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Christmas Eve at our house is anything but a "Silent Night." How about "Family Circus"? Each year brings a lot of high-energy, high-decibel giving and the opening of gifts. One year, somewhere in the flying wrapping paper, was one overwhelmed two-year-old. Quietly dazed amid the happy din. There was one person who noticed. Grandma, of course.
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That Christmas is going to be a tough Christmas for my friend Rob - his first Christmas without the love of His life. Yeah, I know about that feeling. She actually had died just a few weeks before - Rob's wife had. Like a lot of people whose Christmas joy is bittersweet. I've lost the love of my life. Well, I know where she is; I didn't lose her. She's in heaven. And you know what? There are other times it was a very close call; three times I almost lost her. And God gave her back to me those times. But Christmas makes us think about the loves that we've lost doesn't it? Which, by the way, could lead us to the greatest love of all.
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Our whole family was with us that one Christmas, and I walked into the family room and saw our cute little two-year-old granddaughter with a sword in her hand. Sounds shocking, I know. But before you begin to question the parental competence of our children, I should tell you that it was a kind of sword I'd never seen before. The "blade" was made entirely of feathers. It turns out that back then on her favorite children's TV show there was this happy pirate who carried one of these feather swords. We tried the sword on me - it doesn't hurt. It tickles. I'd hate to be in any kind of a real battle with it. It's a little difficult to be intimidating as you're waving your feather sword!
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Like most families, Christmastime for us has always been a season of secrets, mysteries and anticipation. And sometimes even a little frustration. Like the year my wife and I decided to build a dollhouse for our daughter and then another year we built a general store for our son. We closed off the basement and we set up our workshop. That sign on the basement door said, "Closed - Christmas Workshop." But, of course, the kids could hear all the construction sounds downstairs, it was driving them nuts! They begged us to tell them what we were working on. But that, of course, would have ruined everything. Even though it left them wondering, we were building something really nice for them. They just couldn't see it until it was done.
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You may have noticed firstborn children are usually known for their independence, which can sometimes get them in trouble. When our daughter was four years old, we were on a family shopping trip to the local grocery store. Her little brother was riding in the cart and our daughter was walking ahead of Mom and me and the cart. At a moment when we were looking at the corn flakes or something, she wandered off and into another aisle. To this day she still remembers the panic of realizing she did not know where she was or where we were. She told me, "The aisle looked so long, the shelves looked so high, and I didn't recognize anybody." Suddenly, our little girl realized she was lost.
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If anybody ever tells you that travel is glamorous, would you have them talk to me, or anybody who flies a lot? A while back I had one of those glamorous days, chasing through airports to make connections because of delayed flights. And since you don't see many meals on airplanes these days, you have to grab what you can. In this particular airport, I had a few extra minutes for a meal, but not knowing if there would be any other options between where I was and my gate, so I grabbed the first thing in sight, which happened to be the gourmet treat known as a hot dog. It wasn't even that great of a hot dog honestly. But what was especially aggravating was what I saw after I wolfed down that hot dog. Within two minutes, I walked by two or three places where I could have had a real meal! But no, I couldn't wait.
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Every time you sing that Christmas carol, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," you sing those words, "Peace on earth and mercy mild." But if you ever watch the news or read a newspaper, you might well be asking, "Whatever happened to peace on earth?" That's a good question. Some have said that the terrorism danger for Americans has remained high long after September 11, 2001. One national correspondent expressed on television what a lot of people are feeling. He said, "I have never in my lifetime seen such a high degree of threat to our personal security." And financial developments, political developments? They haven't helped much. Then you throw in the dangers that you might be facing personally, it could be medical, or financial, your personal life. Where's that peace that Christmas is supposed to be about?
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I was scheduled to speak at a winter retreat in Pennsylvania and I had to drive from New Jersey, and that day winter decided that it was time to do some serious wintering like heavy snow. And it just kept coming! I knew this would be an exciting drive. Well, actually, it turned out to be much easier than I expected. I got out into this mess on Interstate 80 and I had really low visibility, I had blinding snow, and the road was filling up quickly. Of course I was muttering, "Why couldn't they cancel this retreat?" Then I thought of a better idea than complaining. How about trying praying? What an idea! And wouldn't you know, that's when I saw the snowplow in front of me. Well, I got my little car right in behind Mr. Snowplow and I traveled on a clear road most of the way to the retreat! I just drove where the snowplow had already been! That way you're a lot less likely to end up in the ditch!
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When Queen Elizabeth was growing up - then Princess Elizabeth - she always knew she would one day be the queen. It wasn't that way with Queen Victoria. When she was young, she actually was shielded from the fact that she would be the next ruling monarch of England. They didn't want her to grow up spoiled. But finally her teacher did let her discover for herself that she would one day be Queen of England - the most powerful monarch in the world at that time. Victoria's response was simple: "Well, then I will be good!" She understood she needed to live her life based on her royal position.
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A family on vacation. Nobody feels especially like doing the usual chores, like picking up the mess. Besides, there's that "room fairy" who comes while you're out and magically makes it all better, right? Unfortunately, "room fairies" only work when you're away from home. They don't do your house for you. Have you noticed that? My friend, Mike Silva, was staying with his family at a hotel in Nigeria, he told me, and they heard a knock at the door. Mike opened it and found a smiling Nigerian gentleman standing there ready to clean the room. That was no small order. Actually, they were pretty embarrassed because of all the travel bags and curling irons and crumpled clothing sprawled all across their unmade beds. And the bathroom floor was carpeted with beautiful wet towels. Mike apologized profusely. The young man, though, just put him at ease. He said, "No problem, sir. For this reason I have come, to put your things in order."
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It was one of those disasters that years ago riveted the attention of the nation. Nine Pennsylvania coal miners had been excavating when they apparently broke through a flooded shaft. An estimated 50 to 60 million gallons of water rushed in, trapping the men in this underground chamber. When the water rose over their heads, they had to swim to higher ground - still 240 feet underground. For two and a half days, rescuers didn't know if the miners were dead or alive. Once they made contact through a phone line they lowered into the flooded shaft, they established a line that would deliver compressed air and they began pumping out water. Seventy-seven hours after the ordeal began, rescuers brought the miners, one at a time, up to the surface in this cramped yellow rescue cage. As the last man was pulled to the surface, the Governor of the state simply said, "All nine. All nine."
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OK, it's time for a simple experiment - which is the only kind I'm capable of. Don't try this if you're driving please. But if you're where you can do this safely, pick up some object that's close by: your pen, your comb, a cup - whatever. Hold it about a foot from your eyes. Now, move that object slowly toward your eyes - you're not driving, right? OK. But keep staring right straight at the object. Now bring it all the way up to your face. If you keep staring at the object, I'll bet something strange has happened to your eyes. You are suddenly cross-eyed and everything looks weird!
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Amy Biehl was 26 years old, and she really wanted to make a difference. Her graduate studies took her to South Africa in the turbulent days when the repressive system of apartheid was coming down and that nation's first all-race elections were approaching. She actually helped develop voter registration programs to help black South Africans participate in a system that up until then had always shut them out. She was driving three black coworkers back to the township where they lived. Suddenly a group of youths pelted her car with stones and forced it to stop. Dozens of young men surrounded the car and they started chanting, "One settler - one bullet! One settler - one bullet!" They pulled Amy from the car, hit her with a brick, beat her, and stabbed her in the heart. During that attack her black friends were yelling that she was a friend to black South Africans, all to no avail. Amy died from her wounds.
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Oh, I love this time of year! I love the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting. When I watched it a couple of years ago, you know, it was as always, heartwarming to watch those lights come on in the middle of the city where I spent so much ministry time.
And actually there was some good news coming from that big Christmas tree. Oh, we had the obligatory "bubble gum" songs about Santa and snow and toys. But I was impressed with the fact that Jesus was there, too. That particular year there were some beautiful presentations of "Silent Night" and "Away in a Manger" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." There actually were a few relatively holy moments in the middle of all that New York glitz.
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It was one of those nightmare days, trying to get a flight out of Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Some thunderstorms actually sent flight schedules into chaos for about 24 hours. You know what that means. Two hundred flights were cancelled that day, a lot more were delayed, and thousands of people were scrambling to find a way to get to where they needed to go...including me. Finally, I just gave up on trying to get out that day and I reserved one of the last seats available the next morning for the city where I was supposed to be speaking. Well, 7:00 A.M. the next morning my coworker and I were in our seats for a full flight. The engine was running - it seemed like we were ready to go. Until the cockpit came on and made this announcement, "Uh, folks, we've encountered one problem this morning. We can't find a captain for this flight." What? Oh, great! No captain! We're not going anywhere, folks! Well, thankfully, a captain finally came, and we finally got there!
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Oh, you can see it at an airport. You can see it in a conference. You can see it whenever people are in a new place. Right away they're looking for a plug. Yeah, you know why? Because we all have cell phones. That's why. And because those cell phones don't run forever. And it's not a good thing when you really need to communicate with somebody and that thing has a battery that's dying. So we're all trying to recharge the battery. I sometimes think I'm like that. We all are like that. Wouldn't it be nice if people could plug in and get recharged like one of those batteries? I think it's called a night's sleep probably. Well, I can't allow my cell phone to be dead. There's too much going on in this ministry, so I need to put that little phone down sometimes, plug it into recharge so it's good to go again.
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Amy Carmichael was one of India's most heroic missionaries, and a woman whose life continues to inspire a lot of people today. She has written some inspiring words, but none more inspiring than her account of a scene she saw in her mind one sleepless night as she agonized over the people around her who didn't have a relationship with Jesus. She saw herself standing on the edge of a sheer cliff that dropped off into this dark and seemingly bottomless space. She described the people who were moving steadily toward that edge. She saw a blind woman plunge over the cliff with a baby in her arms and a child holding onto her dress. Streams of people began to come from all directions; all of them blind.
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I think our granddaughter was about nine years old when she came home from school and said, "Mommy, Daddy, my favorite holiday, I know what it is. It's Thanksgiving." And they asked her why that is. Well, her daddy is our son and her mommy is Native American, so she came in with a unique perspective on Turkey Day. She said, "I love Thanksgiving because I'm a Pilgrim and an Indian!"
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You've probably been speeding down the highway as I have at times, and all of a sudden you'll come to a construction area that says, "Slow down - 35 mph." So everyone, of course, slows down by two or three miles an hour. They're down to 57 now or something like that. And then you'll see as you get a little more into the construction area these words, "Be prepared to stop." Well, I don't want to be prepared to stop. I don't know if you're like me, but I calculate how many miles I've got to go, how long it's going to take. Let's see, "Sixty miles - sixty minutes." Something like that. I don't want to be prepared to stop. I'm prepared to do the speed limit. Sometimes we live our whole lives that way. We're speeding too fast to stop.
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Some of our most memorable vacation moments as a family have been spent on the beautiful Outer Banks of North Carolina. It hasn't always been beautiful for ships that were navigating those treacherous shoals that are off the shores of the Outer Banks. It's estimated that over 2,000 ships have gone down there over the centuries. But a lot more lives could have been lost if it hadn't been for the Cape Hatteras Light, one of the most famous lighthouses in America. Its octagonal tower rises massively above the beach and the sand hills, and it's been the guiding light that's kept many ships from going aground. It's stood there for nearly two centuries. Imagine the storms that she's weathered; including more than a hundred hurricanes! Storms that blew away so many other structures, but the lighthouse still stands.
