May 31, 2019

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We were speeding along the interstate in Texas, and suddenly there it was - a huge, illuminated metal cross. It just dominated the landscape, especially on the flatlands of Texas. That cross is actually 19 stories high and it can be seen from 20 miles away. They claim it's the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere. We've been by there before, but this was the first time we ever stopped and looked at it more closely.

May 30, 2019

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If you want a unique dining experience, you could try my wife's Javanese Dinner recipe. Actually now my daughter has picked up that and I had it at her house just a couple days ago. Actually it's from a friend's recipe, but man it is a smash hit once people figure out what it is. I love to see people's reactions when they see all the ingredients that get spread out in bowls on the table. Your first impression is, "What does all this make?" There's rice, there's some chicken, there's a bowl of pineapple, there's celery over there, grated cheese, onions, there's a bowl of coconut, there are almonds, a bowl of crunchy noodles, and there's hot broth. I'm hungry now. Our guests invariably look kind of dubious, but we assure them they'll love it when it's all put together. And they always do! In fact, they always come back for more. Well, I do.

May 29, 2019

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Roger was assistant manager of a buffet restaurant. He used to serve on our ministry team, and at one point he was telling me about a special memory from that job early in his working career. It seems there was a male customer who had been really abusive to the waitress. So Roger, being the ranking officer in the restaurant at the time, had the joy of trying to confront this gentleman - well, this man anyway. Unfortunately, this abusive customer was young, strong, all muscular and bulked up. And Roger, like me, well...not exactly Goliath. But he walked into the lion's jaws and he bravely asked that man to leave. Initially, the customer was ready for a fight. Then suddenly, unexplainably, this guy raised the white flag and he just left, leaving Roger a little baffled as to why this man had suddenly given up. That's when my friend turned around and saw one of the chefs who had been - unbeknownst to Roger - standing behind him all that time. And the chef, now he was a Goliath! Roger said, "Suddenly I understood that it was the big guy behind me that made the difference!"

May 28, 2019

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Occasionally my wife would flip the TV on to one of those home shopping channels. And there actually were some good deals that showed up there, and sometimes I couldn't get to the remote fast enough. One day she saw this 14-karat gold bracelet and she decided to order it. When it arrived, it looked just as beautiful as it had on television, until our then two-year-old grandson got interested in it. He saw it on a dresser. Fascinated with this bracelet, he picked it up, played with it for a moment, at which point the bracelet totally fell apart. My wife said there was one drawback to ordering from television or catalogs; she just couldn't hold the jewelry in her hand and feel the weight of it. The bracelet turned out to be very attractive on the outside but hollow on the inside.

May 27, 2019

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When World War II began, almost every American's life changed, including my dad's. He couldn't fight because of a medical problem, and he was working at that time in a plant that had been making some kind of industrial product. And suddenly almost overnight it was converted into a defense plant. They stopped making whatever little things they had been making, and they started to make airplane parts. Well, it was obvious what was happening. It was a war, and that plant had to be used to help win the war. During that time, not that I remember it personally (let me make that clear), people made sacrifices of gasoline, and food, and rubber tires, and money. Why? Well, because you know that everything is needed to fight the war. It was then and it still is.

May 24, 2019

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During a break for our hard working Native American team, we took them to an action park. Many of them were attracted to the maze at the park. We love to capture team memories on video, so one of our guys managed to find a spot looking down on the maze to shoot some video. And, it's really pretty funny because everyone is running down these twisting passageways, hoping to be the first person to find the exit. Unfortunately, most of those passageways of course lead to dead ends. So people are going full tilt, right into a dead end, hoping - even expecting - that this is the path that will get them where they want to go.

May 23, 2019

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It's one of life's great acts of faith - checking your suitcase with an airline. You see, I have flown a lot in my life commercially, and most of my bags got where I was going most of the time - but most, not all. There as a time my suitcase decided to stay in Chicago when I went to Toronto. That began a several-hour ordeal of making the rounds at the airport, trying to locate my bag.

I had carried on to the plane this very heavy, over-the-shoulder briefcase, and basically I had my office in it. My hosts in Toronto had sent a great young man named Jason to pick me up, and he was a great help. At one point, when I was waiting a long time for an agent, Jason just stood there with my heavy briefcase on his shoulder. He was slowly getting shorter as he stood there, actually. Now, we weren't going anywhere; he could have just set it down. So, I asked him a simple question, "Why are you carrying that?" He smiled sheepishly and said, "I have no idea" and he promptly set it down. He felt much better.

May 22, 2019

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It's happened too often. I've seen it a lot but I guess I remember this one in particular. Flags flying at half-staff, national leaders pausing for a moment of silence at the White House, on the Capitol steps, and even seasoned news reporters that day struggled with the pain and anguish of these devastating moments when a mall parking lot suddenly became a killing field.

The heart rending toll of a lone gunman's rampage. It was in Tucson, Arizona. Six people dead, 14 others wounded. And then in that Tucson hospital, Representative Gabrielle Giffords, apparently the intended target, battled for her life with a critical head wound.

As horrific as the losses were, thank God she recovered to some extent, we now know that there could have been many more. When the shots began, as often happens, the everyday heroes stepped up.

May 21, 2019

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Not far from us, there is a famous Passion Play, and it wonderfully portrays the life and death of Jesus. The other day I was asking one of our ministry team members what the play is like. That conversation brought back some memories of a similar play he'd been in some years ago. I asked him what part he played, and he answered a little sheepishly, "I think maybe I was typecast. I played Judas." Then he went on to explain what an eerie feeling it was to play the one who betrayed our Lord. But, then, haven't we all?

May 20, 2019

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Marie was a teenage friend of ours, and Tom was the big guy she really cared about. It was a long-distance romance since she lived in New Jersey and he lived in the Midwest. So, needless to say, his visits were pretty special. And Marie knew he was coming the very next Friday. So on Wednesday she attacked her room trying to get it under control. She was at the point where she had everything in piles covering the floor, and she was in her grubby clothes, all hot and sweaty and grungy, and her hair's all matted down from the sweat. Suddenly, the phone rang. It was Tom telling her how much he was looking forward to seeing her. No sooner had she hung up than there was the man in her life standing at the door of her room. He had called from just downstairs. "Hi, Marie. Surprise!" She was flabbergasted, she was stunned, and of course, she was embarrassed at her condition and the condition of her room. All she could say was, "I didn't expect you to come this soon."

May 17, 2019

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I was with a group of young people who had the enlightening experience of going on a Trust Walk. They got into pairs, one was blindfolded, and the other got to lead that person wherever they wanted and however they wanted for five minutes. Then they reversed roles and the one who had been led got to be the leader, while their former leader got to be the blindfolded follower. I'm actually glad we videoed it, it was really something to watch. Some led their partner by the arm, others with the follower's hands on the leader's shoulders, and some just lead with their voice. And some led very carefully and considerately. They told them exactly when to step up or down, maybe there was a curb or some stairs. But then there were those who couldn't resist taking advantage of the situation, like Matt, he led his partner into a picnic table, over the picnic table, right into a tree, and right into a toy truck on the ground. You should have heard our discussion afterwards as people were talking about how they felt about being led and how they felt about the person who led them!

May 16, 2019

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Once upon a time, the Hutchcraft family had a very little fantail goldfish, and what did our daughter name him? Well, of course, Fanny. And the time came for Fanny's murky old fishbowl water to get changed. Of course, he had to be in water while that was happening or he would have developed, shall we say, severe respiratory difficulties. So, we put Fanny into this cramped, tiny little bowl and we put it in the kitchen sink...poor little fish. He would try to swim as usual, and he just kept bumping into the sides of the bowl because the sides of the bowl came a lot sooner than usual! It really, obviously, was not fun being in that shrunken little environment, but hey, the purpose was to improve his world...right!

May 15, 2019

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We love it when we hear those stories in the news about ordinary people who come upon someone in danger and they risk their own lives to save them. And then there's the kind of story that came from Mount Everest some years ago. A British mountaineer became desperate for oxygen on his descent from that mountain. And you know, it is a legendary mountain. Ultimately, he collapsed along a well-traveled route to the summit. He was dying. And more than 40 climbers are thought to have seen him as he lay dying, and they passed him by. He died there of oxygen deficiency. But you know what? He sure didn't have to die.

May 14, 2019

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When Queen Elizabeth's mother, affectionately known to the British as the "Queen Mum," died at the age of 101, reporters did a lot of reflecting on her very special place in British hearts. A lot of it was traced back to the way she stood by and supported her husband, the king, as well as the British people during the darkest days of World War II. Night after night, the German bombers would rain down destruction on England's largest cities. London lived largely underground at night, trying desperately to hold out against Hitler's determination to conquer their little nation. At one point, there was a rumor that Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, then just little girls, were going to be sent to another country for their safety. When the "Queen Mum" was asked about that, she gave a very famous reply: "The girls can't leave unless I leave and go with them, and I can't leave unless the King leaves. And the King will never leave."

May 13, 2019

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I was speaking at a church in New York, and a couple who originally came from India greeted me very warmly. They seemed to be very much in love with the Lord and obviously in love with each other. When I asked them how long they'd been married, they said, "28 years." They didn't look old enough to have been married 28 years. Then came the second and by far the biggest surprise. They said, "It was an arranged marriage." Jokingly, I said, "Well, it will probably never last." But after thinking about what they had said for a moment, I told them, "Maybe we all should have an arranged marriage."

May 10, 2019

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Nine years old and I was oh so proud! I was proud of the gift I had just bought for my mom for Mother's Day. I picked it out myself. I paid for it with my own allowance. And I ruined it all by myself. It was a two-carnation corsage with a plastic bumblebee. I still remember it - it was really cool, especially the bumblebee. I was pushing the speed limit on my bicycle with the white florist box perched on my handlebars. You've probably got the rest right? I hit a bump, it went flying, I ran over my Mother's Day present. The flowers were crushed and so was I.

May 9, 2019

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I saw an ad for one motel chain that had an interesting slant. Apparently, they wanted to highlight how very restful a stay at their motel can be. So as you watch the front of one of their facilities, you would hear only the persistent ringing of a room phone. It would continue to go unanswered as the narrator would point out that you may sleep so soundly at their motel that you might sleep right through your wakeup call. Now, assuming the motel guest has a flight to catch or appointments to keep that day, is that really a good idea?

May 8, 2019

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Before D. L. Moody became the greatest evangelist of the 19th Century, he ran a storefront Sunday School to reach some of the street kids of Chicago. The story is told of one tough little guy who was seen on Sunday after Sunday, trudging by on his way to that Sunday School. He lived a long way from his destination. Well, on one brutally cold and snowy Chicago day, one man saw the boy walking into the wind, stubbornly making his usual Sunday morning journey to Moody's Sunday School. He asked the boy why he would make that effort every Sunday, even on a day when no one else was out, especially when he passed by a lot of churches that were a lot closer to his home. The boy's explanation was pretty clear and pretty simple, "I go there Mister, because they really make a fellow feel loved there."

May 7, 2019

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I'm pretty sure there's a five-year-old kid in all of us (for sure there is one in me), and one place it came out in me was years ago when we took our kids to one of America's major theme parks. Like a lot of theme parks, we found you had to get there very early because you have to wait for some of the most exciting attractions. The earlier you get there, the shorter the line. Of course, you can't ride all the rides simultaneously, so even the early birds end up in lines a good part of the day. Now, at this particular park, some of the longest lines are (you're going to know where it is now) for a ride called Space Mountain. You might have been there. It's basically a wild roller coaster ride through outer space in almost total darkness. When we took the kids there, I asked someone coming out how long they waited in this obviously long line. "An hour," one guy told me. An hour? Well, we did it. We even went back later and did it again. We even saw a lot of teenagers - you know, people not normally known for their patience, enduring the wait for Space Mountain. Why? Because you have to wait if you want the best stuff.

May 6, 2019

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My wife wasn't ever really very big on jewelry, but she took special joy in pieces that were family heirlooms, like an engagement ring that originally belonged to my grandmother. Over the years, the three small diamonds that had been in that ring had been removed. So, all that was left was a gold band with three empty settings. Well, my wife managed to get a great deal on some stones that she could have set in that ring. It wasn't particularly beautiful before. It's really beautiful now.