For several years, we had a Latin American outreach base in Mexico where our Latin American version of a youth broadcast was recorded. My limited Spanish didn't get me very far in Mexico. I mean, how much meaningful communication can you have when all you know are words like grande and mucho? "You look grande today." Well, the Director of our Latin American Ministry at the time was a wonderful translator and he was my best hope of communicating while I was there. Needless to say, I always lit up when someone was fluent in English there. I could converse unassisted!
I don't know how long Presidential candidates have had campaign songs, but I'll bet George Washington even had one! Now, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's was pretty famous, as it represented the Great Depression "Happy Days Are Here Again." Bill Clinton had a song for his 1992 campaign. In fact, he reached back to 1977 for his song "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow." They used it so much people wanted to sing, "Please Stop Singing About Tomorrow." Now I don't know how you felt about the candidate, and I don't even know if you liked the song...but it's not a bad theme for your campaign!
When our daughter came into our family, she had Mom and Dad all to herself. It was a wonderful life! Life was a little more complicated for our next child. He got to do what every second-born gets to do. He competed with the first born for Mom's and Dad's attention! He also had someone to measure everything by. Obviously, at every age our daughter could have a few more privileges, a little more money, a little more freedom. So when our son wanted a little different response from us on something, we would often hear sentences that began with the same few words "How come she gets to...?" - sound familiar? When in doubt, compare yourself with a brother or sister.
We were on vacation and just made some new friends, Bill and Darlene. They lived on this beautiful farm. But not always. When they first moved to the south, they lived in a fairly primitive cabin along a river.
I'll sure never forget my Grandmother Irene. She was one funny lady. She laughed a lot, she gave me money a lot, and she was the life of the party. Some people in our family think she was a big influence on my personality. That's not a very nice thing to say about a woman who is no longer here to defend herself, right? But there's no doubt my grandmother did have a great impact on my life. I almost never got to meet her though, because she had a serious bout with cancer before I was even born. But she made it and I got an awesome grandma out of the deal. It took some radical action on the part of the doctor to save her though. He went in and totally removed the cancer and the areas around it. It was painful, it left some scars, but I'm sure thankful that he did what he had to do to keep her alive.
There are some cities I look forward to visiting when I get a chance in this country. San Diego, California is one of them. There's just a list of things I love to see and do when I'm there. I was thinking about a particular trip prior to the invention of cell phones. (Yes, there was life before cell phones.) I was looking forward to getting out to see the sights, I was going to visit the beach, eat at a favorite restaurant there, but the meetings I attended were back to back and this happens a lot. I mean, I couldn't get out of the hotel. I mean, I hardly even got to my room! I wasn't there to see sights; I know that. I was there for ministry work, so I'm okay.
You know, a sunny winter day can fool you. You look out the window and tell yourself, "It looks warm." Then you go out there and you 'shiver your timbers' and catch a cold! But there is something that the sun can really warm even on a cold winter day.
Okay, spoiler alert. I am not talking about politics.
But, I can't remember an election where emotions have run this high. And the flood of passion is swamping the pundits. And that flood is sometimes carrying people where they never should go.
It was hard to believe. Our daughter was pregnant. My wife was going to be a grandmother! And I was going to be...married to a grandmother! Our daughter and son-in-law had a lot of fun surprising both families with this wonderful news.
Here's what my airline ticket said: Friday afternoon Ron will fly from Newark to Houston. An hour later, he will take a connecting flight from Houston to Guadalajara, Mexico. So much for what the ticket said. I was on my way to be with the Director of our radio outreach to Latin American young people. But little did I know that my flight would be delayed for a last-minute repair. Many passengers were concerned because they, too, had connecting flights in Houston and then on to various destinations in Mexico.
When I was young, I hate to say it, so was television. Prehistoric guy you know! One of my television heroes was a space explorer called Captain Video. I wish I still had his decoder ring.
The day they took me to that children's hospital for those tests, they tried to pull a Captain Video scam on me. See, I'd been born with a heart murmur, so I was in the hospital to have a series of what was then state of the art tests to see how my heart was doing.
It used to be that two armies would line up, then they would plunge into combat, and the best army would win. It was simpler then. Today it isn't necessarily the fellas with the best army who win; it's the ones with the best air force. It happened in World War II, it happened in certain Vietnam engagements, and it happened dramatically in the Persian Gulf War. I mean, the air force went in, they immobilized Iraq's capacity to respond, and then they kind of softened up the opposing forces, and there was an air war before anybody moved on the ground. And then once the troops started to move, the planes provided that vital air cover for their operations. Saddam Hussein had a big army, but he lost because his air cover just didn't function.
If you've listened to this program before, you might be familiar with the dog we had, Missy. She provided a wealth of stories for me throughout the years. She was our little, often spunky, black and white shiatsu. Oh, she wasn't always spunky, especially in the mornings. I'd often get up early before anyone else, and when I hit the kitchen there she was. A definitely "unspunky" Missy.
It was one of those ministry trips where I had to take my office with me. I had my files and I had my computer. I was going to three different cities so I had to be prepared for everything. In other words, I had a lot of luggage. There was this one garment bag that I used often and I always ended up stuffing it to the gills! I actually introduced my bag to airline agents as Big Bertha. Yeah, I named my suitcase.
It was an awful night in Paris. Many of us watched the heartbreaking scenes from those awful terror attacks in Paris, and as I watched it, my mind flashed back some 22 years. The morning after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, I was flying from New York to speak in another city. To my surprise, we were greeted by a TV crew, asking, "How are New Yorkers feeling after this attack?" Then they came to me. Let's see, first word that came to my mind, "Vulnerable." That was it. We all suddenly felt very vulnerable.
I really enjoy picking out gifts for the people I love; thinking what they like and what they need. Well, and then I enjoy giving the gift. I don't enjoy wrapping the gift. In fact, they wouldn't enjoy the gift I wrapped if I wrapped it. In fact, it's tempting just to hand them the present, but it just isn't really special to get a gift in a K-Mart bag, you know. It's nicer to have it wrapped in wrapping paper and bows, right?
If I was back in elementary school, and they asked me to write a composition on "My Summer," I'd have one word on the paper. Amazing! Because I spent it on Indian reservations with a team of 60 Native American young people who stood on reservation basketball courts, pouring out their Hope Story of how Jesus has rescued them. I had a front row seat on God's awesomeness.
At one time our offices were on the third floor of an old factory building. There were a lot of stairs, and they had a pretty steep pitch. One of our team members dropped by one day with her beautiful four-month-old daughter, Katie. Mom was tired. And needless to say, the child wasn't able to climb up the stairs to the third floor on her own. Sometimes adults could barely make it. Mom needed to carry Katie in her arms the whole way. The sight of her carrying her daughter? I hate to say it was almost amusing. Mom was out of breath as she tried to recover. But not Katie! No, she was all cute and wide-eyed. She's not sweating; she's not panting. No, she's totally relaxed, totally cool. Of course she didn't have to do any of the work.
OK, here's a quick sports quiz: How many men on a football team? Okay, I see that hand. Eleven? Yes, that's right! If it's the home team with the support of their fans on their field, someone said there are twelve players on the team. Oh, you won't find the twelfth man anywhere on the field. It's all those noisy fans cheering for the home team and trying to demoralize the opponent. In sports, those fans are literally called the twelfth man. There's one big reason at least why teams play to have the best season record so they can play at home during the playoffs. The twelfth man is a big part of that home field advantage. Those supporters never go on the field, but their influence; it helps every man there.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Power of Your Prayers."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Exodus 17. It's a true story out of the wilderness experiences of God's ancient people. Moses tells Joshua to go and fight the Amalekites who have ambushed them. In verse 9 he says, "I will stand on top of the hill. And as long as Moses held up his hands the Israelites were winning. But whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning."
The Bible says there were two men here who held up Moses' hands when he couldn't. And because of the symbolism of his upraised hands and what it really meant, which we'll look at in just a minute, it says here, "Joshua overcame the Amalekite army." What was this that was going on as Moses held up his hands? He explained it. He says, "Hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord."
That's what Moses was doing on the hill. He was fervently praying for God's warriors, and probably against the enemies of God's children. Moses was interceding on the hill. He was standing between God and God's warriors, bringing their need and their battle into the very Throne Room of Almighty God. Moses was like the twelfth man in football. He never set foot on the battlefield, but what he was doing was helping every person in the battle.
For me, this might be the most revealing passage in all the Bible as to what's actually going on when we are fervently praying for someone and praying against what the enemy is trying to do in their lives. Literally, when we are faithfully interceding for someone, they win. When we stop praying, they stop winning.
Which leads me to ask if you are the faithful prayer warrior for the members of your family, for some servants of God that He's laid on your heart, for your pastor, your church leaders? So often people will say, "Well, I guess all I can do is pray." What? All I can do is go into the very Throne Room of Almighty God and pray down His unbeatable power. All I can do is pray? There is no more powerful, no more decisive position you can play on God's team than being a prayer warrior.
And anyone can play that position anywhere: close by, far away, from a hospital bed, a nursing home, a prison cell, a room alone. Time after time I have been in situations where God's power seemed to suddenly flood in at that moment, overruling my weakness, overruling Satan's opposition, overruling impossible obstacles, discouragement, and I have seen miraculous results.
I've been on dark reservations where the battle is so intense with supernatural forces with a team of young Native Americans - our On Eagles' Wings team. And I've often said, "Lord, those people who said they'd pray for us; have them pray now." And we have seen incredible break-throughs. I know what's happening in those moments. I'm living the answers to somebody's prayers somewhere. Those people who promised to pray for us are making all the difference and actually deciding the outcome.
As you support God's home team from the stands of prayer, get excited about the decisive position you're playing. The victories are ultimately not just won by the warriors on the field, but by that prayer warrior on the hill.
When you drive in the New York area, hold on tight. Take changing lanes for example. That's a well developed art form; three or four lanes at a pop. There it goes! Now, the danger zone in changing lanes is what they call your blind spot; that one area in your rear vision that you can't see in any of your mirrors. It's pretty critical. Actually the words "blind spot" took on new meaning for my wife and me a few years ago. See, she had a blind spot. It finally cleared up, but she had vision problems. The doctor believed it was a temporary blind spot. He injected some dye to see how much of her vision was blocked. And I was surprised as he showed us the results. He said, "Now, here's the blind spot that we all have." And I said, "I do?" Right around the optic nerve there are more rods and cones to produce a visual image. So guess what? We all have a blind spot.
