I enjoy reading my newspaper. My kids enjoyed crashing through my newspaper to sit on my lap. Nowadays, it's getting harder to bother your father while he's checking out the news. You'd have to jump on his iPhone.
Anyway, I could relate when I heard about this little guy who kept interrupting his dad while he was reading his voluminous Sunday paper. For a while, Dad was able to buy a little time by saying "pretty soon, Son." But eventually, Son wasn't buying it.
My daughter and I hugged a lot when she was little. Even when she got to be a grownup college student, we would still declare "hug alert!" Sometimes, when I hug my daughter, she'll say, "You smell like Daddy." Now, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Now she hugs other men, of course – her husband, most of all...her brothers. She tells me they smell like themselves, too. I guess it's good that I smell like Daddy – I'd hate to smell like someone else. The fact is that people actually do have a distinctive aroma, whether it's pleasant or unpleasant. And we remember the smell they leave behind, don't we?
The youngest of our three children had the opportunity to observe what worked and what didn't work for his older brother and sister - especially when it came to getting or not getting their way in their social life. By the time he reached junior high, he had developed a very interesting approach to getting a "Yes" to what he wanted to do with his friends. He would come to us, he would lay out a thorough plan, let's say for this Friday night. He told us which five friends were going, where they were going, whose mother would drive them there, whose mother would drive them home, what time they would leave, what time they would get home. We had everything but photo IDs of the kids who were going. Although, I'm sure he probably would have supplied those upon request. Obviously, there was one problem with this exquisite planning. We weren't consulted until the plans were complete, and a "No" to him would be a "No" to five friends and two drivers! As a father, I'd give that boy an "A" for initiative, but an "F" for checking with your father before your plans are almost irreversible!
It was during the Gulf War, shortly before the ground troops attacked Saddam Hussein's forces in Desert Storm. Everyone knew he had large stores of chemical weapons and that the Allied soldiers were in danger of those weapons being unleashed on them. I saw this interview on television back then. It was with an American soldier who talked about the training the troops were receiving in chemical warfare. Here's what she said, "You know, it's funny. They taught us about chemical warfare in basic training, but no one paid any attention. But now, well, everyone's really paying attention, taking notes, asking questions."
Anne had ridden her mountain bike through a California wilderness park a lot of times before, but the ride this day would change her life. She was attacked by a mountain lion that hours earlier had killed another biker. As the cat literally held her in his jaws by the back of her neck, all she could do was pray. Humanly speaking, her friend Debbie was her only hope. Debbie jumped off her bike, grabbed Anne's leg, and screamed for help just kicking at the mountain lion. Thankfully, Debbie's screams finally brought the help of some men who had been biking with them. Debbie continued to hang on as the men pelted that lion with rocks. Suddenly the animal released his victim, and Anne's life was saved. Debbie just gave everything she had to keep the promise she had made to her friend in the middle of that struggle. She just screamed, "I'll never let go of you!"
I guess after you've lived 94 years, you have a right to forget some things. And a lot of elderly people do. And some of us not so elderly. My wife's grandfather was 94 and had reached the point of not even recognizing some of his family. It's a small family-just one son and two granddaughters, including my wife. My wife called her Granddad one day and she spoke loudly so he could hear, and she said, "Hi, Granddad. I love you." And she identified who was calling. There was no response for a moment-then almost irritated; he said "Who is this?" And she identified herself again, and she said, "You know, you have one son who had two daughters. I'm the oldest daughter. I love you, Granddad." Well, this time he just chuckled. He had no idea who this strange woman was saying she loved him. I just love my wife's response, "Well, Granddad, the most important thing is this-Jesus loves you." To which Granddad responded-"Now Him I know!" I love it!
If I wanted a picture that screams "Resurrection!", "Life!", "Easter!" - I'd go to Death Valley. Well, this year at least, because all of a sudden it began to look like "Life Valley."
Several of our team members were driving together to ministry events in a nearby state. We were in two cars, but we stayed in touch by means of walkie-talkies. At a couple of points, one of the men in the car behind me pointed out a hawk that he spotted soaring gracefully over us. We saw several of them, actually, on this trip. Now, when you see a hawk or an eagle, it is kind of always an event for a city boy like me. But as my friend – who was not driving at the time - pointed out one of those hawks, the man who was driving said, "Well, I just saw a dead coyote on the shoulder." As our walkie-talkie conversations went on during that trip, that wasn't the last hawk the one man saw – or the last road kill that the driver saw.
Our son, over the years, was a dedicated baseball card collector. I mean dedicated. He was even dealing for baseball cards on his honeymoon! Hello. But it was worth it. He met a man who was selling his entire collection. So our son bought it for about $300 and when he started going through those cards, he started to get really excited - not that those cards were any match for his beautiful bride, of course. But he began to find single cards that were worth more than the price he had paid for the entire collection! Later, when he needed some money for equipment for a Christian band, he sold a lot of those cards - for 10 times the amount that man had sold it to him for! That man had no idea how much what he had was worth! So he let it go like it wasn't worth, really, much at all!
Did you ever notice what great scorekeepers kids are? They are really adept at measuring how they're being treated compared to the other kids in the family, right? Our oldest child was followed about two years later by her younger brother. It was our son who introduced me to this scorekeeping aptitude that children have. He had this simple 4-word question. "How come my sister...?" Which would always be followed with his presentation of some perceived injustice in how we were treating him compared to how we were treating his sister. She apparently got something good that he didn't get or he got something bad that she didn't get. When I was on a trip, I sure thought twice when I was buying gifts for my children. I knew that any hint of favoritism could get me in big trouble.
The love of Mary Ann's life, Tom, was coming for a visit. He lived in another state, so those visits were really special. He was due to arrive Friday night or Saturday sometime, and Mary Ann's room had been declared a federal disaster area. Finally, on Thursday afternoon, she decided she'd better get busy trying to recover her room. It was really in an embarrassing condition. You know sometimes you have to make things messier, of course, in the process of getting them put away or thrown away.
I'm so glad we have lots of things around our house that bloom when Spring pushes out Old Man Winter. Now, if you have allergies, you probably don't look forward to Spring, but I hope you can at least enjoy some of its extravagant beauty. And it isn't just things to see.
She must have been scared to death. She wasn't a public speaker, but that day she agreed to speak to 70,000 people in a football stadium in the Northwest. It was the last day of Billy Graham's Crusade in her city. And he had asked her to read a letter she'd received from her son. It was the end of the first Gulf War, and the troops were coming home; except for a relatively few American soldiers who weren't coming home and her son was one of them.
It was a fogged in morning at the country house we were using for our vacation. The valley below us and the mountains beyond us were nowhere to be seen. In fact, you couldn't see much beyond the front porch. But by about 10:00 A. M., the sun started doing its thing. I was sitting there literally watching the mist being sucked upward and up and away by the heat of the sun.
I don't think I've ever "teared up" during a President's State of the Union Address to Congress - until that unforgettable moment during President George W. Bush's State of the Union early in 2005. For me, it had absolutely nothing to do with politics. It was just an intensely human moment that almost transcended politics.
Laura Ingalls Wilder was the American author of the popular series of books called the "Little House" books. However, her name only became a household word after her death after the "Little House on the Prairie" became the #1 TV series in America. Even though the series has been off the air for years, you can still find it just about any given day in any American city. And Laura's books about her family's life on the frontier have sold far more after her death than when she was alive. And as you read those books, you find that Laura really was a gifted storyteller. In touring the home where she wrote them, we learned one of the reasons why she was such a good story teller. As the TV series portrayed, her older sister went blind as a teenager. And Pa Ingalls told Laura she now had a mission - to be her sister's eyes, to put into words what was going on around them. That gift would later help her tell the stories that would touch the lives of millions.
It was almost nighty-night time – which is always a challenge when a grandma is sitting on the babies – I mean, well, we call it babysitting I guess. My favorite grandma was babysitting our five and two-year old grandsons at the time and reading them a night-night story. That's when the thunderstorm decided to really start doing its thing. I mean big thunder! Big lightning! Big grandson eyes! I would have helped, but I was under the bed. Now, my wife is a very resourceful person. She said, "Hey, guys, did you know that every time you hear thunder, it's time for a thunder hug?" Well, they were eager to feel Grandma's hug right then. And a few other times that night. I even came out from under the bed for one. You know, the sky would roar and they'd come running saying, "It's time for a thunder hug!"
I had just finished speaking for a Christian leaders' gathering that was part of the countdown to a Franklin Graham Festival. The setup team there was in their early days of working together on this massive mobilization. The team leader thought it would be a good idea to get his team together for a few minutes after the meeting ended, and he invited me to join them. Then he handed me a cluster of helium balloons tied together. Suddenly, I felt like I'd gone from speaker to circus clown. And, you know, I've read Winnie the Pooh stories to our kids enough that I couldn't help but picture Pooh Bear being carried into the sky by a bunch of balloons like that.
La Conchita, California – a community sitting on this narrow strip of land between the Pacific Coast Highway and a steep cliff. In 1995, 600,000 tons of mud collapsed and buried nine houses there. Well, thankfully it moved slowly enough that everybody was able to get out alive. Well, not this time. In January of 2005, a chunk of the 300-foot bluff that towered over the town collapsed with a loud roar. In moments this sea of mud had crushed 15 homes and damaged 16 others. One man who missed the mudslide because of a quick trip for ice cream ran back to his buried home and began frantically digging for his wife and family with the rescuers. Tragically, they were some of those who died in the mudslide. It had been such a nice place to live; such a deadly place to live.
I'm not much of a photographer, but I'm married to one. A number of years ago, I was able to open doors to minister to our local football team by being on the sidelines and shooting pictures of them in action. Well, my wife gave me a crash course in photography, and the one thing I had to learn fast was how to focus my lens. See, I was shooting from all different angles, all different distances. If I said, "Well, I'll just focus my lens for the first photo and leave it like that," I would have had a pile of blurry pictures and not many friends on the football team when they came looking for a picture of themselves. See, the picture kept changing, so I had to constantly refocus for each new situation.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Focus That Sinks You."
What you focus on in any given situation will determine your attitude and ultimately your response, and quite possibly your outcome. So, it's important that you fill up your lens with the right thing. That you ultimately, of course, focus on Jesus and not on the circumstances. But your heart and your mind are a lot like my camera-you can't just focus once and leave it set there and think it's going to stay there. The picture keeps changing, right? You have to get back in focus for each new situation.
There's a memorable example of this in our word for today from the Word of God in Matthew 14 beginning in verse 25. The disciples were out on the lake in a sudden, violent, life-threatening storm. And then, the Bible says, "Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw Him walking on the lake, they were terrified. 'It's a ghost,' they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: 'Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid.' 'Lord, if it's You,' Peter replied, 'tell me to come to You on the water.' 'Come," He said. "Then Peter got down out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus."
Wow! Peter had his mental camera focused completely on Jesus and he was unsinkable. But then things slipped out of focus. The Bible says, "But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink cried out, 'Lord, save me!' Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him. 'You of little faith,' He said, 'why did you doubt?"
Well, there I am. There you are. Focused on Jesus, walking where we could never walk otherwise. And then focused on the storm, the circumstances, our fears – going under. That's why we need to constantly refocus on Jesus, because we keep slipping out of focus. We get halfway there, and we start looking around. We lose our focus on Jesus.
Let's say, for example, you start your day praising the Lord, really hanging onto Jesus. But throughout your day, there are just so many distracting problems and temptations and pressures and emotions and people. And it is so easy to focus on those stresses and those issues. And suddenly Jesus has become this kind of blurry figure in the background.
Over and over, we need to stop and consciously get our eyes back on Jesus-to breathe and just say, "Jesus is Lord." "Jesus is first." "Jesus is in charge here." "Jesus has got this." Often I'll find myself stopping several times a day when the winds have suddenly picked up and saying those three peace-producing words: "Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord."
Satan's great strategy for sinking you is to get your eyes off Jesus because he can beat you, but he doesn't stand a chance against Jesus. So keep readjusting your focus. Keep Jesus always in the foreground, clearly in focus. Remember, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace."
