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My wife and I took a trip to the mountains and, in a way, to her childhood. We visited an old Smokey Mountain community that the Park Service preserved over the years. It's called Cades Cove. It used to be inhabited by a lot of mountain folk. Now, my wife grew up in a Yankee family who lived in the Ozarks on a farm. So she experienced both.
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I wonder what the question most asked by Christian teenagers is? I don't have any formal research to report to you today, but I have been listening to teenagers for a lot of years, and a lot has changed over those years. But I'm not sure the big question they have has. It was and continues to be, I think the most asked. It's not, "How do I have better devotions?" Or, "How can I serve the Lord?" It's, "How far can I go?" Wish I'd have a dollar for every time I've been asked that question. And they're not talking about driving privileges when they ask that question. How far can I go? Actually, long after our dating years are over, you know, that still seems to be the question we're dealing with. That's too bad.
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I remember the day we ran into some newlywed friends of ours. They just had that look, you know, hand-in-hand and grinning. The bride and my daughter started to talk excitedly about how the wedding went. When it was time to leave, I couldn't find my daughter, until I got into the van.
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I used to be at Moody Bible Institute several times a year to do some radio programs, and I was usually there on a weekend. Now, Moody is right in the heart of Chicago. If you are in the heart of any big city, you've got to think security, especially on the weekend when a lot of things are closed and there's no one working. You don't want people just wandering around your buildings then.
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I don't think Alexander Graham Bell could ever have conceived how much we would use his little invention called the telephone, or how many ways we would think up to use it! You know, some of those magic three-number prefixes that we all know so well; the 800 number, because 800 equals toll free calls, and there's 888, and there are all kinds of them now. We're pretty quick to make that call. Then there are the 900 numbers; the toll rich calls. You really want to be very slow to make those calls. Those 900 numbers can access everything from Santa Claus at Christmastime to party lines for lonely people, to pornography.
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Gym class can be a pretty unfair place in school. You've got your natural athletes, your average athletes, and your basic klutzes, like me, who are all lumped together in the same class. It's tough to get a decent grade if the teacher compares your performances. The natural athletes, of course, are going to play better, score higher, run farther than many others who are trying just as hard. And many a good student has had his grade point dragged down. Not because of a C effort in gym, but because of a C result.
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Motivation—That's the art of getting a person to do something. We're all in the motivating business. You may be motivating people to go somewhere, or to do a job, to correct a weakness in their life, to change their ways, to finish what they start, to do what you want them to do. Motivation comes in a lot of forms. You can inspire people to do it. You can threaten them if they don't do it. You can love them into doing it; put an arm around them and say, "Come on, Buddy." You can help them do it; pitch in and show them how and be willing to do your part.
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I have fond memories of family trips when the kids were younger; the adventure, the togetherness, the planning, the brochures. Did I say "and the waiting"? Yeah, there were times when the kids would be waiting in the car and waiting and waiting. They would ask Mom, "Where is Dad? Why doesn't he come out of that tourist center there?" She would respond with, "Oh, you know he's getting brochures."
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Now, it's hard to lose weight; I know that very well. But the real trick in weight loss is keeping the weight off. Years ago I dropped about 55 pounds. Oh, I didn't drop it; I mean, it went away thankfully a little bit at a time. I found out that it is possible to hang around the level of where you got your weight loss to. Of course, you can't eat grapefruit all the time, or celery, or diet bars for the rest of your life. No. That's the way a lot of people regain what they lost. No, what you've got to do is to learn new ways of eating that fit your metabolism. I call it making friends with your metabolism.
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I picked up a habit while going out to eat with my young children years ago. It's a habit I really don't need to do any more, but I got in the habit of cutting their meat for them. Now, if you're a parent, you know that you get that old knife out before you start on your own dinner and you cut theirs into bite-size chunks. The problem is that I go out to lunch with a lot of businessmen, too, and I kind of have this reflex to cut their meat. But I've never found they really appreciated that. And, you know, the principle of bite-size chunks...well, that's not a bad one. I mean, the best way to tackle a big piece is in little chunks that you can handle.
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I used to be undefeated in Scrabble. I'm sure you're real excited about that. Of course I've never heard of an Olympic Scrabble Tournament, or I would have entered it. But you notice what I said...I used to be undefeated? Yeah.
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Being my wife is a full-time job, and she does a tremendous job of it. In fact, I'm thinking of doubling her pay-I really am. Let's see...two times nothing is...Well, anyway, once in a while we will get so involved in our projects, and she's usually doing them for me, that the laundry will fall a little bit behind. As a result of that, one morning I panicked and I said, "Honey, I don't have any clean shirts!" She said, "You don't have one?" I said, "Well, I have one." She said, "How many are you going to wear today?" That's the kind of practical clarification you get from a wife. See, it is true; I can only wear one at a time. It's nice to have a closet full of shirts, but the fact is, one at a time will do it. I'm okay if I just have today's.
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I'm a newspaper man! No, I'm not a career journalist. I'm a guy who likes his newspaper. But, I have to admit I get frustrated occasionally when it's not there; which means the delivery guy has either goofed up or goofed off. See, there are many reporters all around the world who have worked to collect that news, and then there's this expensive process of getting it all laid out, and edited, and printed. And the products of all that expense and all that effort ends up on the doorstep of one probably paper boy; some guy who's going to deliver it. You know what? If he doesn't deliver it, all that expensive effort doesn't get to me...it never reaches me. You know something? We're all in the delivery business.
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The church we attended in New Jersey grew a lot over the years. So much so, that it was hard to spot visitors. So, our pastor would ask first-timers to stand and introduce themselves right where they were. He'd take one section of the sanctuary at a time, and ask the visitors to stand and introduce themselves.
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Man, having watched the old Superman TV show and some of the early movies, it's got to be tough for Clark Kent. You know, these days. I mean, it's getting harder and harder to find a phone booth to change in. But He always manages to change his identity to Superman. That's the important thing. You can't be a super hero until you change your identity. When you think about it, most of our super heroes over the years don't become heroes without that change of identity, whether it's Clark Kent changing to Superman, or it's Wonder Woman, or it's Batman. Now, that's okay for the comics, but in real life, the heroes are the ones who never change their identity.
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Did you ever do the bumper cars at the carnival? Our family loves bumper cars! When you first get in the bumper car, you start at approximately the same place. But when you step on the pedal, you take off in about ten different directions and occasionally bump into each other. That was a description of our family when we were all still living under one roof. A description of yours maybe, too? You know, a bumper car family! See, you start out at the same place in the morning, you step on the gas pedal, and off we would go in five different directions, and every once in a while we would just happen to bump into each other.
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Gary had a hotel on the Jersey Shore. It's one of those big, old rambling hotels with a lot of style the East Coast is famous for; kind of a bed and breakfast place. Now, if you had just taken over a hotel, what would be your greatest need? Well, of course, fill the rooms! How do you get all these rooms filled to pay off all that you've just invested in the place?
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You know, people in certain jobs end up being treated kind of like vending machines it seems like. Now, the state that I lived in for many years, we still had full service gas and we had gas station attendants. People just sort of drive up and grunt a couple of words to him, and then he would dispense his service, and people would drive off. Oh, of course, we did give him a little money. Waitresses—there's another one. And the checkout people at a grocery store. Well, you know what? I've got a little personal crusade to help these service people feel human again; to get them to talk. Now brace yourself...even to get them to smile sometimes. I feel like I've succeeded if they'll smile.
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One of the great chapters in the history of the modern church has been the Billy Graham crusades, reaching millions of people around the world. We were preparing for one in our area, and it was amazing to watch the Billy Graham Crusade Team move in to help us organize what was an unprecedented effort. One of our first jobs was a pretty practical one. The setup team needed housing for the year. A lot of people had ideas of what kind of places the team members should live in, but the Crusade Team, they had experience. They knew what it took to come in for a year.
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The other night I saw one of the most adorable scenes I've seen in ages. I was coming out of a restaurant, and right ahead of me was a mother and a father. In between them was their little girl who was obviously a rookie at walking. She was just learning, and she had both hands extended upward. Mom had one hand and Dad had the other. She was dressed in this pretty little pink dress. She also had this cute, frilly little pink cap on. You can kind of picture it.
