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August 8, 2025

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Sylvester Stallone's been in the ring for a lot of rounds. Even though he, a few years ago, hit the big 6-0 birthday, he was still doing Rocky - Rocky 6. It was called, "Rocky's final round." Sylvester Stallone is one of the millions of Baby Boomers who have hit a challenge for which some have not been prepared - aging. I was intrigued with what Stallone had to say about people he knows. He said, "You see billionaires who have everything, yet inside they're still the same lonely, insecure people." You think you've got it all figured out, but when you turn 60 or, you know, whatever age seems to make you feel like you're getting older, there's this little hole inside you. You realize you're always going to be somewhat half full...or are we.

August 7, 2025

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Now, we had not had a major airplane crash in New York City for a long time. So, we were all pretty riveted at that particular time by the scene of the crash of Avianca Flight 52 on Long Island near JFK Airport. More people survived the crash than died in it, thankfully, but it was still a terrible tragedy. There was no fire, because they were apparently out of fuel, and that was a major reason for the crash.

August 6, 2025

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We were adding onto our little house, and we were getting some help from good old Chuck. He's been a part of adding to our house; actually, he did most of the work. A wonderful Christian brother, skilled builder and handyman. He's like an everyday genius...which I am not. Now the days were pretty long and we'd be leaving the house earlier than Chuck got there and we'd return home after dark. So, I didn't get to see him much. But every day that front porch was noticeably farther along than it was when we left that morning. I actually did get to talk to Chuck on the phone one day, and I told him, in a way, he reminded me of the Lord. He was interested in how that happened. I said, "Well, I don't actually see him, but I see the difference he's made!"

August 5, 2025

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Our kids rode many miles in the old back seat of our car. And they had their share of turf battles over who was taking up more than his share of the seat. Pretty customary with three kids in the back seat when you drive quite a ways. They also spent some time sleeping there. In fact, I remember when our youngest was a baby. He would just doze off in his little infant seat right next to his brother who was two years older. We'd turn around and we'd see the little guy asleep and we'd say, "Oh, bless his heart."

August 4, 2025

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Our son had just moved to an Indian reservation to work among the young people there, and for a short time he stayed rent-free at the home of a Native American family. Well, sort of rent-free. One day the man of the house asked our son to help him with a little plumbing problem. Our suburban boy said, "Plumbing? Sure. Where can I find the plunger?" He was informed that no plunger would be needed, so apparently it's going to be easier than he thought. Right? Wrong. His host took him out in the backyard and introduced him to a septic pond where his job was to try to clean out a stopped-up pipe. In order to find it, our son had to reach into the gross stuff up to his shoulder. Yuk! He said when he was finished, he had one thing and only one thing on his mind - a shower. He called and he pretty much summarized his experience, "I have never felt so dirty in my life, and it's never felt so good to be clean."

August 1, 2025

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I can still remember my wife's excited phone call that day. She said, "Honey! The baby just turned over!" Hey! He was three months old; it was a big deal. It's hard to believe there was a time you couldn't turn yourself over. Can you imagine a time when you couldn't walk by yourself? You couldn't feed yourself?

July 31, 2025

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If you'd seen the front lawn of our office, you wouldn't have been able to tell that there had been a change inside. The only evidence of that was that there was an uncustomary pile of shattered sheetrock in this big lump in the yard. The changes were on the second floor immediately above that pile where two small offices had just become one large office. A man from our staff went in, and went after that temporary wall that divided the people in that room, and ripped it out in no time. I'll tell you, it felt pretty different in there with that wall gone! Wish they were all that easy to tear down.

July 30, 2025

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Okay, laugh if you will, but when I was in high school, I sang in the chorus. I did! Today, I'm just a backup singer; when I sing, people back up. But back in high school, we had some good times learning our parts, mastering our songs, and performing our concerts. Sometimes, if I was late for our chorus class, I could hear them warming up as I approached the chorus room. And this one warm-up was particularly monotonous: "mi, mi, mi, mi, mi, mi, mi, mi, mi." Don't change stations. I'm done. I'm not going to do any more singing. But...

July 29, 2025

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My friend, Larry, was a pilot. And awhile back he was asked by a client to fly their corporate, cabin class plane from one metropolitan area airport to another. That flight should take about 15 minutes, and he thought, "Well, I could do that." His only commitment was several hours later to lead prayer meeting at his church that night, so he felt like there was plenty of time to get that job done.

July 28, 2025

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I'd done my whole adult life with my Karen, the only woman I ever needed. Suddenly, I had to figure out how to do the rest of my life without her. That Sunday night, we sat in the bleachers at our local football stadium and we watched our grandson graduate from high school as valedictorian and he gave a faith-filled valedictory message. Monday afternoon, she was gone. Wrapped in this huddle of sobs with our three adult children, I just choked out the words, "It hurts so bad." It really does.

July 25, 2025

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All right, what famous TV personality said these words: "I love trash." All right, Sesame Street fans, yep, Oscar the Grouch, who even lived in a trash can.

July 24, 2025

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It's always hard to lose someone you love. It's especially hard when it's a child. I had friends who lost their precious granddaughter, Amy. Two years old - went to sleep with a little cold and a little fever. By the end of the night, Amy was gone from a cause, well it was still a medical mystery. As I talked with the family at the visitation, of course there was deep grief, but there was also a little comfort from something beautiful that happened right before Amy went to sleep that night. Her mother began singing "Jesus Loves Me" to her and little Amy sang along with her. Her last words, "Jesus loves me, this I know." And then she was with Him.

July 23, 2025

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In the fall I really got exercise in our yard. We had lots of trees in that yard, and lots of leaves. Our sons were gone, and I got to do just about all the raking. There was this one corner of the yard that was kind of nice to rake because it smelled nice. I'd be raking away and suddenly I'd smell the strong aroma of spearmint. Now, I don't chew gum and I don't wear spearmint scented deodorant usually. So, it had to be coming from what I was raking - and it was! That was my wife's herb garden, and when some of the spearmint plants got bruised by my rake that spearmint scent started to fill the air. My wife told me that's the way it is with lots of herbs, like with lemon balm, for example. If you take a little piece of that plant and you crush it between your fingers, the air will suddenly be sweetened by this scent of lemon. So I learned, crushing a plant releases its scent.

July 22, 2025

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If you're a frequent flyer, as I have been in the past, they give you frequent flyer miles that eventually add up to a free ticket. Well, they give their really frequent flyers a few fringe benefits. The benefits aren't quite what they used to be, but like sometimes you can do early boarding. When one of our leaders and I were flying a lot together, it helped if we could board early. Because we could kind of get set up for a lot of work to get done on the flight. Now, he didn't have all the miles I did, but the boarding agents were pretty nice to him, because he boarded with me. My ticket, well, it has this special stamp that would indicate my high-mileage status. And on one occasion, they actually offered early boarding to us guys that they see all the time. They took my ticket and then he was following right behind me. He said, "I'm with him. Is that OK?" Yep. We went together.

July 21, 2025

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When I lived in the New York area, I occasionally spoke for the New York Giants, and the New York Jets, and the Yankees, and the Mets, and some of their visiting teams. Now, when people heard about that, guess what their first question usually was? Well, of course, they said, "Ron, what scripture verse did you speak on?"

July 18, 2025

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If I'm ever on an airplane flight where the flight attendant becomes incapacitated, I think I might be able to do the safety instructions. I mean, I've heard them so many times. Actually, you know, they've now video-ized the presentation. It used to be they just kind of got up and did it. I like the part where that little yellow oxygen mask drops down from above your seat in the demonstration. In the video, everyone is wonderfully calm in this simulated oxygen problem. I'm sure that's very true-to-life. "Oh, look, my oxygen mask just fell down. That's nice." Well, the video shows a mother putting the mask on herself, and then on her little girl. The instructions go like this: "If the cabin pressure drops, get the oxygen to your face first, and then to your child's."

July 17, 2025

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When I visited the Alamo I felt the emotion of a place that was made pretty special by sacrifice. It was February 1836 when that little Spanish mission went into the history books. You remember the story. The Mexican forces, thousands strong, were advancing to crush the little Texas independence movement. Sam Houston needed time to organize his troops in order to fight back, and he did get that time because of what happened at the Alamo, and he did win, and they did get their independence.

July 16, 2025

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Some years ago our family was vacationing on the eastern end of Long Island near a little village called Sag Harbor. It was amazing how much that village changed, though, over a period of just 24 hours. One day it was a sleepy little town of tourists kind of strolling from store to store. The next day it was a chaotic beehive with snarled traffic and anxious people rushing from store to store. Do you know what made the difference? A hurricane warning! Yes, a powerful storm was moving up the East Coast and it was expected to hit that part of Long Island. So people were rushing everywhere to get prepared. Batteries and candles suddenly appeared by every cash register in every store. And they quickly disappeared. People were suddenly living differently when there was a major storm.

July 15, 2025

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Honestly, I had a tough time sleeping when I was in Singapore some years ago. It was my first time overseas. It was hot all the time there; it's sub-equatorial. And I found myself lying awake almost all night long. I was there with another guy. We were ministering together there, teaching in seminars. So, since we couldn't sleep, we ended up talking and talking, and the ceiling fan over our heads made about one revolution per minute, so it wasn't doing much good.

July 14, 2025

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A while ago, my sister-in-law introduced me to this tasty new addition to my usual breakfast menu. They're called English crumpets - low fat, great taste. Then I was hooked. In fact, I decided I had to go get myself more of them. I went to where I figured something in the English muffin/bagel category would be: the bread section, right? No, not crumpets. I finally tried something really radical. I asked someone who worked there. Yeah, a guy's last resort. He said, "They're in dairy." Dairy? Well, I guess these things are supposed to be refrigerated. And dairy is where I found them...at the end of a long search!

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