August 19, 2019

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"The wall." I don't know what you think of when I say that, it could just be the surface you're looking at across the room, it could be something that has been proposed for some of the immigration issues in our country. It could be the Berlin Wall that used to separate East and West Berlin. Look, forget all that. If you're a marathon runner, I'm pretty sure what you think of when you think about "the wall" is that point in a grueling 26-mile run where you feel like your body is shutting down and you can't go another step. You've used up most of what you body has to give, and everything in you seems to be saying, "Quit now!" But the champions don't.

August 16, 2019

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It's got to be one of my favorite plays - "Fiddler on the Roof." The story is virtually a modern classic. It tells with this incredible charm and warmth the story of 19th Century Jews in Russia. All the joys of Jewish faith and Jewish family are there, along with the pain of persecution for being Jewish. Tevye, the milkman, is the colorful father of the family; a man who is forever arguing with himself. If you're familiar with the play, you'll remember how his conversations with himself - and even with God - will go back and forth as he talks himself in and out of opposite viewpoints. Tevye will present one view, and then inadvertently he will say, "On the other hand..." and he'll talk himself out of it. He doesn't actually reach many conclusions!

August 15, 2019

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I was speaking at this beautiful conference center, and I'd actually been expecting to stay at the inn where the conferees would be, because that's where I've stayed on previous occasions. But this time they gave my wife and me the key to what they called one of their "remote cabins." Well, I asked the man in charge if everyone they sent to those cabins came back. He smiled and said, "Yeah, if the bears don't get you." Oh that's nice! Actually, it was a fabulous cabin, nestled in the woods with this spectacular mountain view. But there's limited access to these cabins. They're located on a long mountain lane, the entrance to which is unmarked and guarded by a gate. They gave us a pass that opens that gate. Apparently, they don't want anyone else following you in. I'll tell you, that gate opens for a brief time and then it closes. So get movin', buddy! My guess is that the bears? I don't think they need a pass.

August 14, 2019

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Each of our three children learned the Heimlich maneuver in school. You probably know what that is. If someone is choking, you get behind them; you do the magic squeeze to dislodge whatever they're choking on and it keeps them from choking to death.

Now, can you imagine being in a restaurant and you see someone choking on a piece of food? You stand up immediately and you say, "Is there a throat specialist in the house? We need a throat specialist right now!" Well, there is none there, so you say, "Well, I guess we have to take him to the hospital."

August 13, 2019

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Water! Drinking lots of water is good for your health. So I usually have a big mug or bottle of water in my office, a lot of bottles of water with me when I travel. My wife and I were driving one time to some ministry events, and another couple from our team was traveling with us in the back seat. And they got to be the keeper of the water, and the snacks of course. But let's stick with the healthy stuff. This little drill developed, thanks to the thoughtfulness of my buddy in the back seat. When I finished a bottle of water, I handed the empty bottle back to him so it could be dumped in our garbage bag. But as I handed my empty to him, there he was with a full bottle to place in my other hand.

August 12, 2019

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When my wife and I stuck our head out the door of our motel room one morning, we were greeted by a torrential rainstorm. Because we were driving a larger-than-usual vehicle, we had to park a distance from our room, and that meant we were in for a wet run to our vehicle. I was collecting our overnight bag, so my wife was the one who struck out into the monsoon first. For the most part, she was able to run under the cover of that motel overhang. So I took off, sprinting along the route that she had just taken. What I missed was her yelling "No!" to me as I approached a place to cross the parking lot. I missed her warning and promptly, you know, ran full speed into a huge puddle that had accumulated at the edge of the sidewalk: soaked socks, soaked shoes, squishing all day. Maybe you've been there. Oh, and my wife's feet? They were dry. Mine were soaked. The difference? She looked ahead to see where she was stepping. I didn't.

August 9, 2019

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Barber shops are interesting places to do a study of the male half of the human race. It's really "Guy's World." That's what made me take special notice of the dad who came into the barber shop with his two young daughters. They were doing fine, and it was really neat to see how the three of them got along. I smiled at that dad and I said, "Your daughters are really well-behaved. It must be interesting to have them here. It's kind of a 'guy's world' isn't it?" "Yeah," he replied. "Not much talking."

August 8, 2019

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Of course I'm too young to be having senior moments. Although I think I might have been having them since I was about 25. One of those is when you seal an envelope and you suddenly realize you left something out; maybe the check or the letter that was supposed to go in it. And you've already gone to the trouble of addressing it, putting your return address on it, maybe even stamping the envelope. This is why more and more people are just doing it on the Internet of course. But it's too bad if you did that with the envelope. You're going to have to open it up, you know, even though you sealed it. Good luck. You probably won't be able to use that envelope. Once it's sealed, it's meant to stay that way.

August 7, 2019

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Maybe it's because of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. Yeah, as a boy I watched that ancient show on TV. I was fascinated watching my Mountie hero racing across the snow with his dog team. I even wore pants that were marked "husky."

And then there was my ministry trip to Alaska one February where I got to see dog team races in the snowy streets of Anchorage. They call it the "Fur Rondy." Now, those memories reignited recently because our son retraced that trip to lay the groundwork for a historic conference for Native Alaskan young people.

August 6, 2019

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When Lee Stroebel writes a book, he brings to it all the skills and the disciplines that he learned as a journalist. Lee was a respected reporter and, by the way, an atheist. Today, he's a powerful representative of Jesus Christ and a leader in reaching people for Him. While preparing for a book he wrote, Lee interviewed a wide variety of noted people to get their perspective on Christ. One was a man who was a gifted evangelist in the 1940s, a man whose ministry actually paralleled Billy Graham's; in fact a man who was known by millions and actually expected to have a ministry like Billy Graham has had. But after he attended a liberal seminary to get more education, he shocked the Christian world by abandoning his faith. His media career in Canada gave him a lot of notoriety, and he often used that platform to express his unbelief.

August 5, 2019

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Paula really took some risks. She's a Native American young woman who was in a training program at our office. She was deathly afraid of heights and my wife and I took her out for lunch at a place called the Cliff House Inn. Guess where it is? It hangs out on the side of a mountain. When we went out on the porch to admire the view, Paula asked to go out there with us. We had to hold her hand, but she bravely ventured out and actually spent a few minutes looking out from that very high perch that's suspended over a deep valley. The next day she went with a girlfriend to a theme park, and she purposely went with her on roller coasters that she was afraid of. You know something? It turned out, Paula was not quite as afraid of heights as she used to be.

August 2, 2019

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We get our share of storms where we live, and we've got our share of trees. So, you can probably figure out the rest. After almost every storm, I make the rounds in the yard, and I get to pick up the souvenirs the storm left behind. I haul all those downed branches to my special brush pile place even if they've still got leaves on them. Look, even if I am a city boy, I know there's no use planting those branches in the ground and hoping they'll grow more leaves. In fact, those leaves they have are soon going to fall off. As soon as the branch gets separated from the tree, it starts dying.

August 1, 2019

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I arrived at our office one morning and had a little scratch on my forehead. It was pretty obvious, and most people didn't mention it. They were really nice to me. But then there are those who - like me, unfortunately - well, they hate to miss an opportunity to "bust" someone, especially me. So, of course, I heard more than once that day, "Oh, did your wife scratch you?" My poor wife took the blame. And, of course, I kiddingly went along saying, "Oh, sometimes it's the only way to keep me in line" which people thought very believable. Now here's the truth: somehow, I just managed to scratch myself in my sleep. I'm not sure what I was dreaming about. But it was all my doing.

July 31, 2019

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Why would a teenage girl go swimming in the ocean at night? Nobody knows. Well, we do know she was in serious trouble by the time the rescuers finally rescued her. It was nighttime; there were no lifeguards on duty. We were at Ocean City, New Jersey, and the only people who could help her were people who ran from the boardwalk, stripped off their shoes and some of their clothes to try to get in there and help her. Now, one person had the presence of mind to bring a life preserver. The girl who was drowning refused it. She actually fought off the rescuers who were battling this strong undertow, and then you heard this strange cry out there, "Hit her!" Sounds cruel but they thought that was the only way to save her. And they hit her. She did go under; she ended up unconscious. They grabbed her. They brought her in and finally rescued her. When I heard "Hit her!" I remembered what my friend Jim had told me. He was a lifeguard on the Pacific Coast for a couple of years and he described what he called a hard rescue. He said, "Ron, if they keep fighting a rescue, we go to our last resort. We knock them out." Wow!

July 30, 2019

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If an American soldier gets wounded in combat these days, his chances for recovery just got a whole lot better than they've ever been because of the beads. Yeah. It's actually a new technology that's being used to treat wounds - combat wounds. These dissolvable beads are applied to the wound and I guess they go deeper than any previous cleansing agents have ever gone. In fact, they can even penetrate bone. One of the doctors who helped develop this new treatment made a pretty interesting observation about the battle to head off infection in a soldier's wound. Here's what he said, "The wound is the battle; the infection is the war."

July 29, 2019

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When our grandson was 18 months old, I called him a member of the Lewis and Clark Junior Cadets. In other words, he loved to explore! He moved faster than you can blink. He was into everything and, of course, he had one basic maneuver - grab! Now, that's a little guy's way of exploring something new. The problem is some things are fragile - a concept, of course, beyond the comprehension of a toddler. But Mom did a great job of protecting what was breakable while not discouraging that explorer spirit. She taught him one word - "gentle." So when she saw the junior explorer closing in on something fragile, she simply said that important word, "Gentle. Gentle." And suddenly he slowed down and he touched his target carefully and softly. Say it with me now, "gentle." That's right.

July 26, 2019

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I have a friend who fixes bodies - auto bodies, that is. And the sign in front of his body shop always has a provocative bit of philosophy to make you think or make you smile. I have to make it a note to tell my friend about a radio commercial I heard one time. I heard this ad. They were actually advertising an auto body shop in another area. It just struck me as being a clever motto for somebody in that business. It just said, "We meet by accident." Pretty good!

July 25, 2019

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As many of us were growing up, Mom was really there for a lot more of our disobediences than Dad was. She was at home when we did our thing while he was conveniently at work. Actually, that seemed to be in our favor in many cases - you know, Mom tended to be a little easier to deal with than Dad on those discipline things. Moms often mingle punishment with sympathy, dads often mingle punishment with pain. And there was always that brief relief when Mom would say, "I'm not going to do anything to you." Yea! Judgment is cancelled! Then came that fatal next sentence, "I'll wait 'til your father gets home." So judgment wasn't cancelled. It was just postponed.

July 24, 2019

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He was a phenomenon on the American scene for well over 50 years - Dr. Billy Graham. Again and again, decade after decade, more than any other individual, he appeared on the list of America's most respected men. In the twilight of his long ministry, his crusades took on a great sense of poignant significance. His crusade in Los Angeles was near the end of 2004, and it attracted tens of thousands to the Rose Bowl, and many thousands to begin a personal relationship with the Savior that Billy Graham had proclaimed all these years. His message each night was translated instantaneously into 26 languages, including sign language. I happened to know the man in charge of translation - that's why I was closer to it than usual. Interpreters fed the translation to groups of people sitting in their language groups, hearing the translation via headsets tuned to appropriate low-wave frequencies on their little radios. It was pretty amazing! So Billy Graham's Crusades were translated since 1980, but they said never into so many languages as it was in Los Angeles those years ago. The translating coordinator explained that it was important that each person hear the message in "his own heart language."

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.