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Wednesday, November 21, 2018

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They're just pieces of cardboard, but some of them are worth hundreds, even thousands of dollars. We call them baseball cards. Actually, our son got interested in them when he was a little guy, and pretty soon they became a pretty serious investment for him. He really knew how to, well like they say on Wall Street, buy low and sell high. Because he watched up-and-coming players, then he would get the rookie cards of some of those players who later became major stars, and there aren't many of those rookie cards out there. So they're rare and they're valuable. Lest we trivialize the baseball card business, I want you to realize that it helped pay a significant part of our son's way through college. I remember when he told me as a teenager, "Dad, I know my room is a mess, but there's one thing I take care of-my baseball cards." That's true! His valuable ones were neatly organized in these plastic folders in these carefully guarded notebooks. And the reason most of those cards were high value was very simple. You know. They were rare!

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

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Look, sometime in your life, somewhere you've probably run into a waiter or waitress with a stinky attitude; maybe even two or three. But a lot of times you can't blame them totally, if you see the way a lot of them get treated in a day's time. They're not America's best treated people unfortunately. Maybe that's why I've made it sort of a personal crusade to brighten their day a little bit by remembering their name, smiling, saying thanks and sometimes even goofing off with the server a little bit. Sometimes, when they come back during the meal they ask, "How is everything?", and I'll say, "Oh, wonderful! You're a great cook!" It's always fun to watch their response. Usually they just stop cold for a minute. Sometimes they'll laugh; sort of embarrassed, you know, and they'll say, "Oh, I don't cook it!" I know that. They're delivering what someone else created!

Monday, November 19, 2018

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Some of our great moments as a family have been spent watching those old videos, which now thankfully have been converted them to DVDs. Yeah, they are at a time when we were all a lot younger. For a while, our firstborn had the camera all to herself. Then we added a co-star-her brother. Then along came another subject for the lens-a baby brother! And, of course, some of those camera-worthy moments are when your baby or toddler is winning some of their first victories, right? Doing some of those things that are irresistibly cute. You know? So often the camera was focused on our daughter's little brothers. So you'll be watching one of them doing some adorable thing when suddenly this five-year-old girl jumps into the picture, waving and smiling right into the camera, blocking the view of everything else. It's almost as if our daughter was saying, "Hey, remember me? I'm over here! Don't forget me!"

Friday, November 16, 2018

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Chimney Mountain! I had to get to the top! Why? Because it was there! Of course, I had to drag my young family into this obsession with me. One vacation day, I made that "Daddy's Great Adventure for the Day." Well, it wasn't a steep hike; it was a trail through the woods that gradually took you to the top of the mountain. As we walked along, my wife and the kids kept noticing little things...like chipmunks and squirrels and flowers and interesting rocks. Of course, whenever we noticed one of those little things, we had to stop; which was not my favorite thing to do. I had a goal, folks, and chipmunks and interesting rocks didn't help me get to it. Nope! At one point, they stopped us just to listen to the wind blowing through the tall pine trees. Isn't that wonderful? But not if you want to see the top of Chimney Mountain before sunset. Finally, my frustration made it to my mouth, "Honey, the reason for this hike is to get to the top. Don't you understand?" To which she said something like this: "Oh, I thought we came to enjoy the hike." Great! I was interested in the result; she was interested in the process!

Thursday, November 15, 2018

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A lot of news stories just flash into our lives and and we forget them almost immediately. Then there are those images that are like embedded in our brains for years to come. For me, one of those was an image that took place of a little toddler named Jessica, who had been playing in her backyard in Midland, Texas, and suddenly she plummeted down this narrow little shaft. Depending on how old you are, you may or may not remember this. But she was wedged in there; trapped underground. It seemed as if the whole nation literally stopped to watch this tense vigil as rescuers tried to find a way to save that little girl. It was a long ordeal, but one rescuer, who used a parallel shaft, working in the tightest of quarters, was finally able to get to little Jessica. And I can still remember seeing it on TV live. In a moment of incredible relief and joy, he brought her out.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

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Jeremy was a young man who worked in our office every year after he got out of college, and then he became a veteran of our On Eagles' Wings Native American team. But something was different this particular year for him - a woman! Yes, a woman in Jeremy's life! And, believe me, it was no secret. He started telling us all about her as soon as we saw him again. The romance had just developed in the weeks preceding, and there was nothing he would rather talk about. She lived quite a ways from where we were, and the more he talked about her, the more he wanted to be with her. At first I was kind of amused by this young love, until I remembered that was me not so many years ago, telling anyone who would listen about the woman I loved. By the way, I still like to talk about her - I do.

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

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I was in the room when my friend Bob went up to the speaker for the day and made a fairly startling statement. He took his three young children with him, pointed to them, and said to this speaker, “If it weren’t for you, these children wouldn’t be here.” Needless to say, the gentleman looked at him curiously. But that was not an overstatement.  And it attested to a dramatic miracle that my friend had experienced.

Monday, November 12, 2018

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The wind was blowing so hard that day, I was afraid someone was going to end up in Oz; and this isn’t even Kansas, Dorothy. I was in my office during one of those blustery hours, but you could not miss the roar outside. At times the winds were approaching hurricane force. I mean, they were knocking out electric power to many customers, they’re tearing branches off trees, and in one case while we were still living in the northeast, it was causing the deaths of four schoolgirls in New York City. They were actually in their church-school van when a 60mph gust whipped down the street, uprooted a 68-foot high maple tree, which fell on the van, killing those girls instantly. But the next day the mayor suggested that this was a tragedy that did not have to happen. Several months earlier, a nearby sidewalk had been paved without a permit, and that possibly weakening the roots of that tree. So, it may not have been the storm that caused the tragedy; it might have been the weakened roots.

Friday, November 9, 2018

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When we were involved in building a new headquarters for our ministry, I have to confess that was new ground for me. I've been involved in building people my whole life, but not buildings. It became very clear that there is a specific order in which you have to do things. Obviously, you don't just start by having the carpenters show up and start putting up the building. No, there has to be a foundation laid first. But whoa, wait-you can't lay the foundation or start building until you have the detailed plans for the building. Yes, it takes contractors, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, pavers, and heating and air conditioning people. But first, the architect! Without his design, it's going to just be mass confusion at the construction site. But thankfully, God gave us a gifted architect who could lay out a detailed plan. And you know what? Things worked really well because everyone was going by the plan.

Thursday, November 8, 2018

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I felt like the Big Bad Wolf in that story of Little Red Riding Hood; the part where he's masquerading as grandma. Little Red says, "What big eyes you have!" That was me the day I left the ophthalmologists' office. He had put dilating solution in my eyes for an eye checkup. Well, the checkup was over, but somebody forgot to tell my eyes. They stayed dilated for the next couple of hours. And everyone said, "What big eyes you have!" It wasn't much fun. Even though it was basically a cloudy day, I was squinting and I was trying to cover my eyes. With my pupils so big and so wide open, the light was blazing right into my eyes. I wasn't missing anything and it was blinding!

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

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O.K., let's put away all the junk food snacks for a minute and reach for a healthy snack today. Yes, it's time for some fresh fruit. It could be an apple, an orange, a pear, but the next time you eat one, would you look for the example on the inside? There is one. Oh, I wouldn't recommend you eat that entire apple; you'll probably want to stop when you get to the core. But notice what's there in the middle of that apple. Yep, seeds that can make another apple!

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

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It was some years ago when we heard unsettling words on the evening news, "airline pilots strike." Man, I hate words like that! The threat of my particular airline and its pilots going on strike? Well, it threw everyone affected by it into a tailspin. (I guess that's a bad example.) Panicky travelers were scrambling to double book their reservations on another airline just in case. Resort areas serviced by this airline began to add up the zillions this might cost them. The White House started adding up the devastating financial cost on the economy-so much so that the President actually stepped in to at least delay the strike. The simple fact is, planes aren't going anywhere without pilots. If they don't show up for their job, it just gets real crazy real fast. 

Friday, November 2, 2018

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Our family was staying in, well, as the camp song says, "a little cabin in the woods." As soon as we got unpacked, our seven or eight-year-old son went for an exploratory bike ride up the trail. When he returned he got going a little fast, and then he hit this patch of gravel right near the cabin. The bike spun out from under him and he hit that ground pretty hard. When he got up, there was a lot of blood around his mouth. He had broken a tooth and it punctured his lip. So, we raced him to a hospital emergency room where they fixed him up with a few stitches. Now, he took the second bike ride that day. That was the tough part; especially after what had happened on the first bike ride. But his Mother and I encouraged him to get right back on his bike. We knew if he didn't, it might take him a long time to get the confidence back to ever ride again. Well, sure enough, the boy bounced back. In spite of his fall, he decided to ride again and he kept riding for many years after that. 

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

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A lot of great sights to see in New Orleans. But it's hard to think of New Orleans for very long without remembering Hurricane Katrina and the devastating wind and waves that so wracked that city. Afterwards, one fact became clear: the single greatest cause of death in New Orleans' darkest days didn't come so much from the storm, but from the levees that couldn't hold back the waters of the storm. The walls around New Orleans just weren't strong enough to withstand a high-magnitude storm.

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

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We had three children, two boys and a girl. Our boys had the privilege of growing up with a sister. Did they always get along with their sister? Silly question! Of course not. But if it ever looked as if anyone was going to hurt their sister, oh, stand back folks! I mean, they even insisted on the right to approve the guys she dated; they wanted veto power. Almost no one was good enough for their sister. They didn't want her to be with anyone who wasn't going to be good for her. I guess if you're a brother with a sister, you know what I'm talking about-this strong instinct to protect your sister or eventually any woman you care about, from anything that could hurt her.

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

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When our friends heard that our family had been invited to Alaska for a week of ministry, they were all excited for us. They said, "Oh, it's beautiful, you're going to love it! When are you going?" "February." "Oh." See, I get invited to places like Florida and Arizona in the summer, and Alaska in the dead of winter. We had a wonderful week, but the time came for my wife and kids to fly home because they had to get back to school, and I stayed for several more days of ministry. We were out on the Kenai Peninsula, in an area that felt fairly remote. We arrived at this small airport one night to rendezvous with our pilot. Dick was a missionary pilot, trained by Moody Bible Institute's top-flight pilot's school and he was experienced in flying into many remote areas of Alaska. But that night his cargo was the people I love most. My first cause for a little worry was his request to help him push the plane out of the hangar and onto the runway. That was new! Yeah, and it was icy. I had never pushed my plane into position before. I didn't like that runway. It was covered with thick, deeply-rutted ice from one end to the other. And at the end of this fairly short runway was a big stand of trees you could run into. Oh yeah, and it was heavily overcast-no moon, no stars. Well, I helped my wife and three children crowd into Dick's little Cessna, I waved good-bye as they started bouncing and maneuvering down that icy runway. I really didn't like the conditions, but I was okay because I really trusted the pilot.

Monday, October 29, 2018

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It happened decades ago, but it's one of those events I'll never really forget. It happened in Chicago where I grew up. It was the most devastating tragedy most of us would remember from that time. It was December 1, 1958, and a fire broke out at the foot of a stairway in the Our Lady of the Angels School. That fire raged out of control very quickly; it cut off all normal escape routes. Ninety grade school children died in that fire. But there's one I remember vividly from a news account that I read at the time and I still have not forgotten it. This little boy was in a second story window-they actually had a photo of him. The boy's father was down below, yelling to him to jump into his arms. That boy could see the fire racing toward him from behind, but he refused to jump. Then, one awful moment, the boy disappeared from the window. He was one of those victims.

Friday, October 26, 2018

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I grew up on the south side of Chicago, and honestly we did not have a lot of sheep running around. So I listened with fascination when I heard my father-in-law tell about being the shepherd for his family's flock of sheep. He was just a boy, he was the only child, and Mom and Dad left the sheep pretty much with him, and he was with them a lot. One day he and his parents were watching the flock and he said, "Would you like me to call one of them out?" Right, kid. Like one sheep is going to know it's him you want? So Mom and Dad kind of laughed. The little shepherd asked them to pick a sheep they wanted called out, and then he made a little bleating sound and the selected sheep proceeded to leave the flock and come right to him. Mom and Dad were still skeptical. So he said, "OK, pick another sheep." And they did. Another bleat, and Mr. Sheep answered the call. And no one else could get that kind of response. That little exercise was repeated several times, until there was no denying the amazing fact: those sheep had such a personal relationship with their shepherd that his was the only voice they followed.

Thursday, October 25, 2018

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If they ever ask me to be a participant in those Nielsen ratings of who's watching what TV show, they'll probably find me watching the Weather Channel more than a lot of viewers. Oh, not necessarily because I'm intrigued with low-pressure systems, or barometric readings, or cumulonimbus clouds, (See, I do watch.) but because I want to see my future in the places I might be traveling to. But sometimes, they don't have the weather on. I remember a while back they had a primetime documentary show called "Storm Stories." Now while the story of a storm that happened twenty years ago isn't going to help me plan for tomorrow, the stories were pretty dramatic. They often featured amazing accounts of the people who survived major weather disasters-and the people who didn't. It was especially interesting to see what steps would help you to be a storm survivor rather than a storm victim.

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

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She was one of the most admired women in the world-Mother Teresa, that angelic woman who devoted her life to the least of the least in the slums of Calcutta, India. The world's greatest leaders wanted to meet her and to experience her love and her moral authority. And actually, she was just a diminutive woman who made such a difference in the world. Some years ago, a young man wrote a letter to Mother Teresa, asking her how he could make his life count as she had with hers. He waited six months for a reply from this very busy lady. When it came, it was just a postcard with just four words on it-four very powerful words-"Find your own Calcutta."

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