Commitment (1 Kings 8:54-61; Matt. 16:24-26)
Three military recruiters showed up to address high school seniors. Each recruiter—representing the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps—was to have fifteen minutes.
The Army and Navy recruiters got carried away, so when it came time for the Marine to speak, he had just two minutes. He walked up and stood utterly silent for a full sixty seconds, half of his time.
Then he said this: “I doubt whether there are two or three of you in this room who could even cut it in the Marine Corps. But I want to see those two or three immediately in the dining hall when we are dismissed.” He turned smartly and sat down.
When he arrived in the dining hall, those students interested in the Marines were a mob.
The recruiter knew that commitment comes from appealing to the heroic dimension in every heart.
—W. Frank Harrington(Motivation, Vision)
Over His Dead Body
In May All Who Come Behind Us Find Us Faithful, Robert Russell tells this story:
“In Kentucky, there is a huge rivalry in college basketball between the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky. The story is told that at one of the recent ‘Dream Games’ between the two schools, an elderly woman was sitting alone with an empty seat next to her. Someone approached her and said, ‘Ma’am, I have rarely seen an empty seat in Rupp Arena, let alone at the Dream Game. Whose seat is this?’
“The woman responded that she and her late husband had been season ticket holders for twenty-eight years, and the seat had belonged to him. ‘Well, couldn’t you find a friend or relative to come to the game with you?’ the observer asked.
” ‘Are you kidding?’ she replied. ‘They’re all at my husband’s funeral.’ “
—Sherman Burford Fairmont, West Virginia (Marriage, Priorities)
A North Carolina jury ordered a man to pay $234,000 for stealing the love of another man’s wife. The verdict was not about money, legal experts say. Instead, it’s a way for a scorned spouse to send a message that cheating isn’t fair or appropriate.
In August, another North Carolina jury awarded a jilted wife $1 million. North Carolina is one of the few states with alienation-of-affection laws still on the books. Most states abolished such laws when no-fault divorce laws became popular.
Said Scott Altman, law professor at the University of Southern California, “Even though fault-based divorce is abolished, most people still regard infidelity as wrong and feel terribly hurt by it. So for someone to want a remedy when they feel so aggrieved, and for a jury to be sympathetic, doesn’t strike me as shocking.”
—USA Today (9/19/97) (Adultery, Marriage)
Death (Gen. 2:7; Heb. 9:27)
A mother, trying to soften the blow of the family cat’s death, told her daughter, “Tabby is in heaven now.” The little girl looked at her mother quizzically, then asked, “Why would God want a dead cat?”
(Animals, Children)
No matter what your religion, you should try to become a government program, for then you shall have everlasting life.
—Lynn Martin Congressional Representative (Eternity, Government)
In Context (11/15/97), Martin Marty tells of a financial planner who made the comment, “When clients talk to me about their estates, they usually say, ‘If I die,’ not ‘when I die.’ Even 80-year-olds use the conditional.”
(Denial, Fear)
There Is No One This Side of Heaven …
Alva B. Weir, an oncologist in Germantown, Tennessee, told this story:
“I was awakened from sleep by the telephone. On the other end of the line, a distraught woman told me that her son had cancer, was a patient of one of my partners, was unconscious, breathing badly, with an empty bottle of pills at his bedside.
“This patient had recently discovered that his cancer had metastasized to his bone. Along with his pain, he had lost control of his bowels. He could not tolerate the thought of pain and incontinence with no hope of cure. He had decided to end his life and appeared close to succeeding. The mother did not know what to do. I convinced her to bring him to the hospital.
“I met them in the emergency room. The patient was breathing badly and looked as if he were dying from the overdose. I examined the patient, checked the laboratory results, and recommended that we lavage his stomach and place him on a ventilator until the drugs left his system.
“The mother was uncertain; the brother took charge, suggesting that the patient desired suicide and that they should honor his wishes and let him die in peace rather than bring him through to face life with cancer. They insisted on taking him home with no therapy.
“I worked with them for some time, and they compromised by allowing me to admit him to the hospital with only oxygen and intravenous fluid support, but no tubes and no ventilator. They consented mainly because of logistical and legal complications produced by a patient dying at home of suicide.
“I admitted him, expecting him to die. The following weekend I was surprised to find this man’s name on my list. I walked into the room to find a beaming mother and an alert patient. With the minimal support, he had survived his overdose. After another week, he was walking with his pain improved, bowels controlled, and depression diminished.
“I realized that this man and his family, who had chosen for him the absence of life forever, were experiencing moments together of unfathomable value.
“There is no one this side of heaven who has the ability to make the correct decision regarding when our life should be extinguished. Society should err on the side of the precious nature of human life rather than that of personal choice.”
—Today’s Christian Doctor (Spring 97) (Euthanasia, Sanctity of Life)
Faith (Heb. 11)
In a recent sermon on Preaching Today, Joe Stowell said,
“In 1980, America’s economy was in the ditch. The Cold War was in its fury. Russia seemed bigger, more powerful than us, and America entertained the world at the Olympics in Lake Placid.
“I remember coming home from church the Sunday that America was playing Russia in hockey. It was in the end of the first period, and we were beating the Russians. All of a sudden I realized my stomach was in a knot. My knuckles were white, and I had this anxiety about the game. All through the second period we were ahead. Going into the third period, I knew what would happen. The Russians would score five goals at the end of the game, beat us, and we would be embarrassed again. But we won!
“It was such a big deal that the national networks played it again. My wife and I watched the whole thing Sunday night. Only this time I didn’t have a knot in my stomach. I leaned back on the couch and put my feet up.
“What made the difference? I could relax because I knew the outcome.”
When we have faith that God is working for our eternal good, we can have amazing peace even when we don’t know the outcome.
(Knowing God, Trust)
A belief is something you hold; a conviction is something that holds you.
—Jerry Bridges (Belief, Conviction)
Allstate Insurance Company recently surveyed Californians in earthquake-prone regions. Sixty-four percent of respondents believe a massive earthquake will hit in three to five years; but only one in four has earthquake insurance.
—UPI (Denial, Natural Disasters)
Forgiveness (Col. 3:12-14)
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
—Mahatma Gandhi (Strength, Virtue)
In January 1697, on a fast day called to remember the Salem witch trials, Samuel Sewall slipped a note to his pastor, Samuel Willard, at Boston’s Old South Meeting House. Sewall, one of the seven judges who had sentenced twenty people to death in Salem five years earlier, stood silent before the congregation as Willard read:
“Samuel Sewall, sensible of the reiterating strokes of God upon himself and his family … desires to take the blame and shame of it, asking pardon of men, and especially desiring prayers that God, who has an unlimited authority, would pardon that sin and his other sins . …”
(Sewell believed that eleven of his fourteen children had died as divine punishment for his involvement in the witch trials.)
—Yankee (Jan. 97) (Confession, Punishment)
No Statute of Limitations for Forgiveness
Chris Carrier of Coral Gables, Florida, was abducted when he was 10 years old. His kidnapper, angry with the boy’s family, burned him with cigarettes, stabbed him numerous times with an ice pick, then shot him in the head and left him to die in the Everglades. Remarkably, the boy survived, though he lost sight in one eye. No one was ever arrested.
Recently, a man confessed to the crime. Carrier, now a youth minister at Granada Presbyterian Church, went to see him.
He found David McAllister, a 77-year-old ex-convict, frail and blind, living in a North Miami Beach nursing home. Carrier began visiting often, reading to McAllister from the Bible and praying with him. His ministry opened the door for McAllister to make a profession of faith.
No arrest is forthcoming; after twenty-two years, the statute of limitations on the crime is long past. In Christian Reader (Jan/Feb 98), Carrier says, “While many people can’t understand how I could forgive David McAllister, from my point of view I couldn’t not forgive him. If I’d chosen to hate him all these years, or spent my life looking for revenge, then I wouldn’t be the man I am today, the man my wife and children love, the man God has helped me to be.”
—Merv Budd London, Ontario (Christlikeness, Ministry)
Greed (1 Tim. 6:6-10)
Percentage of Americans who believe “Most of us buy and consume far more than we need”: 82
-Harper’s (1/97) (Needs, Simplicity)
A culture obsessed with technology will come to value personal convenience above almost all else, and ours does. … Religion tends to be strongest when life is hard … a person whose main difficulty is not crop failure but video breakdown has less need of the consolations and promises of religion.
—Robert Bork in Slouching towards Gomorrah (Faith, Hardship)
According to the United Nations’ Human Development Report 1996, the combined wealth of the world’s 358 billionaires now equals the total income of the poorest 45 percent of the world’s population, some 2.3 billion people.
—cited in “The Nerd Barons” Utne Reader (Nov/Dec 96) (Poverty, Wealth)
I realized I was wealthy because wealth can be defined as getting the time to do what you want, and I found that with discipline I could do what I loved. The discipline came because I had to lower my spending to match my earnings; I could buy my freedom with the money I didn’t spend.
—musician David Wilcox, interviewed in Acoustic Guitar (Nov/Dec 94) (Discipline, Freedom)
Parenting (Eph. 6:4, Deut. 4:9-10)
Introduction to property law from a toddler’s perspective:
- If I like it, it’s mine.
- If I can take it away from you, it’s mine.
- If I had it a while ago, it’s mine.
- If I say it is mine, it’s mine.
- If it looks like mine, it’s mine.
- If I say I saw it first, it’s mine.
- If you’re having fun with it, it’s mine.
- If you lay down your toy, it’s mine.
- If it is broken, it’s yours.
—Joke Distribution Network joke.network@juno.com (Childishness, Selfishness)
What Teens Really Want (it’s not what you think)
Percentage of teens who:
- Want lessons in honesty: 96
- Support instruction on the Golden Rule: 77
- Believe tolerance for races should be taught: 92
- Believe schools should teach about various religions: 84
- Believe God plays an active role in their life: 76
—research by George Gallup, cited in Growing Up Scared in America (Adolescents, Teaching)
Before I was married I had three theories about raising children. Now I have three children and no theories.
—John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647-1680) (Children, Criticism)
Percentage of fathers who say they read to their kids: 61 Percentage of kids who agree with this figure: 28
—Details (3/95) (Children, Fatherhood)
Have children while your parents are still young enough to take care of them.
—comedienne Rita Rudner (Children, Grandparents)
The late humorist Erma Bombeck once reflected on what she had learned about parenting after her children left home: “I talk too much. I had good material, but I used it indiscriminately. I used the same two-hour speech on filling their glass too full of milk that I used when they stayed out all night without coming home. The speech lost its effectiveness.”
(Communication, Scolding)
Second Coming (Rev. 21:1-4)
I knew an old Glasgow professor named MacDonald who, along with a Scottish chaplain, had bailed out of an airplane behind German lines. They were put in a prison camp. A high wire fence separated the Americans from the British, and the Germans made it next to impossible for the two sides to communicate. MacDonald was put in the American barracks and the chaplain was housed with the Brits. Every day the two men would meet at the fence and exchange a greeting. Unknown to the guards, the Americans had a little homemade radio and were able to get news from the outside, something more precious than food in a prison camp. Everyday, MacDonald would take a headline or two to the fence and share it with the chaplain in the ancient Gaelic language, indecipherable to the Germans.
One day, news came over the little radio that the German High Command had surrendered and the war was over. MacDonald took the news to his friend, then stood and watched him disappear into the British barracks. A moment later, a roar of celebration came from the barracks.
Life in that camp was transformed. Men walked around singing and shouting, waving at the guards, even laughing at the dogs. When the German guards finally heard the news three nights later, they fled into the dark, leaving the gates unlocked. The next morning, Brits and Americans walked out as free men. Yet they had truly been set free three days earlier by the news that the war was over.
While Christ’s Kingdom is not fully achieved, we know the outcome of the battle. We too have been set free.
—Ray Bakke Chicago, Illinois (Freedom, Hope)
Sunday School (Prov. 22:6)
In the spring 1998 issue of Teacher Touch, students were asked whom they would like to invite to Sunday school:
- “President Clinton. The United States would be in a lot better shape if all our leaders went to Sunday school” (Ben, 14).
- “Dr. Kevorkian. He’s helped a lot of people commit suicide. He’s a good talker. Think what a good preacher he’d make if he taught the Word instead of what he’s doing now” (Brent, 11).
- “Hitler. He really had a messed-up head, and learning about God in Sunday school could have fixed that” (Asher and Clynt, both 14).
- “Dennis Rodman. I think he really, really needs to learn about Jesus” (Marie, 11).
- “My cousin Samuel. He fights a lot with his brother, and in Sunday school he’d learn not to do that” (Jade, 9).
- “Jesus. He could teach our class, and my teacher would get a break” (Adryan, 10).
(Character, Teaching)
Crime Takes a Powder
When I was at Buckingham Palace last year, Prince Philip asked me, “What can we do about crime here in England?” I replied, “Send more children to Sunday school.”
He thought I was joking. But I pointed out a study by sociologist Christie Davies, which found that in the first half of the 1800s, British society was marked by high levels of crime and violence, which dropped dramatically in the late 1800s and early 1900s. What changed an entire nation’s national character?
Throughout that period, attendance at Sunday schools rose steadily until, by 1888, a full 75 percent of children in England were enrolled. Since then, attendance has fallen off to one-third its peak level, with a corresponding increase in crime and disorder. If we fill the Sunday schools, we can change hearts and restore society.
—Chuck Colson (Children, Crime)
Truth (2 Cor. 13:5-8)
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
—Winston Churchill (Darkness, Ignorance)
If I were to say that New York City is a hamlet of 23 people on the lower Mississippi, I should be howled down. If I were to write that milk is a black powder made from rotted hickory nuts and used to make fingerprints, the letters of rebuttal and ridicule would break the postman’s back. But anyone can say or write any wildly absurd thing about religion and get away with it.
—John S. Kennedy Quote: The Speaker’s Digest (May/Jun 97) (False Teaching, Religion)
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