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One of the nice things about our yard there in New Jersey was the trees. One of the frustrating things about that yard was the trees. See, every fall we would take out about a hundred bags or more stuffed with the leaves that come from those trees. We appreciate those leaves most of the year, but there is a little month there where they're not much fun at all.
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For many years Americans were not very quick to catch on to soccer. It's been the world's game; not so much America's game. We did have the World Cup finals here, and for many Americans they began to understand most of what the world already knew. It's the greatest sports obsession in the world. Obsession may seem a little strong, but consider what happened in Thailand. One night during the World Cup games there the streets were empty in this particular Thai city. "Hey, the World Cup is on. Why would I be out on the street?" In fact, even the security guard at the bank left to watch the game. And while the guard and the city lost themselves in a soccer game, you guessed it. Some thief cleaned out the bank. Now, I don't know who won the match, but I know who lost their money.
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He might be America's most famous bear - Smokey! Maybe you can picture Smokey Bear right there in his blue jeans and his Park Ranger hat. He's probably holding a shovel or he's looking straight at you very soberly. And he's saying, "Only you can prevent forest fires." Actually Smokey has been a pretty effective spokesman, especially if we can think of his big line as soon as we think of him. Oh we'll never know how many fires he's prevented, but he's drilled one very important idea into our heads. Take care of your fire; it could do terrible damage.
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Man, everywhere you look guys are wearing baseball caps. And girls and women are wearing them too! More often than not, the caps really don't have anything to do with baseball! I had a friend who is a college president, and he wanted to ban them in the classroom. From school, to church, to everyday life you've got more and more people wearing those caps.
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We've all had our share of weathering recessionary economies, and sometimes it's hard to find a business that isn't hurting financially at times like that. But I have this friend, George; he's a funeral director. Dealing with him is quite an undertaking. He has an interesting approach to this whole recession thing and whenever the financial tide goes out, he just sort of cruises his way through it. Now, it's true that in a bad economy people might choose a no-frills casket over the deluxe model, but the fact is that George has a steady flow of business no matter what happens to the economy. He's not in construction for example when people might stop building houses. But people aren't going to stop dying. So George has business. He's pretty secure because he has a source that doesn't really depend on the economy. So do you.
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My wife and I were staying in this apartment at the Jersey shore for a weekend. We were going to save some money by cooking for ourselves. But, there was one small problem with the kitchen. We discovered it the first morning. We had this English muffin in the toaster. Suddenly I hear this high-pitched alarm in the kitchen. I went running out there. The smoke detector had gone off. Problem: There was no smoke, just a little English muffin cooking. It was just a little heat coming from across the room from the toaster. Oh, we got to hear that smoke alarm again several times while we were there. It was a very sensitive alarm. And the problem is because it would go off so often, guess what? Pretty soon you don't take it seriously any more.
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It used to drive me crazy in a staff meeting. I'd be going over a dozen details, and deadlines, and assignments. Invariably, the world became divided into two distinct groups of people; those who write it down and those who don't. Now, if I'm giving you instructions I don't want to see your eyes. I want to see your head down, writing something. I mean, I have to write things down. I ask our team to keep phone logs so I can know what was discussed in important conversations. Someone told me one time, "The weakest ink is stronger than the strongest memory." Well, that's true. In those staff meetings I began to notice a very distinct trend. Those who wrote it down got things done. Those who didn't write it down didn't get it all done by any means. For me, for most people, if you don't write it - you lose it.
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Some of our greatest ministry times have been among the wonderful Navajo people in Arizona and New Mexico. While we were there we had a chance to explore this majestic canyon known as Canyon De Chelly. Actually our son was there first. He and his friend, Michael, went there a year before us to do some youth outreach and later he brought his pictures out of his visit to the canyon. Here are these beautiful rock ledges and outcroppings that hover high above the canyon below. And we were enjoying these scenic photos until we got to the ones where my son and his friend Michael were acting like the college students that they were.
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You know, most of us have heard words something like this when we're going through a hard time, "Oh, I understand how you feel." Maybe you have muttered under your breath, "No you don't." One situation in which those words should probably never be spoken, are a man to a woman in labor. Yeah, that's right! Now, I've been through labor with my wife three times, but I can not say I understand how she felt. Labor is easier for some women than others I understand, but having a baby is not easy for anybody. I still remember vividly our first time around the maternity track. My wife's increasingly frequent contractions and the trip to the hospital, and then the hours of intensifying pain, and then the last most intense pains of all. And suddenly, a baby girl! Now, I know it's easy for me to say, but I know my wife would agree. It was a painful process with a glorious result. And you know, the result has lasted a lot longer than the pain.
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No one could have ever guessed the outcome. It was the first round of the playoffs for Illinois' high school football championship. There was this one team, we'll call them Goliath. They were ranked sixth in the nation; first in the state of course. When they beat teams they didn't just defeat them, they buried them. In the first round they were matched up with the team most likely to be eliminated in the state playoffs. This team had lost three games; they had just squeaked into the playoffs. We'll call them David. Final score: 14 to 13. Yeah, you guessed it! The number sixth team in the nation was defeated that day by a team few people had ever heard of. The sports writers seemed to agree that the problem with the champions had been overconfidence. Well, that's happened to number one ranked teams in college football and many other sports. It really can be dangerous to be a winner.
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We were traveling a good distance and it took a couple of days. We needed to get there at a certain time, so we had a lot of drive-through meals, and therefore a lot of fast food. That means our eating decisions were pretty simple. We didn't make them on the basis of flavor, or nutrition, or elegant surroundings. No, they were based on whoever was the fastest, the closest to the road and whatever we could eat the most quickly while traveling. Now, our sons have a really high tolerance for fast food. But even they have their limit. After a couple of days of fast food, when it was time to get dinner, even they said, "Please, let's stop at a restaurant and eat. We know we'll have to slow down a bit. We know we'll lose time. But we'd had enough fast food. It's time for real food."
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Think about what you looked like in seventh grade. You say, "Oh, no! Please, I'd rather not." Are you thinking, "Man, what a hunk I was! What a Miss America!" Probably not.
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If you live in a place like Florida for example, this word probably doesn't mean much to you—winter, cold, or furnace. See, during the summer you don't give your furnace a thought, but in the winter up north it makes life bearable. That's why when we lived in New Jersey I was not a very happy camper when I woke up and felt a very cold nose coming out of the covers. (No, I didn't sleep with a dog...it was my nose!) And I felt a cold floor under my feet where there was no carpet. And then I would peek out the window and see a very low temperature out there.
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Let's go see the meteor shower! Man, when it happens, it's all over the news. It's one of the few times the astronomers make the front page. I mean, earth moves into this dust trail of a comet that passes through, and this thing happens about every hundred and thirty years. I don't plan to be here probably the next time around. So, when that happened the last time, we went out at the prescribed time with our trusted binoculars. My son got out his telescope. He found a place where he could get away from as many lights as possible, because at that point we were living near a major city. And others went too; apparently they had read the same stuff we had. And they were in various chiropractic poses with their necks, bending back trying to see this spectacular meteor shower. Everything was in readiness, and they said on the news that there were some meteor fireworks that night. Of course, we didn't see any. Oh yeah, just about show time, these clouds decided to roll in.
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Over the years my sons didn't really ask about my upcoming speaking engagements. Well, with one exception. They always asked me when I was going to do a professional sports chapel, "Dad, when are you going to talk to the Giants...or the Jets...or the Yankees?" Well, occasionally, when the guys were little, they actually would get to go with me, and even as they were growing up. And it was great to take them along, but there were some rules.
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Missionary pilots are some of my greatest heroes. See, missionary pilots fly around the world and land places where you think a plane could never land. They know how to take their plane apart; they know how to put it back together again.
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There are certain occupations where I think you need a particularly strong self image. For example, I would think a dentist needs a strong self image. I mean, he's a professional, he's helping people, but it's just hard to have so many people dreading what you do. Or in the world of sports, like a baseball umpire? Everybody thinks they can see better than the umpire can. You can tell because they keep yelling, "Hey, are you blind?" Because they don't agree with your call. Everybody thinks they have a higher IQ than you do. They keep commenting on the intelligence of an umpire negatively just because they don't agree with him.
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I remember when our local pizza joint got new owners. We were living on the East Coast then and the new owners really turned that place into something pretty impressive. It was a fairly large restaurant. And their menu had more than just pizza on it, although pizza was fine with me.
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My wife and I were on a ministry trip to Phoenix, and much to my surprise she decided to have her gall bladder out there. Actually, it was much of a surprise to her, too. You don't plan these things. I remember that night she left dinner early, and I found her about an hour later in unbearable pain. Nothing was making a dent in that pain. Finally we went to the emergency room and they said, "Time for this gall bladder to come out."
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Rwanda - It was the centerpiece of a lot of news attention back in 1994. Bloody civil war; tens of thousands of Rwandans were slaughtered there. There were nightly images of emaciated refugees, dying of disease, dying of starvation. And children; oh, you just couldn't forget the children. Many of those kids had lost everything in the carnage.
