma had bought a little kit for him called the "Magic Garden." Together, they put together these little plastic pieces that formed the frame for an outdoor scene that had a mountain as its backdrop. Then Grandma helped our grandson pour the liquid from the kit over the crystals that are hiding in designated areas of that frame. The next day our grandson came to our house to see what had happened. When he stopped by my office to tell me, his eyes got big and his hands were in motion to try to explain to me what he had seen, "It grow!" And he had this kind of sense of wonderment. He was right. The trees had sprouted full pink foliage overnight, colorful flowers and bushes had bloomed, and as our grandson said, "Mountain grow snow." Well, sure enough, the mountain had filled in with a cover of snow. Last night's plain plastic frame had suddenly exploded into this fully blooming, Technicolor show!
The games that kids play today are so high-tech that the child actually has to teach the parent how to play them. One of our directors was describing a game his teenage son taught him that simulates combat in an F-16 Fighter Jet. He said there is one aspect of the game that's really nerve-wracking. It's when this beeping sound starts going off in your "cockpit." It's the signal that an enemy pilot has locked onto you. You're about to come under some heavy fire, man! In fact, I understand something like that happens in real life aerial combat situations. Of course, the question is, what do you do when someone has locked onto you and you are under fire?
Nobody thought Gladys Aylward was good enough. During the 1920s, she had heard about the great spiritual need of China, and she sensed God's strong call on her life to go there. But she was only a chambermaid. When she applied to China Inland Mission in London, they rejected her because she wasn't educated enough and she was probably too old to learn the language they said. But Gladys Aylward made it to China and she made such a difference there that a number of books have been written about her life. Hollywood even based a major movie on her life, "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" with an Academy Award winning actress portraying her.
He's got a black belt in three different martial arts. That's the highest level of achievement in a martial art. Of course, I told him I have a black belt, too. I wear it with my dark suit. He didn't seem to be impressed by that, but I decided I definitely wanted him on my side. He told me that his training gives him the ability to fight back and defend himself from any position he's in - well, except one. That's face down on the ground. He said that is the one position in which he's totally powerless.
It was the moment the young man had waited for and had prepared for over many months. It was his premiere appearance as a concert pianist. The audience had heard a lot about his amazing talent, and they packed out this prestigious concert hall to hear him. They weren't disappointed. In fact, his masterful playing brought them to their feet for a thunderous standing ovation at the end of the concert. Backstage, the young man's manager said, "They want an encore, man! Get out there!" The pianist looked strangely dejected, and he said, "No, I'm not going back out there." His manager said, "But they love you, man! Look at them! They're all on their feet!" "Not all," was all the young man could say. "Look in the balcony." The manager peeked around the curtain and he saw one white-haired old man in the balcony who wasn't standing or applauding. "Hey, come on! That's one old man! So what?" The pianist looked down at the floor and he said, "That's not one old man. That's my teacher."
There's a lot of sheep-talk in the Bible, which puts city boy here at a distinct disadvantage. I grew up in Chicago, we didn't have them. Now if the Bible used cockroaches as an example, I'd be all set. But I've had to learn about sheep from friends who have been around them a lot. One of our ministry team has worked with ranchers a lot with their sheep. And he told me the other day about how the shepherd gets his sheep to go where he wants them to go! There's a way that works and a way that doesn't work. My co-worker said he has seen people get behind sheep and try to push them along. Notice I said, try! It doesn't work, no matter how much noise he makes or how he waves his arms. When they are pushed by a shepherd, sheep just scatter. But when he gets out in front of them; when he leads them the way he wants them to go, the sheep follow after him.
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