July 23, 2019

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Some years ago, our ministry's headquarters was under construction, progressed from stage to stage. And I enjoyed walking through the halls and the rooms to see the progress. Of course, you had to look past a lot of mess and clutter, and you had to use your imagination to see what it was eventually going to look like. But the point at which I really started to realize what God is doing is when I climbed this little ladder to the catwalk that encircled the building above all the rooms below. Before the ceiling goes in, you can just walk along that catwalk and get the big picture of how far things have really progressed and the scope of what God's doing here. There's a view from up there that really provides an exciting perspective. It's a lot more inspiring than when you're just standing in one of the rooms down below.

July 22, 2019

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It was even hard to believe it. This man went into an antique store basically for one reason: he was interested in old baseball cards, which can be worth a lot of money sometimes. Well, in this one store he didn't see any on display, so he asked the owner if he had any. The shopkeeper produced a cigar box with some very early baseball cards which actually dated back to the early 1900s. He said, "I don't put these out for everyone to see. I keep them in a drawer most of the time." Well, among those cards, the shopper found one of the most valuable baseball cards there is - one of those rare cards featuring Hall of Famer Honus Wagner. When the shopper inquired about the price, the owner said, "Well, I bought all of these from a woman for $20.00. But I know they're worth a lot more. I'll tell you what. I'll sell them to you for $200.00." Well, knowing the real value of just that one card alone, and desperately trying to keep a poker face, the shopper took him up on his offer. Later he sold that Honus Wagner card on the Internet - you know, the one he got for $200.00 - for something like $200,000!

July 19, 2019

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It was one of those steamy 3-H summer days - you know...hazy, hot, and humid. I was just finishing doing about, oh, eight miles on my bike, feeling like Mr. Fatness - I mean, Fitness. Then I passed Tim - and he was doing all 10 1/2 miles around the lake - running, not riding. Well, I later learned he did that every day. Now that year Tim was in the sports headlines at home a lot. He was, as always, one of the county's champion track stars. But that sweaty day at the lake, there were no coaches, no reporters, no spectators watching. I said, "Hey, no time off for vacation, Tim?" He reminded me that running is a 12-month sport. See, champions aren't made the day of the race with the crowd applauding - they're made on a thousand invisible mornings.

July 18, 2019

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Commercial flying can be a real adventure. Like the day I booked a last-minute flight to the Northwest to support some Native American friends of ours who had just lost their young son. I was supposed to fly into Spokane, Washington, but fog shut it down and we were diverted to another airport for the night. So, the airline put us up in a hotel overnight and promised us they would do their best to get us to Spokane the next morning. I knew if I didn't get to the reservation that next day, I would have missed what I was going for. I really needed the real scoop on whether or not our plane was going to get into Spokane.

July 17, 2019

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Sometimes you'll hear someone called a "Renaissance man." That means he's a man of many interests, and gifts and pursuits, and skilled in many areas. Now, if there is such a thing as a "Renaissance boy," well, I used to like to think our grandson was one. Interested in a lot of things - and he was pretty good at a lot of them. To round out the other areas of his life, he got involved in a soccer league for kids his age. Which would make his mother a "soccer mom," I guess. Which means everybody wants her vote. Right, in elections? Well, our grandson didn't have the benefit of having an older sibling to learn from as some of the other members of his little team did. The soccer learning curve for him was a little steep, but he was doing well. But something really special happened in one of the last games of the season. The team's two little stars came late - players who the others tend to lean on. But they weren't there to lean on. Well, now it was clearly up to kids who were usually in the shadow of those stars, including our favorite soccer player who really stepped up. Suddenly, he was more focused, more aggressive than we'd seen him all season. And right away he scored two goals for his team. Oh, and of course, they won that night.

July 16, 2019

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I had to laugh as my friend Cathy told me about an experience she had at a former job, because it tells so much about how my half of the human race thinks - like men, I mean. Cathy and her boss had rented a car at the airport for a relatively short trip from the Dallas/Fort Worth airport to a nearby city. We're talking like a few minutes' drive, but not for Cathy and her boss. No, they just kept driving in circles, retracing their steps, turning around. I mean, her boss obviously did not know where he was going. So Cathy kept suggesting that he stop for directions, but, "No, I know where I'm going." Of course men always know where they're going, right? Well, she said she got to the point where she was ready to punch him if she saw this particular restaurant one more time! (Good thing she didn't!) Well, finally, four hours later, they got to their destination. Was this man lost? Uh-huh! Could he admit he didn't know where he was going? No! He's a man!

July 15, 2019

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Okay, here is one of my un-favorite sentences: "I guess we have to go to the emergency room!" Well, I mean, I'm glad the emergency room is there, but I hate to go there. I remember one time our son had a mild stomach disorder and we knew it had to be checked out. Well, we went late at night when it really gets really busy. I guess it was rush hour for sure that day when we were there. We'd already waited for a while and finally they noticed us. They began to give some attention to our son, and then suddenly all the doctors and nurses vanished. I'll tell you why. There was a word that had been sounded across that emergency room - "STAT" - and everybody came running to an accident victim. It was a severe situation. It was life-or-death. Stat means it's time to drop everything.

July 12, 2019

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Eight wedding showers in a month! Six hundred guests scheduled to be at the wedding where 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen would attend the bride and groom. Four days before the wedding, the bride went missing after she went out for a jog. The American news channels were dominated by the all-out search and the investigation into the case of the vanishing bride, and then we learned what happened. The bride turned up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, claiming she had been kidnapped - a story which she later changed to tell the real story of what happened. She said that the stress leading up to her wedding had given her cold feet, and she just kept running with those cold feet. In retrospect, I'm sure folks must be saying, "Girl, why didn't you just tell someone what you were feeling?" Instead she ran from her family, her community, her wedding, and even from the truth. Tens of thousands of dollars and countless man-hours were spent looking for her. Now she faced the additional stress of negative national notoriety and even the possibility of legal or financial penalties. Pretty simple here: running solved nothing. It never does.

July 10, 2019

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Some say it's legend. Some say it's history, but it's one of the most inspiring stories from America's past. The scene: a tiny mission near San Antonio, Texas. You know, a small band of Texas Freedom Fighters is taking their stand against the invading Mexican Army, and they're vastly outnumbered. There's a brief window during which the men of the Alamo have a choice between leaving or staying to fight. Col. William Travis is in command of the garrison, and according to some accounts, he gathered the defenders in the courtyard of the Alamo. With his sword, he drew a line in the sand and he called his men to a destiny choice: cross the line as your pledge to fight or stay where you are as an announcement that you are leaving. They all crossed the line to heroism, to immortality, and to honor that has endured some 200 years.

July 9, 2019

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Our friend Joy became an expert on moving, I think, you'd say. Her husband was a career Air Force officer, and that means seeing a lot of different places, having a lot of different addresses, and seeing a lot of moving vans in your life. Well, we were talking some time ago about what was their last move in the military and what she considered one of the greatest gifts she's ever been given. It didn't have beautiful wrapping paper or bows on it. In fact, it was a dumpster! That might not sound all that exciting to you, but it was to her! She and her family had so much stuff to move, and everything they could get rid of, they didn't have to move. Someone said to her, "I've got this dumpster I'd like to loan to you for your move." Joy said she was overjoyed! She said there was something so exciting about the first thud of the first thing they threw into that dumpster. Then it was all about lots of thuds as they threw away mountains of stuff. They couldn't wait to go get more.

July 8, 2019

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It was a beautiful morning for a walk. I was on an Indian reservation in Arizona where you don't see much water, so my eyes were drawn immediately to this sparkling little pond down a short little pathway just off the road. Well, you know, I've got an explorer in me. I couldn't just walk by, so I started down that little path to enjoy that sun-sparkling water up close. Then, I... Well, I got closer and I saw the sign. The only word I really remember was "sewage." Yeah, I was about to enthusiastically explore a facility with a sewage pond. You'd be surprised how fast I can retreat when I need to.

July 5, 2019

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Rwanda. A lot of Americans had never heard of that African country until a few years ago, and then it became the scene of horrific bloodshed and a tribal war that left thousands of Rwandans brutally slaughtered. With this awful season of attempted genocide, Rwanda became a word that was written in blood. And then the challenge became to try to heal the nation. Leaders who helped South Africa reconcile its years of apartheid violence came to Rwanda to help them find a healing road like they have. Out of that struggle came a story I'm not going to soon forget.

July 4, 2019

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They keep it under glass that seals out any air getting to it. And when it's not on display, it's kept underground in a vault - actually a bomb proof vault. It's the most important document in the history of the United States. Yep, the Declaration of Independence.

The men who signed it on that hot July 4th in Philadelphia knew it was very important, but I wonder if they could have possibly conceived what a sacred piece of paper it would become to the nation that it birthed. Here were subjects of the English king, daring to declare their independence from their king. It changed their lives forever. It changed the world forever. And once a year, every Fourth of July, America stops to remember that Independence Day.

July 3, 2019

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It's amazing how you can go outside on a brutally cold winter day, and you go from shivering to sweating in a few minutes. If you just stand around in the cold or just move around a little bit, you're not going to stay outside for long. It's just too frigid out there, right! But in a very short time you can get to where you barely even notice the cold. Just start shoveling snow or some other vigorous activity. You know, my wife once was out in the middle of a snowstorm, working on some outside chores, and she told me, "It's amazing how you can work up a sweat on a day like this!"

July 2, 2019

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It was one of the causes Princess Diana was most passionate about. A little-known organization that addresses this issue won the Nobel Peace Prize. It's not an issue we think much about, but it's one that costs countless lives every year - land mines. They are the deadly leftovers of a lot of old battles, and a lot of innocent people are injured or killed by them. A land mine, of course, is not where you can see it coming. It's buried. You're just walking along and suddenly the ground beneath you explodes, maiming or destroying an innocent person.

July 1, 2019

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It was a great day for a high school football game, and I was on the sidelines helping out our local team. And then my 12-year-old son, well he was playing a pickup game on a football field nearby. And I was surprised to see him suddenly heading my way, holding his arm, and then, oh man, I saw him wincing with pain. He'd been tackled and he'd fallen on his arm. I can tell you, it was so badly broken the bone was protruding from his skin. So, we rushed him to the emergency room where I had some of the more agonizing moments of my life. Yeah, I know it wasn't my arm. I know, but I was watching the doctor struggle to set my son's multiple fracture. Doug was a tough guy, but he was in great and obvious agony. If you're a parent, you know. It might as well have been me the doctor was working on.

June 28, 2019

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Our friends had bought a new horse and named it Peanut. What kind of horse does that suggest to your imagination? A cute little Shetland Pony? Nope. Try again. Peanut was the biggest horse in their pasture. You know those Clydesdale horses in commercials, you'll have some idea of the size of this big mama. Part Belgian, part Morgan. That meant she was so big my body's probably not big enough to ride her. And they named Peanut. Something is wrong in this picture.

June 27, 2019

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My friend Ted was a high school football player - actually he was the starting center. But the game he remembers most is the one he didn't play in. All season, the second string center, Billy, hadn't played much. Well, actually he hadn't played very well. Until the day that Billy came to the coach and said, "Coach, I know you haven't felt I was good enough to start all season, but I want to ask you to start me this one game. Please. It means a lot, and I'm just asking for a chance." The coach agreed and Billy amazed not only his coach, but his teammates and his hometown fans. He played incredible game. No one had ever seen anything close to this kind of performance or ability from him. Needless to say, immediately after the game, the coach said, "Billy, what in the world happened? I didn't know you had it in you!" Billy's explanation was something the coach and my friend would never forget. He said, "My dad died last night, Coach. And he was blind, but not now. Tonight was the first time my father could see me play!"

June 26, 2019

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Have you driven past a home or building that's under construction lately? Take a good look, because there are some things you will never see again, so you'd better look now. Like the foundation for example. You can see it right now while they're building, but pretty soon all you'll see is the house, or the office building, or the condo. The foundation will pretty soon disappear from view. But it's always going to be what's holding up that whole structure. The same is true of the support beams. Pretty soon they're going to be covered with walls, and paint, and wallpaper. But they will always form the invisible support for everything. If the foundation or the support beams go, the whole thing goes.

June 25, 2019

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Our daughter-in-law got our then-baby granddaughter off to a great start - every day. In fact, if you're in any way related to one of Snow White's seven dwarfs (Grumpy, in particular) or even negative old Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh, this baby girl could have helped you. Each morning her mother would sit our little darling in her lap and say, "Honey, 'This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.'" After which she raised the baby's hands above her head and shook them as Mama said, "Ya-a-a-ay!" It was so cute. But what about that day when this little girl was throwing up about every fifteen minutes? That actually happened once when they were visiting us. It was so sad to watch it. I mean she had this troubled look on this little face, followed by a fountain of gross stuff erupting from her little mouth. Mom said, "Honey, even this day is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it." And before Mom could grab baby's hands, this time she raised one hand all by herself as Mommy said, "Ya-a-a-ay!"