Thursday, April 1, 2010

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I was scheduled to speak at an Easter Sunrise Service not far from the home where we were staying. Since I was leaving before anyone else in the house, my hostess gave me verbal directions to the park; directions which really weren't all that complicated for most people. I shot out of the driveway in a big hurry to get where I was going. I turned in exactly the wrong direction. Later, our hostess told me; actually, she also told everyone at the service where she introduced me, that I was driving all around this complex of buildings near their home instead of heading down the road to my destination. Meanwhile, she was in her yard, waving her arms frantically, trying to get my attention as I, in my obsession with figuring out where I was going and getting there, blew right through a stop sign and kept right on driving in the wrong direction.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

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I was teaching at a national seminar on how to communicate an unchanging Christ in our rapidly changing culture. Well, at the end of a session, a pastor from Kentucky came up to tell me a story that he thought really illustrated some of what I had been saying. He said, "When I was a young man, we used to have some big tent revivals in my community. Each night an invitation was given for folks to come forward if they wanted to be, well as this country preacher said, 'borned again.'" The pastor went on to describe how some of the deacons would actually go out into the audience and go row-to-row to, shall we say, to "encourage" folks to make that choice. Near the back, one of the deacons came to a young man who gave him an honest and memorable response. The deacon said, "Son, do you want to be borned again?" To which the boy said, "No." The deacon pressed the point, "Why don't you want to be borned again?" The young man answered in all seriousness, "Cause I'm afraid this time I'd come out as a girl!"

Friday, March 26, 2010

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Before D. L. Moody became the greatest evangelist of the 19th Century, he ran a storefront Sunday School to reach some of the street kids of Chicago. The story is told of one tough little guy who was seen on Sunday after Sunday, trudging by on his way to that Sunday School. He lived a long way from his destination. Well, on one brutally cold and snowy Chicago day, one man saw the boy walking into the wind, stubbornly making his usual Sunday morning journey to Moody's Sunday School. He asked the boy why he would make that effort every Sunday, even on a day when no one else was out, especially when he passed by many churches that were much closer to his home. The boy's explanation was pretty clear and pretty simple, "I go there because they make a fellow feel loved there."

Monday, March 22, 2010

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Jeremy was a young man who worked in our office every year after he got out of college, and then, a veteran of our On Eagles' Wings Native American team. But something was different this particular year for him - a woman! Yes, a woman in Jeremy's life! And, believe me, it is no secret. He started telling us all about her as soon as we saw him again. The romance had just developed in the weeks preceding, and there was nothing he would rather talk about. She lived quite a ways from where we are, and the more he talked about her, the more he wanted to be with her. At first I was kind of amused by this young love, until I remembered that was me not so many years ago, telling anyone who would listen about the woman I loved. And still do.

Monday, March 1, 2010

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It's hard to find any "good news" in the bad news of being diagnosed with cancer. But Ellen did, and she told me about it after a recent seminar I led in her area. I'm really excited about how God is using our A Life That Matters training events to help everyday believers help people they know be in heaven with them. Ellen told me she'd read my book about that when it came out, but she didn't really look for or see many opportunities to tell people the good news about Jesus...until she got cancer. Suddenly she was in the middle of many people who in her words were "facing their own mortality; people whose future was suddenly uncertain because of that chilling word - cancer. Now, because of what she was going through and they were going through, her cancer strangely qualified her to share the Christ who died and rose again to get us ready for eternity. Ellen said, "I went back and re-read your book so I'd know what to do." God has used Ellen in a powerful way. She said, "Ron, I've led so many cancer patients to Jesus - people from many different religions and people with no faith at all!"

Thursday, February 25, 2010

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It wasn't the first time they'd had problems with the space station, but this one was pretty serious. There are four gyroscopes that the space station really depends on. One had been dysfunctional for a while. But now a second gyroscope had gone down, leaving the station and its crew all too vulnerable. With no backup now, one more gyroscope failure and they would be in big trouble. NASA hustled to find a solution because the gyroscope performs an essential function for that platform in space. It keeps it pointing in the right direction so it will have the power it has to have.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

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Okay, let's put away all the junk food snacks for a minute, and let's reach for a healthy snack today. Yes, it's time for some fresh fruit. It could be an apple, an orange, a pear, but the next time you eat one, would you look for the example on the inside? I wouldn't recommend you eat the entire apple; you'll probably want to stop when you get to the core. But notice what's there in the middle of that apple. Yes, seeds that can make another apple!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Fruit With Seeds."

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

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No one has ever claimed that sheep were the smartest animals on earth. A few weeks ago, in a village in Turkey, they lived up to their not-so-bright reputation actually. One sheep wandered away from the flock to the edge of a nearby cliff, and he decided it would be fun to jump off. Of course it was the last thing he ever did. Suddenly, all the sheep decided to play "Follow the Leader" and 1,500 sheep leaped off that cliff to the rocks below, creating at the bottom the world's largest sweater. Actually, it was no joking matter. The town lost more than $100,000 in the great sheep massacre.

Monday, February 15, 2010

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The Valentine our four-year-old grandson got from his grandparents must have meant a lot to him. He doesn't get to see these grandparents real often, so it's nice to get their love in the mail. When his Valentine arrived, his mom read it to him. Several times that day, he asked her to read it to him again. Later, as they were driving around town, he actually began repeating verbatim the love words from that Valentine! They meant so much to him, he had memorized them, and he just kept going over them!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

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Treasure Island, A Child's Garden of Verses - those are just some of the literary classics written by Robert Louis Stevenson. He must have had a way with words from the time he was a boy. Anne Graham Lotz tells of a night in his boyhood when his nanny just couldn't get him to bed. Young Robert just kept staring out the window, oblivious to her talking to him. Finally, she said, "Robert, what in the world are you looking at out there?" As she pulled back the curtain, she realized he was watching the lamplighter making his way down the street, lighting one street lamp after another. Young Robert Louis Stevenson saw something more. He said, "Look at that man! He's punching holes in the darkness!"

Friday, February 5, 2010

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I've only been to Israel once, and just for a short visit, but I'll never forget the thrill of seeing those places where Jesus walked when He was here, and watching all those names and places in the Bible suddenly come alive. It really was one of the highlights of my life, except for one thing. I went alone, on my way back home from a ministry trip to Africa. As I stood on the Mount of Olives, as I walked the streets of old Jerusalem, as I experienced the feel of Capernaum and the Sea of Galilee, I kept thinking, "I want my wife to see all of this. I want to experience this with my kids!" Yes, Israel was terrific, but I really wanted to share it with the people I love.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

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My friend called me not long ago to pray for his Mom. During some medical tests, the doctor discovered something he didn't like - a large growth in her stomach. My friend said, "They haven't used the 'C' word yet. They wanted to take some more tests first." Now they've said the "C" word; the word all of us dread hearing from a doctor. You know - cancer. We know what that word can mean.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

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She was one of the most admired women in the world - Mother Teresa, that angelic woman who devoted her life to the least of the least in the slums of Calcutta, India. The world's greatest leaders wanted to meet her and to experience her love and her moral authority; just a diminutive woman who made such a difference in the world. Some years ago, a young man wrote a letter to Mother Teresa, asking her how he could make his life count as she had with hers. He waited six months for a reply from this very busy lady. When it came, it was just a postcard with four words on it - four very powerful words - "Find your own Calcutta."

Monday, January 18, 2010

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It really wasn't that my wife and I were eavesdropping. Honest. It's just that the four well-dressed, older ladies at the restaurant table next to ours were so close we couldn't help but hear part of their conversation. One lady was recounting the beginning of her day. She said she was following her usual routine of getting up, taking care of some personal maintenance, and then turning on the TV for her morning Oprah fix - watching Oprah Winfrey's Show, that is. No Oprah. She began pushing buttons on her remote, increasingly more frustrated by her inability to find her morning TV companion. At that point, her daughter happened to call on the telephone. Mom began venting her frustration over how technology was failing her and soliciting her daughter's help. Finally she just sputtered, "Where's Oprah?" When her daughter could finally get a word in, she said, "Mom, it's Sunday! Oprah's not on, but church is!" Mom suddenly went into fast-forward mode - not with her TV, but with her getting ready for church; which she came very close to missing entirely.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

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It's amazing how you can go outside on a brutally cold winter day, and you go from shivering to sweating in a few minutes. If you just stand around in the cold or just move around a little bit, you're not going to stay outside for long. It's just too frigid out there, right! But in a very short time you can get to where you barely even notice the cold. Just start shoveling snow or some other vigorous activity. Not long ago my wife was out in the middle of a snowstorm, working on some outside chores, and she told me, "It is amazing how you can work up a sweat on a day like this!"

Friday, January 8, 2010

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They were just a young fire-fighting crew, assigned to work on a relatively small brush fire in Washington State. No one could have imagined what was about to happen. Seemingly timid fires suddenly roared to life and then out of control. In the end, 14 firefighters had to pin their hopes on those tinfoil shelters designed to be the last line of protection in a firetrap. Ultimately, four young firefighters died in the fire that day. They had tried to escape the fire by heading for a nearby road. Apparently, their superiors had not advised them that it was a dead-end road.

Monday, January 4, 2010

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A family on vacation. Nobody feels especially like doing the usual chores, like picking up the mess. Besides, there's that "room fairy" who comes while you're out and magically makes it all better, right? Unfortunately, "room fairies" only work when you're away from home. They don't do your house for you. Have you noticed that? My friend, Mike Silva, was staying with his family at a hotel in Nigeria when they heard a knock at the door. Mike opened it and found a smiling Nigerian gentleman standing there ready to clean the room. That was no small order. Actually, they were pretty embarrassed because of all the travel bags and curling irons and crumpled clothing sprawled all across their unmade beds. And the bathroom floor was carpeted with beautiful wet towels. Mike apologized profusely. The young man, though, just put him at ease. He said, "No problem, sir. For this reason I have come, to put your things in order."

Friday, January 1, 2010

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When you stand at the edge of the overlook, gazing across at the mighty Niagara Falls, listening to its liquid thunder, you can't help but be impressed with its majestic beauty and its tremendous power. But that's as close as I want to get. A person who somehow fell into those churning waters would have little chance of survival; maybe no chance. That didn't seem to bother the famous tightrope walker known as the Great Blondin. No, back in 1859, he made history. He crossed the gorge of the Niagara River on a tightrope. At one point, he executed a back somersault. His next tightrope trip across the Falls, Blondin crossed on a bicycle, he walked across blindfolded, then pushed in a wheelbarrow, he cooked an omelet in the center, and he made the trip with his hands and feet manacled at one point. Then came his ultimate performance. He announced he would carry a man across the Falls on his back. Most folks believed he could do it. No one wanted to be the one who went on his back, though, except his manager who climbed on the back of the Great Blondin, and to the amazement of all who watched, arrived safely on the other side.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

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Somehow the driver lost control on a small California bridge. In an instant, the car with a family of four in it catapulted through the railing and into the water. Immediately, that car began to disappear beneath the water. Well, there were just frantic moments that followed, and the two parents emerged from the car, swimming to the top. Mom had actually been able to free one of her children and help her get out, as well. But their little boy was trapped in the car at the bottom. Meanwhile, a few passersby had gathered on the bridge above, and one man, who heard the mother's screams for help for her son, dove from the bridge and into the water. A nurse was actually one of those who happened to be on the bridge that day. Realizing that the boy was going to need immediate CPR if he was rescued, she shook off her fear and she also plunged into the water. After a short time, the man surfaced - carrying that boy with him. The nurse immediately began working on him, right there in the water. His life was saved that day by two people who certainly had not planned to rescue anyone that day.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

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It was Christmas Eve, and the Hutchcraft family was acting out the Christmas story. Our daughter was Mary, with a towel draped over her head. Our oldest son was Joseph, bathrobe and all. Our then two-year-old son was the closest we could come to a baby; he was in the giant laundry basket. I was, of course, an angel dressed in a white sheet, sitting celestially on the back of the couch. And my wife - well, she wanted to be a sheep. So she was crawling around the living room floor with our sheepskin rug draped over her, doing her very best "baaas." And the doorbell rang. It was two teenage girls from our youth group. Their folks were home getting drunk, and they were wondering if they could come to our house for a little while. When they came in, our Christmas players were in full gear, baa-ing and all. The girls looked at one another, wondering if we were in any better shape than their parents. But, hey, the door was open and we invited them right into our Christmas.