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Every day the people who broadcast the news to us have to decide what's going to be big news and what's going to be little news. The big news they talk about first. And the little news may not get mentioned at all.
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I was speeding along the Interstate - legally speeding of course - and this van passed me. He pulled into the right lane and then he seemed to be maintaining a pretty consistent speed. For many miles, I ended up traveling behind him. I noticed there was something unusual about this van - it had a plastic bubble that was mounted just above the roof. I had some ideas of why it might be there, especially in light of the words printed on the side of the van. It gave the name of a large express mail delivery service, followed by these words, "Critical Care Van." Later, actually a law enforcement friend of mine confirmed my theory of what that vehicle was actually carrying - parts. Body parts needed for transplants that can save lives. And the bubble on top? My friend said that's a strobe light that actually turns traffic lights green as the van approaches them! Wonder how I could get one of those for me?
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There are certain occupations where I think you need a particularly strong self image. For example, I would think a dentist needs a strong self image. I mean, he's a professional, he's helping people, but it's just hard to have so many people dreading what you do. Or in the world of sports, like a baseball umpire? Everybody thinks they can see better than the umpire can. You can tell because they keep yelling, "Hey, are you blind?" Because they don't agree with your call. Everybody thinks they have a higher IQ than you do. They keep commenting on the intelligence of an umpire negatively just because they don't agree with him.
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It's about that time of year when you start getting all those Christmas letters from people. You know, all those family letters that tell you about all the things they've done: Junior's in Boy Scouts, Emily's in cheerleading. I've noticed there's one recurring word; it's almost like a theme that runs through all those letters. It's that little four-letter word "busy." Everybody tells you how busy they are all year long. "I'm busy, busy, busy and I have a busy, busy, busy family."
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I opened the refrigerator and there it was again - the pig! Yes, years ago someone bought it, put it in the refrigerator for a while and then it disappeared. I thought maybe he'd gone to the bacon factory, but then the pig was back. See, this pig was actually plastic, and whenever you would open the door, the plastic pig started oinking at you. It's annoying, but it does make you think about what you're about to do to yourself.
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I was in Georgia when a friend said to me, "Do you know which team is one of the best football teams in our state?" When I said I didn't know, he said, "The Georgia School for the Deaf." I've got to tell you that kind of caught me by surprise. I wasn't expecting a school for the deaf to be like football champions. He said, "Man, we played them when I was in high school and you always had to get up for that game. They were always the toughest."
I began to think, how could you play football if you can't hear the signals being called? He said, "Well, they bring their band to every game and the signals are called through the drum beats, and they feel the signals through their face." Well, I couldn't do that. But they can. They've got radar I don't have because they face a challenge I haven't faced.
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If you've ever listened to the fans at a college or professional football game, you know some of them are the ultimate experts at what their team is doing wrong and what they should be doing. It's just amazing some of those fans haven't been hired as, like, head coach of the team, right? After speaking for professional football chapels and getting to know some of the players, I was less than patient with their critics all around me up in the stands. I mean, I knew some of those guys on the field. I knew they had everything on the line when they played and that they were the only heroes in the game. You know, there are no heroes in the stands. Sometimes I just wanted to stand up and say to one of those guys: by the way, I never did because they were all bigger than I am. But I wanted to say, "Hey! Why don't you get out of the stands and get in the game!"
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Jim cracked me up with the story he told in his recent family newsletter. He and his honey were enjoying some personal time at the Atlantic Ocean, which is really big. Jim decided to take a picture of himself and the ocean, which is really big. Later, he made a disturbing discovery which he reported this way. "I think I missed the ocean!" Which is really big. Oh, he's in the picture, but the Atlantic is nowhere to be seen. Now how can a smart guy miss something as big and as beautiful as the ocean? Well, by totally focusing on himself.
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Our dog, Missy, had just ridden with us on a 1,600-mile round trip to Chicago and back. That was the first for her. It was a first for me to do it, too, with a dog and we both survived! Miracles still happen. Missy had been through a lot of upheavals in her routine as a result of that trip, and she'd had an exhausting two days. I can't believe now I was empathizing with our dog!
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There's a bridge in a park not too far from here - they take carriage rides there. It's just a bridge to most folks, but not to our son and daughter-in-law. That will always be a very special spot to them. It's where he asked her to marry him. It's interesting how a plain old piece of geography becomes forever special when something special in your life happens there: the place you were born, or maybe where you had your first date or your first kiss, or where you were married, or where some significant "first" in your life took place. When a certain place is where something important started, it will always be a special place.
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Missionary pilots are some of my greatest heroes. See, missionary pilots fly around the world and land places where you think a plane could never land. They know how to take their plane apart; they know how to put it back together again.
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One of the large churches in our area started a new building and they announced it would be for community outreach. But they did something I've never seen a church do before. They gathered the congregation around the just-completed foundation of that new building and they asked them to throw something into the foundation. Now you've no doubt seen people's names on the outside of a building's foundation, especially on the cornerstone. But these folks were actually putting names inside the foundation - the names of people they care about who don't belong to Jesus yet - people they are hoping and praying will be in heaven with them some day.
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When I visited the Gulf Coast of Florida, I got to see a couple of glorious earth turns. The sky was ablaze with color and the sun disappeared on the horizon. You say, "Excuse me, Ron, that's a sunset." Hey, wait a minute. Are you from the 14th century or something? The sun doesn't set, it doesn't move! The earth moves! As it makes its revolution, your point on earth turns away from the sun every 24 hours. So that would be an earth turn, right? And we say the sun sets. Well, the earth is turning and you can see how mankind got it wrong for so many centuries. I mean, it looks as if the sun is revolving around the earth. It revolutionized a lot of thinking when people finally understood what was revolving around what.
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I always look forward to it as one of the season's great Christmas moments - the lighting of that towering Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. And it's happening this week!
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I was in one of those "big box" stores over the weekend - and Santa was strolling the aisles wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. I told my wife, "It was fun to see Santa. I was just a little surprised to see him carrying pepper spray on his belt." (OK, I made that part up.) But the thought never would have occurred to me, except for that crazy Black Friday and all the headlines. People getting pushed, punched, sprayed, hospitalized, and even shot - all in the frenzy to get some coveted item cheap.
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Maybe it was the dumb voices I did. But the kids used to love it when I read "Winnie the Pooh" to them. Tigger with his irrepressible "hoo-hoo!" bouncing everywhere. And Eeyore with his head down and his ever-present gloom. I'd rather be Tigger than Eeyore maybe without the bouncing. I mean, I want to be the one to leave sunshine in the room, not storm clouds.
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When our kids were growing up, the early morning shift around our house was particularly exciting. I was getting ready for a full day, three kids were scrambling to have what they needed for school, my wife was playing maid, chef, valet, and chauffeur. Man! In the rush, a lot of our communication was basically non-verbal. For example, one morning I was shaving and thinking through this endless list of things I had to do that day - all the Lord's work, of course. I was mulling over a sermon, radio programs, an important appointment that day, an event I was planning, and my son popped in. Now, I must have somehow succeeded in telegraphing how much I had on my mind (the Lord's work, remember? Right.) - he disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. Then, as I was praying about all the Lord's work I had to do that day, I remembered an important decision my son had to make that day, one that he probably needed to talk to his father about. I had just missed the Lord's work.
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We met Dan and Rita and their dog when we took our Native American team to a reservation in South Dakota. They live in this dusty little village, doing their best to make a difference for the people there. They've got this little dog named Gal. Now most dogs are pretty aggressive in meeting strangers - they come right up to you, even on you. But not Gal. No, she retreats when she sees people. She cowers actually; she trembles. Dan and Rita explained why. Their dog had been severely abused by several previous owners before they got her. So she has a hard time trusting even people who want to treat her right, but she's missing a lot of loving that way.
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Professional football wasn't the same for me once I began to have the opportunity to speak at NFL chapels. All of the NFL teams have chapel services before their games. And so, a few hours before game time, I had the opportunity to meet in a hotel conference room with a number of the players; sometimes from our local team, sometimes from a visiting team. And the players were so intense! I mean, it was a lot more than a game to them. By the time that day was over, their career could have been in jeopardy, their income was on the line, sometimes what shape their body was in was on the line.
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One football team owner called it "the single most impressive symbol of being a champion in all of sports." Yep, he was talking about the National Football League's Super Bowl ring. The rings on Super Bowl champions are worth many thousands of dollars each one! Can you imagine losing something that valuable, that irreplaceable? Former Oakland Raiders champion, Gene Upshaw, can remember that. Yeah, he can imagine it. To keep his Super Bowl ring safe at home, he put it inside a bank that looked like a Pepsi can. Problem: he forgot to tell his housekeepers. You know where this is going? Yep, they mistook the bank for an empty pop can and tossed it out, ring and all.
