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.

May 3, 2019

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When you have three children, only one can be the first, of course. And that one becomes the one that all the others measure by when it comes to what privileges and treatment they should receive. In our case, our daughter is the oldest, followed by her two brothers. Now the kids could be getting along perfectly, and then suddenly the boys would learn about something their big sister got. Then I would hear the march of determined feet to my desk, followed by two boys asking in unison, "How come she...?" Followed by whatever goody she had gotten that they had not. Actually, knowing that kind of question was coming helped me make better decisions.

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 18, 2019

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I was more of a Superman and Batman fan. I never really got into Spider-Man. But when the blockbuster Spider-Man movie came out, the first one, a lot of people did get into Spider-Man. And you know what? There have been a couple more movies since then, they've got more than a couple now. I'm still not tremendously interested in this web-spinning, skyscraper-climbing, crime-fighting guy in the spider suit, but I am interested in something he said in the first movie about him. Peter Parker, yeah you probably know this as the bookish teenager who gets bitten by a radioactive spider one day. (You never know when that's going to happen to you.) And he begins to discover that he has suddenly developed some amazing spiderish capabilities. (All right, look, I'm reporting the story, I didn't write it. Okay?) Now, it dawns on him that he can't just use these abilities for himself. He has to use them to make a difference. Here's the great line. Here's what he says. I like it: "For me, living an ordinary life is no longer an option." Oh, that's good!

April 17, 2019

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Each season in the U.S. seems to bring its beauty and its unique dangers. In the spring, think tornado, for example. In the summer and fall, some of us know what the word hurricane is all about. In the mountains in winter, it's important to be aware that that season's snowy beauty may also bring with it the danger of deadly avalanches. Every winter, we hear about some people who lose their lives as these massive chunks of snow suddenly break loose and roar down the mountain. But every once in a while, we hear about lives being saved. I remember a few years ago, the rescuers were there not long after an avalanche, and they immediately started digging for survivors. In minutes, they pulled out one skier who was not only grateful to be saved, but in remarkably good shape for what he had been through. And the news reported that after that man was rescued, he didn't just head for a warm place to recover. He actually joined the rescuers, working side by side with them to save other lives. And they did!

April 16, 2019

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Today he's a respected Christian professional in our community. But legend has it that he had a strong streak of mischief in him when he was a boy, and maybe even now. An older friend from their church told me that when this man was four, his pastor came up to him at a football game and sat down next to him. And the pastor said, "Well, Mark, what have you been doing with yourself lately?" To which Mark replied with a smile, "Would you believe praying?" To which his pastor replied, "No, Mark, I wouldn't believe it." Smart pastor.