Monday, December 11, 2017

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If there was one symbol of the Cold War years and a world divided between Communist and free, it had to be the Berlin Wall, of course. Some of the most dramatic images of the last half of the 20th Century involve that wall - the wall the Communists built to divide East Berlin from democratic West Berlin. There are pictures of the barbed wire along the top of the wall, the armed guards, the people who risked everything to try to escape from behind that wall, and the people who died trying. I think I was like most of the people on this planet to be honest. I mean we pretty much kind of thought that Berlin Wall would always be there. We couldn't imagine how it would ever be taken down. But go to Berlin today. The wall is gone, and it came down almost overnight. The wall we thought would always be there - gone.

Friday, December 8, 2017

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A friend of ours is an avid hunter. In fact, so much that he's been known to skip church occasionally during duck hunting season. He's well known in the church, so the pastor notices when he's not there. With a twinkle in his eye, our friend explained recently how he's prepared to handle pastoral questions like, "Where were you on Sunday?" He said he's actually named his duck blinds where he hides to hunt those birds. One he has named "The Word." The other is named "Prayer." So when the pastor asks where he was on Sunday, he simply answers, "I was in 'The Word,'" or, "I was in 'Prayer.'" That's messed up!

Thursday, December 7, 2017

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My childhood church has shown their love for our family in some very special ways, including sending a work crew to actually help make some repairs on our house some years ago - totally unsolicited. Joe was one of those "angels" that God sent. The first challenge for Joe came long before he even got to our house. In fact, it was on the drive out from Chicago. He was sleeping behind the driver's seat in the truck while someone else was driving, and suddenly he was hit with one of his recurring asthma attacks. Now, usually, he's able to get through that real quickly, but this one got a little scary for a while because he had trouble using his inhaler which he carries all the time. Here's what Joe told me. He said, "When you panic, you can't breathe, and I panicked. And you have to breathe to use the inhaler! The only way I can get what will stabilize me is to relax!"

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

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One Christmas season I saw what might have been the most impressive Christmas decorations I've ever seen. Oh, they weren't in midtown Manhattan or one of the many special displays I've seen over the years. They were in a little village on an Indian reservation in the Southwest. This particular tribe is one of the most spiritually unreached in this country. They're pretty isolated and they are a long way from anything else. When I drove through this reservation on a night one Christmas season, I was struck by the absence of hardly any Christmas lights or decorations. It was just dark! Until I reached this one particular village. Against the backdrop of near total darkness, the church there was ablaze with Christmas lights outlining the church buildings, the windows and the doors.

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

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As the Hutchcraft kids were growing up, we had an interesting system of government in our house. I had one big vote, and theoretically, my one could count more than the other. Well, theoretically that is. In reality, that didn't happen too often. One technique our children mastered in our family decision process was very skillful lobbying. For example, the kids (let's say) got wind of the fact that Mom was planning to have casserole for dinner. But they wanted pizza. So they would send our youngest as the sacrificial lamb to ask me about pizza instead. Overruled! Right. Pretty soon, I had two sons in my study asking, with their big sister, of course, managing this campaign behind the scenes down the hall. Again, "Nope! No pizza. Casserole it is." But then they would all three come together, telling me how much all of them wanted pizza. After consulting with Mom, I'll bet you know. We got pizza.

Monday, December 4, 2017

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Our friend had a medical procedure to repair what the doctor called "a hole in her heart." Then he told her that everyone is born with a hole in their heart. That got my attention. Really? I called a longtime friend of mine who is a highly experienced and respected heart surgeon. He told me that before we are born, there's a hole that is this passageway for blood to enter our pre-natal heart. In most people, and I'm glad I'm most people, the hole heals up within a few days after birth. But for a few, it doesn't go away, and it really needs to be repaired.

Friday, December 1, 2017

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Oh, I will long remember some of those thrill-packed times of my life when I was teaching our oldest son to drive. Actually, there was a strange by-product of his learning to drive-my driving improved! Over the years you can get a little careless about some of the right ways to drive, especially when you're living in the metropolitan New York area where stunt driving is a survival skill! But knowing that my son was learning to drive, I suddenly became conscious of this pair of eyes watching me from the back seat-an impressionable teenage boy watching how his Dad holds the wheel, keeps the speed limit, changes lanes, stops at stop signs and approaches cars from the rear. Those eyes had an effect. I honestly ended up driving, well, like I should have been driving all along

Thursday, November 30, 2017

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A friend of mine attended a semi-pro football game between his team, which was an Arkansas team, and the overwhelming favorites, the team from Tennessee. Actually, the Tennessee team was already playoff-bound, and much to everyone's surprise, the halftime score was Arkansas 55, Tennessee 21. At the end of the third quarter it was still Arkansas 55, Tennessee 21. An upset in the making. Not so fast. Final score – Tennessee 56, Arkansas 55 – a victory won with a touchdown in the last seconds of the game. Another one of those surprising outcomes.

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

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Ahhh, Nantucket! My wife and I had some wonderful, romantic times on that picturesque little island 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. The little village of Nantucket is just full of colonial charm. And everywhere you look you find reminders of its glory days in the whaling industry. I was surprised to learn, though, that during those glory days most of the town actually burned to the ground, right to the docks. It was a tragedy that nearly put Nantucket out of business. But it was a tragedy that never had to happen. It was an ugly, four-letter word that ultimately destroyed Nantucket, and the word wasn't fire. It's a word that's still destroying things.

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

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If you want to have a philosophical discussion about the subject of grandchildren, sorry - I'm busy. But if you want to talk about my grandson or my granddaughter, well I've got all the time in the world. I hope you do. See, if you want to discuss the institution of marriage, say goodnight. If you listen to this broadcast very much, you know there's a woman that I loved over the years very much called Karen. You want to talk about that relationship, that would be my wife, be glad to talk to you a long time about that. No-brainer! It's the difference between the institution and the person!

Monday, November 27, 2017

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Skunks are kind of cute; you just don't want to get near them. Humans seem to understand that pretty well. Apparently, some dogs just don't get it. Like the one a pastor friend of mine told me about. The dog belongs to a man in his congregation. Somehow his canine companion got into a tangle with one of those striped kitties. Needless to say, the dog reeked! His owner did his best to bathe him thoroughly. But the smell was still so strong that, before it was over, literally the poor man got so sick in the night he had to go to the hospital!

Friday, November 24, 2017

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Mike is a follower of Jesus Christ, and he's an executive with a large printing company founded on Christian principles. They had worked for two years to land this contract with a major publisher, and they got it. Mike told me about the day when their new client brought in their first job. It was exciting until he saw what it was about. It was all about horoscopes. Mike looked at his Sales Manager who had worked with him so hard to sign up this big company. Then he slid the manuscript back across the desk and said to his client, "I'm very sorry, but we can't print this. See, we try to run our business by the Bible, and this would go against what the Bible says."

Thursday, November 23, 2017

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During holiday seasons in America, and especially Thanksgiving, you can actually call the Butterball Turkey Hot Line. And, yes, you can get an answer to whatever turkey questions you may have. A famous news commentator said that they had monitored that hotline last Thanksgiving; and one lady called and she said, "I've had this turkey in my freezer for 23 years. Can I still use it?" Okay, this is a true story! The man on the hotline said, "Well, if your freezer has been set on zero degrees the whole time and it hasn't been defrosted, then the turkey is probably okay. Maybe the taste isn't though." Well, the lady decided she wouldn't use the turkey after all. She said, "I know, I'll give it to the church."

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

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I was speaking at a Christian workers' conference in Alaska, and a veteran missionary approached me afterward with some intriguing information. She and her husband have worked for many years with an Indian tribe in Alaska - a tribe that has an interesting custom. If you're from that tribe, they said you grow up learning about your backpack. It's not a real backpack, but it's a symbol of a very real human experience. The idea is that whenever you do something wrong, a rock goes in your backpack and you carry on your back all the weight of all your mistakes all your life.

Monday, November 20, 2017

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It was one of those real short nights. I had just spoken for a large youth event, and the night went late for the best of reasons: God brought hundreds of young people to faith in Christ that night. The counseling of all those kids took a blessedly long time. Now Jason, who was one of the organizers, took me to my hotel that night and he told me he would be picking me up in a few hours for my very early morning flight. I said, "I'm sorry you have to get me so early when you've been up so late." He said, "Oh, don't worry. I'll just roll out of bed, throw on a baseball cap, and come on over." (Which, by the way, I think is the major reason there are baseball caps.) Well, bless his heart, that's just what he did. When we got to the airport, I asked him if we could pray together before I went on my plane. He respectfully took off his baseball cap, and we had a neat time of prayer. When I opened my eyes at the end, he still had his cap off. And a very creative hair style - I mean, it was all over the place! He even laughed about it. The cap covered what he didn't want anyone to see-except when he was praying.

Friday, November 17, 2017

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It's a familiar scenario. A man is driving his family on vacation; let's say they're going from Chicago to California. His wife gently points out to him that she just saw a sign saying, "Welcome to Kentucky." OK, Kentucky is definitely not between Chicago and California. Repeatedly, the Mrs. suggests that Mr. stop and ask directions. Then she says that four-letter word, "I think we're lost." Oh, will he stop and ask for directions? No! Maybe it's something in the male chromosome. Like most men, he's too proud to admit he's lost, and he's probably not going to end up where he hoped.

Thursday, November 16, 2017

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It sounded like strange justice. I heard about a judge who sentenced a juvenile offender to, among other things, go watch a movie. The movie was called, "Saving Private Ryan" - a movie that critics say portrayed with savage realism the D-Day Invasion and the awful brutality of war. I guess the judge wanted that juvenile offender to see what his freedom cost the people who fought for it.

The movie also introduced a new generation to that amazing invasion that was the turning point of World War II. The mission: retake Europe from the grip of Adolf Hitler. Now how did they capture something as big as Europe? By just dropping paratroopers in the middle and saying, "We are taking Europe!"? No-o-o-o. That's what D-Day was all about-tens of thousands of Allied soldiers putting everything they had into capturing a little beach on the coast of France. That's a long way from Berlin, but it's what the military calls a beachhead...a small piece of ground that you get under control. Then you move from that to another small victory and another beachhead. So the heroes of D-Day moved from that beach to take a farm, and then a bridge, and then a village and then another village. And one day they marched into Berlin. They had conquered all that ground, not in one blazing victory, but one beachhead at a time.

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

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We attended a concert, only to learn that it was being taped for later use as a TV program. The host introduced two other men who were going to sing with him, the accompaniment track started up, and they launched into the song; cameras rolling. But they weren't all singing the same song, and that's a problem! The host stopped the song, looked up at the control booth, and said, "Guys, let's start that one over." Guess what? You're not going to see that on TV. Then he said to the audience, "Good thing this is taped, not live, huh?" He was right. I've done my share of live radio, and I want you to know, live is unforgiving. You blow it, you blew it!

Monday, November 13, 2017

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John and Becky were gone when this huge windstorm hit their neighborhood. Although no one could be sure a tornado was involved, the winds were clocked at 70 miles an hour. John and Becky told me that when they returned later that day, their street was closed. A huge pine tree had blown down, and it fell right across the road. Now other kinds of trees had lost some branches, but the wind had actually totally uprooted this evergreen. Well, a neighbor explained to John that it really isn't that hard to uproot a pine tree – no matter how big it is. Because even though it's a big tree, it has shallow roots. So, it's relatively easy to bring it down.

Friday, November 10, 2017

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Alexander the Great conquered most of the then-known world by the age of 33. One of the reasons for that was the iron discipline he insisted on among his troops. That's why a young soldier was so terrified as he was hauled into Alexander's tent to answer for charges of cowardice and desertion in battle. The general was seated at a table, and the accused soldier stood before him. Alexander said, "Soldier, you've been accused of deserting during battle – guilty or not?" "Guilty," he replied almost inaudibly. The general followed up by asking, "What's your name, soldier?" The answer came, "Uh, my name is Alexander, sir." It was at that point that Alexander the Great leaped to his feet, reached across the table, grabbed the soldier by the collar and shouted, "Either you change your life or you change your name!"