May 2, 2019

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I think it seems like, well, maybe America's spiritual national anthem sometimes. I mean, how many times during times of tragedy have we heard the same hymn? Going way back to September 11, 2001. You heard it a lot then. You hear it in police funerals, fireman funerals. It's that centuries-old hymn, Amazing Grace. For years, they've played it at the funerals of fallen policemen and firemen and a lot of everyday men and women. It's been the subject of a public television documentary. And on the emotional anniversaries after September 11, at Ground Zero, what song do those bagpipers play as they approach the site which has now become hallowed ground? Of course, you hear the haunting strains of Amazing Grace. Even for people who don't go to church or know much about the Bible or even believe much of anything, they know Amazing Grace.

May 1, 2019

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I have friends who really love to fish. So, in their honor I've got to tell you this great fisherman story. Actually, I have to credit Ravi Zacharias with it - that's where I heard it. It seems that two men were out fishing in separate boats. And the one was watched the other with this growing curiosity because he'd catch a fish, he'd keep it, then he'd catch another fish and he'd throw that one away. And he just kept doing this, you know, catch after catch. The really strange part was that it was always the big ones that he threw away. What kind of fisherman is this? Well, finally, the man watching all of that couldn't contain his curiosity, so he called out the obvious question, "How come you're throwing away the big ones?" The man answered, "Oh, because I only have an eight-inch frying pan!" Really?

April 30, 2019

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My Dad worked to make the money for our family, so my Dad decided where we went on vacation - fishing. Now some people would consider that a dream vacation, but the high-energy, ten-year-old me? No, I didn't think so. After just a little while, I was complaining. I was bored, but of course we kept fishing. Did I mention that my Dad made the money? Well, actually, we did have a good catch there and they were good eating. Catching them was fun. Eating them was fun. In between, there was this one step that was less fun - cleaning them. But for that fish to realize its culinary destiny, it had to be cleaned.

April 29, 2019

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City Boy here is a lot of fun to watch when he's trying to be Farm Boy. My wife and I were helping out in someone else's barn a while back, and the large shadow of something flying came over our heads. I hadn't seen the creatures yet; all I could see was this massive shadow on the wall. I knew my responsibility as a man. That's right, run for help! There was actually no reason to run. When we looked up, we saw what was casting those huge, unsettling shadows: yeah, some little moths, flying around the little light overhead. The shadow was scary; the reality behind the shadow not scary at all.

April 26, 2019

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"To boldly go where no man has gone before." Maybe you recognize that famous line. Little trivia test here. Well, somewhere along the way, you've been exposed to that cultural phenomenon known as Star Trek. And you know at least a little about the "voyages of the Starship Enterprise." They had this invention on the Enterprise, you remember, it's called a transporter - as in "Scotty, beam me up!" Well, the transporter sort of rearranges your molecules and beams you to another location almost immediately. But sometimes the crew would get beamed down to some unknown planet, only to be greeted by this horrific space creature. That's when it's time for "Scotty, beam me up!"

April 25, 2019

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It's one nightmare that is sure to either wake me up or ruin my sleep. I'm about to be introduced to speak at a very important gathering. I have nothing to say. I've run out of time to prepare anything, and they are introducing a man who has no idea what he's going to talk about. But, you know, I'm not the only one who has nightmares like that about not being prepared. In fact, they say it's one of the more common themes of our bad dreams. Now, what you're unprepared for depends on your situation at that point. Some people have nightmares about not being prepared for an exam, or to give a report, or to conduct an important meeting, or to have important guests arrive at your house. Whatever your thing is, that "not ready" thing is real nightmare material.

April 24, 2019

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It started out like just another day driving a school bus for Ponderosa Elementary. But that night, Kevin McKay would be hailed as "the bus driver from heaven." In between, came the most deadly wildfire in California's history.

On the morning of November 8, McKay had just dropped off his students when he saw the smoke. Ten minutes later, the evacuation order. Ultimately - and quickly - you know, the entire community would be consumed by flames. Most parents made it to the school to quickly pick up their child. But as the fire was, in McKay's words, "coming down in a thousand places," there were 22 children still left at the school.

April 23, 2019

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It was the fastest-moving, hardest-hitting, most widespread computer virus there'd ever been up to that time, and it was called of all things, the love bug. It came cleverly wrapped in an email that was designed to look like a love letter. So, of course, people wanted to open it. When the email was opened, the virus was activated, and it spread rapidly. In fact, it even sent copies of itself to everyone in the email address book on that computer. So, it jammed computers and damaged files in Asia, Europe, North and South America and companies and organizations from one end of the earth to the other. They had to shut down their email. The list included the Pentagon, Congress, and the British Parliament. Oh, it advertised love, but in the long run, it just delivered destruction.

April 22, 2019

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A ten-year-old boy who never should have waded out into Lake Michigan without knowing how to swim. Me. I can still remember the terror and the helplessness of going under for the second time. I'm alive today because someone on the shore saw me drowning. He jumped in and he saved my life.

Then there were those 33 Chilean miners, trapped for 69 days in a collapsed mine a half mile down. Remember, that rescue capsule was lowered down that newly-created shaft, and the rescuers brought every miner out alive. Or Houston. Hurricane Harvey. Whole neighborhoods, suddenly a lake - and people stranded on their rooftops. Until that rescue chopper came and lifted them to safety.

April 19, 2019

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A listener shared a story with me that's just too powerful not to share with you. A man named George Thomas was a pastor in a small New England town. One Easter Sunday morning, he got up to speak and he set a rusty, bent-up old bird cage next to the pulpit. You could tell by people's faces that the pastor had some explaining to do. He said, "Well, I was walking through town yesterday when I saw a young boy coming toward me, swinging this bird cage. On the bottom of the cage were three little birds who were shivering with cold and fear. So I asked the boy, "What you got there?" He said, "Just some old birds." The pastor then asked, "What are you going to do with them?" The boy said, "Well, I'm gonna tease 'em and pull out their feathers to make 'em fight. Then I'm gonna have a real good time." The pastor pointed out that the boy would soon get tired of those birds and he said, "What are you going to do with them then?" "Oh, I've got some cats," the boy said. "They like birds." What happened next is what puts you and me into this picture.