Morality Exodus 20:1-17
In response to the statement “There are clear guidelines about what’s good or evil that apply to everyone regardless of their situation,” the percentage who said they
Completely agree 37%
Mostly agree 46%
Mostly disagree 12%
Completely disagree 4%
Have no opinion 1%
Results of a national Gallup survey, cited in Emerging Trends (Jan. 1999) (Absolutes, Ten Commandments)
Death Psalm 90:10
Percentage of hospital deaths that are “negotiated” (either patients or their families have to make decisions about whether to continue treatment): 70
U.S. Catholic (Jan. 1999) (Decisions, Responsibility)
Heaven Philippians 1:21-23
A woman was diagnosed with a terminal illness and had been given three months to live. As she was getting her things in order, she contacted her pastor and asked him to come to her house to discuss some of her final wishes.
She told him which songs she wanted sung at her funeral service, what Scriptures she would like read, and what outfit she wanted to be buried in. She requested to be buried with her favorite Bible.
As the pastor prepared to leave, the woman suddenly remembered something else. “There’s one more thing,” she said excitedly.
“What’s that?” said the pastor.
“This is important,” the woman said. “I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand.”
The pastor stood looking at the woman, not knowing quite what to say.
The woman explained. “In all my years of attending church socials and potluck dinners, when the dishes of the main course were being cleared, someone would inevitably lean over and say, ‘Keep your fork.’ It was my favorite part of the meal because I knew something better was coming—like velvety chocolate cake or deep-dish apple pie.
“So, when people see me in that casket with a fork in my hand and they ask, ‘What’s with the fork?’ I want you to tell them: ‘Keep your fork. The best is yet to come!'”
Brett Kays (Hope, Resurrection)
| THANKSGIVING |
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Feasting on a Turnip and Mud
Ephesians 5:20
In
The Sacred Journey, Frederick Buechner writes:
[One] winter I sat in Army fatigues somewhere near Anniston, Alabama, eating my supper out of a mess kit. The infantry training battalion that I had been assigned to was on bivouac. There was a cold drizzle, and everything was mud. The sun had gone down. I was still hungry when I finished and noticed that a man nearby had something left over that he was not going to eat. It was a turnip, and when I asked him if I could have it, he tossed it over to me. I missed the catch, the turnip fell to the ground, but I wanted it so badly that I picked it up and started eating it anyway, mud and all. And then, as I ate it, time deepened and slowed down again. With a lurch of the heart that is real to me still, I saw suddenly, almost as if from beyond time altogether, that not only was the turnip good, but the mud was good too, even the drizzle and cold were good, even the Army that I had dreaded for months. Sitting there in the Alabama winter with my mouth full of cold turnip and mud, I could see at least for a moment how if you ever took truly to heart the ultimate goodness and joy of things, even at their bleakest, the need to praise someone or something for it would be so great that you might even have to go out and speak of it to the birds of the air. (Creation; Goodness of God) |
Freedom with Law James 1:25
In The Mennonite Brethren Herald (2/19/99), Jim Holm writes:
When I was in third grade, I was condemned to live under a law—the law of near-sightedness. My eyes went bad, and today I am considered legally blind.
I am not free. I am in bondage to this law. There is no escape.
But one day I discovered an even greater law that can overcome the law of near-sightedness. It is called the law of corrective lenses. When I submitted myself to the law of corrective lenses, the law of near-sightedness was overcome. Did it go away? No, it is still there. But it was overpowered by a greater law, which enabled me to see.
Now here is the ironic thing: You would think if I want to be free, I’d throw the glasses away. But that is not freedom. Only by submitting to the law of glasses do I become free.
(Submission, Obedience)
Honor 1 Corinthians 12:21-27
The 1997 graduating class of Witts Springs, Arkansas, had a valedictorian and a salutatorian. Unlike other graduating classes, the two top graduates were the only graduates.
Witts Springs, population 100, also produces few athletes from a student body of 41 in grades 7-12. But they manage to produce athletes that take team play to a new level.
In a basketball game with rival Leslie, Witts Springs trailed by over 30 points with just two minutes to go. The fans began to chant, “Put in Scotty.” “Scot-TEE! Scot-TEE! Scot-TEE!” Coach Nash obliged and inserted senior guard Scotty Harmon. Harmon has cerebral palsy.
Harmon received a pass, alone and unguarded on the perimeter, and flung the ball toward the hoop. He missed. His teammates scrambled for the rebound and gave Scotty a second chance. He missed again, which started another fight for the ball.
“The kids know when Scotty’s in there, their game is over,” Coach Nash said. “They’re doing it for him now. The atmosphere changes. If they’re worn out, they’ll break their necks to get that rebound. Our kids will go above everybody to get the ball to Scotty.”
On his fourth try, Harmon sunk a three pointer. Fans on both sides of the gym cheered wildly. The scoreboard said Leslie 89, Witts Springs 58, but everybody left a winner, especially Scotty’s teammates.
Larry Pillow in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette (2/7/99) (Body of Christ, Team)
| CURRENT QUOTES WORTH DISCUSSING |
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CHECKED YOUR CHAUFFEUR LATELY? “For the first time in American history, whatever is happening in religion is being driven by the media instead of ecclesiastical institutions.” Phyllis Tickle, religion editor of Publishers Weekly, commenting on the explosive growth in sales of books on religion and spirituality, in Life@Work (Nov/Dec 1998) MAY THE CURIOSITY BE WITH YOU “I put the Force in the movie (Star Wars) in order to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people—more a belief in God than a belief in any particular religious system. I wanted to make it so that young people would begin to ask questions about the mystery. Not having enough interest in the mysteries of life to ask the question, ‘Is there a God or is there not a God?’—this is for me the worst thing that can happen. I think you should have an opinion about that. Or you should be saying, ‘I’m looking. I’m very curious about this and am going to continue to look until I can find an answer, and if I can’t find an answer then I’ll die trying.’ I think it’s important to have a belief system and to have a faith … “ Filmmaker George Lucas, in Time (4/26/99) HOW TO CHEAPEN A FREE GIFT “In Hollywood, the seat of Western civilization, ‘God’ may be a non-event, but angels are a different story. Touched by an Angel … [may] represent nothing less than the birth of a new media religion—redemption that costs nothing, stories that warm the heart but do not convict the soul.” Hollywood producer Coleman Luck, in Internet for Christians Newsletter (3/1/99) |
Faith Matthew 16:13-19
“The most extraordinary thing about the 20th century was the failure of God to die. The collapse of mass religious belief, especially among the educated and prosperous, had been widely and confidently predicted. It did not take place. Somehow, God survived, flourished even.”
Paul Johnson in The Quest for God (Harper Collins); cited in Reader’s Digest (Dec. 1998) (Atheism, Death of God)
Incarnation John 1:14-18
In his book The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey shares an episode from his youth when the concept of “the Word becoming flesh” dawned on him with profound meaning:
“I learned about incarnation when I kept a salt-water aquarium. Management of a marine aquarium, I discovered, is no easy task. I had to run a portable chemical laboratory to monitor the nitrate levels and the ammonia content. I pumped in vitamins and antibiotics and sulfa drugs and enough enzymes to make a rock grow. I filtered the water through glass fibers and charcoal, and exposed it to ultraviolet light.
“You would think, in view of all the energy expended on their behalf, that my fish would at least be grateful. Not so. Every time my shadow loomed above the tank they dove for cover into the nearest shell. They showed me one emotion only: fear. Although I opened the lid and dropped in food on a regular schedule, three times a day, they responded to each visit as a sure sign of my designs to torture them. I could not convince them of my true concern. To my fish I was deity. I was too large for them, my actions too incomprehensible. My acts of mercy they saw as cruelty; my attempts at healing they viewed as destruction.
“To change their perceptions I began to see would require a form of incarnation. I would have to become a fish and ‘speak’ to them in a language they could understand.”
Greg Asimakoupoulos (Fear of God, Goodness of God)
| HEARING GOD’S VOICE |
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You’ve Gotta Know How to Listen
1 Kings 19:9-13
In Character Forged from Conflict, Gary Preston writes: Back when the telegraph was the fastest means of long-distance communication, there was a story, perhaps apocryphal, about a young man who applied for a job as a Morse code operator. Answering an ad in the newspaper, he went to the address that was listed. When he arrived, he entered a large, noisy office. In the background a telegraph clacked away. A sign on the receptionist’s counter instructed job applicants to fill out a form and wait until they were summoned to enter the inner office. The young man completed his form and sat down with seven other waiting applicants. After a few minutes, the young man stood up, crossed the room to the door of the inner office, and walked right in. Naturally the other applicants perked up, wondering what was going on. Why had this man been so bold? They muttered among themselves that they hadn’t heard any summons yet. They took more than a little satisfaction in assuming the young man who went into the office would be reprimanded for his presumption and summarily disqualified for the job. Within a few minutes the young man emerged from the inner office escorted by the interviewer, who announced to the other applicants, “Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming, but the job has been filled by this young man.” The other applicants began grumbling to each other, and then one spoke up, “Wait a minute—I don’t understand. He was the last one to come in, and we never even got a chance to be interviewed. Yet he got the job. That’s not fair.” The employer responded, “All the time you’ve been sitting here, the telegraph has been ticking out the following message in Morse code: ‘If you understand this message, then come right in. The job is yours.’ None of you heard it or understood it. This young man did. So the job is his.” (Guidance, Spiritual perception) |
Idolatry 1 John 5:21
One hundred decoys were placed on the Izu peninsula of Japan to attract endangered albatrosses and encourage them to breed. For more than two years, a 5-year-old albatross named Deko tried to woo a wooden decoy by building fancy nests and fighting off rival suitors. He spent his days standing faithfully by her side. Japanese researcher Fumio Sato, talking about the albatross’s infatuation with the wooden decoy, said, “He seems to have no desire to date real birds.”
So it is with all people who put their affections upon the gods of this world instead of placing their love in the Lord God.
World (2/20/99) (First Commandment, Love)
Marriage Hebrews 13:4
The number of U.S. adults married and living with their spouse declined to an all-time low in 1998 due to increasing levels of divorced and never-married adults. The percentage who were
| 1970 | 1998 | |
| Widowed | 1% | 3% |
| Married, with spouse | 68% | 56% |
| Divorced | 19% | 24% |
| Never married | 3% | 10% |
| Married, separated | 9% | 7% |
| Widowed | 1% | 3% |
Cindy Hall and Web Bryant, USA Today (3/3/99); Source: Census Bureau (Divorce, Family)
Significance Ecclesiastes 1:1-11
“I see clearly that I have achieved practically nothing. The world today and the history of the human anthill during the past five to seven years would be exactly the same if I had played Ping-Pong instead of sitting on committees and writing books and memoranda. I have therefore to make a rather ignominious confession that I have in a long life ground through between 150,000 and 200,000 hours of perfectly useless work.”
—Author and publisher Leonard Woolf quoted in Wireless Age, (Sept/Nov 1998); cited in Current Thoughts and Trends (Feb. 1999) (Emptiness, Work)
| WEAKNESS |
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How God Uses a Cracked Pot
2 Corinthians 4:7-12
An old folk tale: A house servant had two large pots, which hung from each end of a pole that he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. The other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. For two years the servant delivered each day only one and a half pots full of water to his master’s house. The perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, but the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable over accomplishing only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, the cracked pot spoke to the servant one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you.” “What are you ashamed of?” asked the bearer. “For these past two years I have been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way to your master’s house. Because of my flaws, you don’t get full value from your work.” The servant said, “As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.” As they went up the hill, the cracked pot noticed the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path. When they reached the house, the servant said to the pot, “Did you notice the flowers grew only on your side of the path, not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table.” Each of us has flaws. But if we allow it, the Lord will use our flaws to grace his Father’s table. Phillip Gunter (Grace, Ministry) |
Valleys Romans 5:3-4
Mountaintops are for views and inspiration, but fruit is grown in the valleys.
—Billy Graham cited in Just Between Us (Character, Fruitfulness)
Movies Isaiah 5:20
Reality according to Hollywood: All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French Bread.
The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place.
The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.
A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.
Cars that crash will almost always burst into flames.
Persons knocked unconscious by a blow to the head will never suffer a concussion or brain damage.
It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are visiting.
Any lock can be picked by a credit card or a paper clip in seconds—unless it’s the door to a burning building with a child trapped inside.
All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they will go off.
It is not necessary to say hello or goodbye when beginning or ending phone conversations.
Any person waking from a nightmare will sit bolt upright and pant.
It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts; your enemies will patiently wait to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.
These aren’t the only ways that movies twist reality.
Brett Kays (Morals, Reality)
Silence of God Isaiah 45:15
In an article titled the “All the Right Moves” in Fast Company (May 1999), chess master and sought-after mentor Bruce Pandolfini says:
“My lessons consist of a lot of silence. I listen to other teachers, and they’re always talking … I let my students think. If I do ask a question [‘why are you making that move?’] and I don’t get the right answer, I’ll rephrase the question—and wait. I never give the answer. Most of us really don’t appreciate the power of silence. Some of the most effective communication-between student and teacher, between master players-takes place during silent periods.” God, too, teaches eloquently with silence.
(Discipleship, Prayer)
| ADVERSITY |
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“Shake It Off and Step Up”
James 1:2-4
The parable is told of an old dog that fell into a farmer’s well. After assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the dog but decided that neither the dog nor the well were worth the trouble of saving. Instead he planned to bury the old dog in the well and put him out of his misery. When the farmer began shoveling, initially the old dog was hysterical. But as the farmer continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back, a thought struck him. It dawned on the dog that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back he should shake it off and step up. This he did blow after blow. “Shake it off and step up, shake it off and step up, shake it off and step up!” he repeated to encourage himself. No matter how painful the blows or how distressing the situation seemed, the old dog fought panic and just kept shaking it off and stepping up! It was not long before the dog, battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the wall of that well. What seemed as though it would bury him actually benefited him—all because of the way he handled his adversity. If we face our problems and respond to them positively, refusing to give in to panic, bitterness, or self-pity, the adversities that come along to bury us usually have within them the potential to bless us! Forgiveness, faith, prayer, praise, and hope are some of the biblical ways to shake it off and step up out of the wells in which we find ourselves. Bruce Shelley (Attitude, Overcoming) |
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