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Monday, December 12, 2016

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It was a beautiful day for sailing, and our friend Dave had invited us to go out on Long Island Sound with him and his wife. It was not hard to decide whether to go, believe me. The Sound was actually relatively calm that day. There was a very gentle breeze and not a cloud in the sky, but suddenly Dave announced to us, "We're heading in." I couldn't think of a single, rational reason to waste the rest of such an idyllic afternoon. I said, "Why Dave?" He said, "To beat the storm." Right?

Friday, December 9, 2016

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When America decided to go after the Taliban in its war on terrorism, there were a lot of warnings about what a difficult battleground Afghanistan can be – and what a tough enemy the Taliban would be. That's why so many of us were surprised when the Taliban fighters seemed to retreat so quickly from city after city in Northern Afghanistan as the Northern Alliance advanced back in the days of that first Gulf War. But Taliban defectors said that the relentless American bombing had really affected their morale. The U. S. military strategy going into the Afghan conflict was not a new one – begin with an air war – heavy bombing to "soften up" your enemy before the ground forces make a move. As we learned in that Gulf War, and in many other battles, that can lead to a surprisingly quick victory.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

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It was a crazy Christmas at our house! Everybody in our family, three generations really excited about giving gifts to the others and getting them. Well, sometimes our festivities aren't quite like "peace on earth." Such was this particular Christmas. The chatter was loud, the laughter was hearty, and the buzz was intense. Or, in the case of a two-year old grandchild, it was just confusing. My wife, who you know, finely-tuned grandma's radar, noticed that our little grandson seemed a little dazed by all this happy Christmas crossfire. So she just quietly slipped to the floor. (We didn't even notice.) She got down where he was and began working patiently with him on assembling a toy he had just opened. That precious scene had been going on for a few minutes I think before any of us even noticed in the chaos. But there was Grandma, quietly creating this island of sanity in a sea of craziness.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

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My wife was just a girl when her grandparents down the road started building a little farmstead to live in. Because she had expressed a desire to be a missionary someday, Granddad thought she needed to know how to do things for herself – including laying block for a building. So, she got to help lay the block for her grandparents' house. Well, in the amazing, surprising ways of God, we ended up getting to live in that house many years after it was built. I used to kid her that the crooked blocks are the ones she did!

Monday, December 5, 2016

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"I don't wanna go." When our boys were little, that was sometimes what they'd tell me when we were out in the woods where it was like totally dark and a little scary. Well, not for me. I mean for them, of course. But I would reach for their hand and their little hand would instinctively reach up my way when we hit a dark stretch, and they'd grab on tight. Now the strangest thing happened. Once they had their father's hand, their feet started moving. They could go where they otherwise would never think about going as long as they had my hand.

Friday, December 2, 2016

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I remember seeing it first in the news from the first Gulf War, and then in Afghanistan. Well, you continue to see it as we have conflicts around the world; those amazing high-tech weapons that hit their target with this pinpoint accuracy. Oh, yeah, they say that there are "targeting errors", but for the most part, those weapons go right to their intended target – weapons like Cruise missiles or what they call "smart bombs". I still remember back in that first Gulf War, a correspondent was in Baghdad, and he described this Tomahawk missile roaring in over the city. It paused, and then it literally made a sharp turn to the left and went straight down into this military facility. Apparently, its tracking system determined that it was slightly off course, so it corrected it, and "boom!" it went right to the target. That's amazing stuff!

Thursday, December 1, 2016

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There's this poignant scene from the epic novel and movie, "Grapes of Wrath". You might remember that's John Steinbeck's story about families that were living in the Depression-era in the Dust Bowl of mid-America, and that's a time when lives and families were changed forever. Huge dust storms were wiping out the life's work of a lot of farmers. In this one scene, an Oklahoma farm family has gathered in front of their house to watch the approach of this massive, foreboding dust storm. The working men in the family are looking toward the horizon, no doubt wondering what this storm is going to do to their world. The children are hanging onto their parents' knees, and their eyes are on the horizon, too. But not the women. No, the women are watching only their men's faces. What they need to know is there.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

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When I'm in a new city, I don't usually make visiting a local cemetery one of my sightseeing priorities. But I did in a ministry trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia. I visited the cemetery where 121 passengers of the doomed Titanic are buried; many with their names still unknown.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

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It might have been the scariest moment of my life. I was only ten years old, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I was with my friends in Lake Michigan. We started out just wading, but they kept getting deeper – until the lake bottom dropped off sharply. We started swimming. I didn't know how, and I was too embarrassed to tell them. And I started taking on water fast. I mean, I went under once, I went under twice, and I was desperately thrashing around. As for my buddies, they thought I was just clowning around. I wasn't! I was drinking the lake. I could see that water burying me there like it was yesterday, and honestly, I was almost a goner. And then he came – the man from the shore who saw my predicament and he jumped in to do something about it. He had come to rescue me. I grabbed him with both hands. I hung onto him as if he were my only hope, because He was.

Monday, November 28, 2016

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My wife and I were staying at a little place that we had when we could get away from our work and from our ministry for a little while, and there were some next door neighbors there. We got to know them along the way, John and Vicky. And they stopped to ask us one day if they could pick some of our mushrooms. Yeah, for use in witchcraft.

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