Wednesday, February 27, 2008

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Because I travel so much, I probably watch the Weather Channel as much as anything on TV. Not long ago, I just sat back in amazement as I watched them track this monster low pressure system moving across the country. By the time it reached the Eastern United States, that low pressure system stretched on the Weather Channel map from the Maritime Provinces in Canada all the way to Mexico! It was massive! And everywhere it went, it left flooding rains, heavy snows, or even violent weather. In Minnesota, for example, this low pressure system registered the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded. All across the eastern half of the country, the news reported massive power outages, cancellations, and delays. For millions of Americans, whatever they had planned, it just didn't happen.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

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People were confused about it for centuries. They looked at the sun rising and setting every day and they reached a seemingly obvious conclusion: the earth is the center of everything and the sun revolves around the earth, right? If you say "right," you need to go back to third grade science Actually, if you think the sun revolves around the earth, well, you agree with about one out of five Americans in a recent survey. You know, it's a good thing to get right—what's in the center and what revolves around it.

Monday, February 25, 2008

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Larry Walters was just tired of sitting in his backyard, watching the same old folks in the same old neighborhood do the same old thing. He was ready for a change. So he decided to do something different. He went out and bought 45 six-foot helium balloons and attached them to his lawn chair, which was tethered to a car to keep it from taking off. Then, he donned a parachute, packed a bottle of soda pop, a CB radio, and a BB gun to shoot out balloons so he could come down. He thought he'd get a great view of his neighborhood. He got a little more than that. When his friends cut his lawn chair loose, he shot a thousand feet into the air in a minute. Before long, Larry and his flying lawn chair were 16,000 feet over the Los Angeles area. That's like three miles up, man! A TWA pilot radioed the tower and said, "We've spotted a man in a lawn chair at 16,000 feet." I can't even guess what the tower must have said back to the pilot. Meanwhile, Larry is yelling into his CB radio, "Mayday! Mayday!" He eventually managed to shoot out enough balloons to come down, where he landed in some wires and caused a power outage in Long Beach, California. He got down OK, he got some TV appearances, and an FAA fine. Not bad for an ordinary guy in a lawn chair.

Friday, February 22, 2008

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Beslan - that Russian town will now join the ranks of places known for the terror that happened there. Some have called the three-day terrorist takeover of a school in Beslan, and the violent deaths of hundreds of school children and adults there, Russia's equivalent to America's September 11. In the midst of Beslan's horror, there emerged a photo that embodied hope in the middle of death. It showed a girl's bloodied hand clutching a golden cross. Viktoria was hospitalized with shrapnel in her brain, but she was still a survivor. The 14-year-old said that she prayed every day while she was being held captive, always clinging to her cross even after being wounded in the violent ending of that siege that killed more than 330 hostages. Even as she lost consciousness, she never let go of the cross. In Viktoria's own words, "I felt that if I had that cross in my hand, then everything would be fine."

Thursday, February 21, 2008

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Being Mr. History, I've made sure our family has visited our share of Colonial restorations. We step back in history and we see men in their tricorn hats, ladies in their lace caps, and the potter. There's always a potter, and they're intriguing to watch, they're skillfully shaping that blob of clay. Now leave it to me to think about what it might feel like to be the clay. First, you get pushed and squeezed and poked all over the place. Then the potter takes you for a spin, and you're going around in these endless circles. The wheel stops; you're saying, "Man, I'm sure glad that's over." Oh, yeah, and then suddenly you're in an oven at 2,200 degrees! When you're just about cooked, the potter pulls you out only to put you back in a little later! If you're the potter's clay, you've got to be thinking, "Why are you doing this to me?"

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

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My friend Ted was a high school football player; actually he was the starting center. But the game he remembers most is the one he didn't play in. All season, the second string center, Billy, hadn't played much. Well, actually he hadn’t played very well. Until the day that Billy came to the coach and said, "Coach, I know you haven't felt I was good enough to start all season, but I want to ask you to start me this one game. Please. It means a lot, and I'm only asking for a chance." The coach agreed and Billy amazed not only his coach, but his teammates and his hometown fans by playing this incredible game. No one had ever seen anything close to this kind of performance or ability from him before. Needless to say, immediately after the game, the coach said, "Billy, what in the world happened? I didn't know you had it in you!" Billy's explanation was something the coach and my friend would never forget. He said, "My dad died last night, Coach. And he was blind, but not now. Tonight was the first time my father could see me play!"

Friday, February 15, 2008

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Power - that's what mattered most to Napoleon. He wanted power, and he got it. Under his leadership, the armies of France won some stunning victories. They extended control well beyond their borders, but that wasn't enough for Napoleon. He knew there was one thing, one force that stood in his way. It is said that one day he gathered all his top officers together around this large table. Laid across that table was a map of Europe with a big red spot on it. That spot was England. Pounding his fist on the table, Napoleon raged: "If it weren't for that red spot, I could have it all!"

Friday, February 8, 2008

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We were waiting at a stoplight, just across the street from some railroad tracks. The gates by the track were up and no lights were flashing. There was no train coming. But just beyond the railroad crossing was one of those little rail inspection vehicles, fitted with the wheels that allow them to ride on the tracks. On the side it said, "Union Pacific." But believe me, this was no train. Suddenly, we heard this obnoxious and continuous honking on a horn that sounded like a train horn. The little vehicle wanted to proceed through the railroad crossing, and he was nowhere big enough to trigger the gates or the lights so the traffic would stop. So the operator just kept leaning on the horn as he passed through the intersection, hoping we would all stop for him as we would for a train. We did stop, but we weren't fooled. This was no train. This was a train wannabe!

Friday, February 1, 2008

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Chaco Culture National Historical Park - it's situated in a remote corner of New Mexico. It's a place where a thousand years ago, the ancient ancestors of some of today's Indian tribes enjoyed this thriving civilization. They were, as a recent article in USA Today reported, "astronomically observant." For modern visitors, it's still a great spot to be astronomically observant; a place where you can see the heavens without the interference of the artificial light that's all around us much of the time. Several years ago, a woman came to the visitor's center desk to report something remarkable that she'd seen in the sky. The ranger held his breath for another "UFO sighting," only to be surprised by the woman's excited description of a "lane of white powder" she said that she had seen spanning the heavens above her campsite. The ranger had the great pleasure of informing this lady that, for the first time in her life, she had actually seen the Milky Way.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

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When our kids were growing up, the early morning shift around our house was particularly exciting. I was getting ready for a full day, three kids were scrambling to have what they needed for school, my wife was playing maid, chef, valet, and chauffeur. In the rush, a lot of our communication was basically non-verbal. For example, one morning I was shaving and thinking through this endless list of things I had to do that day - all the Lord's work, of course. I was mulling over a sermon, radio programs, an important appointment that day, an event I was planning, and my son popped in. Now, I must have succeeded in telegraphing how much I had on my mind (The Lord's work, remember?); he disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. Then, as I was praying about all the Lord's work I had to do that day, I remembered an important decision my son had to make that day, one that he probably needed to talk to his father about. I had just missed the Lord's work.

Monday, January 21, 2008

I was speaking at a Bible conference, set right near the shore of a beautiful lake. I was responsible for speaking about 18 times in six days, so I was a pretty busy boy. But I did something that would make my wife proud, even in spite of how busy I was. I took time to smell the flowers; well, at least to admire the flowers. I'm partially colorblind, but even I was struck by these rich purple flowers blooming all over this sprawling vine in the garden outside my window. The flowers seemed to be everywhere in this garden. I asked someone from the conference what I was looking at, and he told me it's a Vinca vine. He said they had transplanted that vine from a pot to the soil of this garden. And I was told a Vinca vine doesn't produce any flowers when it's in a pot - only when you plant it in the ground.

Friday, January 18, 2008

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Kaitlin just lost her long battle for life. She was born with a defective valve in her heart, and that weakness in her heart pursued her through her all-too-short life. Although she had multiple surgeries and times of physical limitation, she had a positive spirit and, often, a pretty normal life. And then, after seventeen years, that heart just gave out. They said her only hope was a heart transplant before that, and she eventually got one, but it just didn't work out for her. In her last weeks, she sometimes battled just to breathe, but she never stopped fighting. And in Kaitlin's dying, her aunt - a relatively young woman herself - learned a powerful lesson about life.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

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When historian Stephen Ambrose wrote the bestseller about their amazing adventure, he appropriately titled it Undaunted Courage. It's one of the many accounts of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the daring group who explored America's new Louisiana Purchase 200 years ago. As they made their way along the Missouri River, traveling from St. Louis all the way to the Pacific Ocean, most every bend in the river revealed many sights and wildlife that no white man had ever seen. One of the many critical moments on their two-year expedition was the point in Montana where they encountered a fork in the Missouri River. There was no map to guide them, and a wrong choice could exhaust their resources on a very long mistake. The river to the right was muddy like the Missouri had been. The crew wanted to go that way. But Captain Lewis and Captain Clark assessed the situation, and led their reluctant men down the left fork. When the expedition reached the massive waterfalls that Indian friends had told them they would find, they all knew they had chosen the right way.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

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Birds had moved into the vent in the exhaust fan of our kitchen range while we were on vacation. They set up their little nest and made themselves at home. And, man, were they noisy neighbors! The nest was so huge it made the fan unworkable. And some lovely spiders were hanging down from the hood on the stove. Our problem was that trying to remove that nest might have killed that nest full of baby birds. Well, we couldn't see them, but we could sure hear them when they were hungry! So, we waited until Mom and Dad bird took the babies out. A couple of weeks later, after we were sure they were gone, I got a long stick and I proceeded to rake out the rest. But when we removed the nest, we discovered a little surprise; actually, a big, fat surprise. There was the fattest bird we'd ever seen, sitting in the nest. As my wife went to get gloves and a box, he got away. But it took a major earthquake to get that bird out of his nest!

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

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My wife and I were on a flight headed for a speaking commitment and I was in the window seat working on my messages. She was in the aisle seat with headphones on, listening to one of the airline entertainment channels. And, man, was she laughing! Which made it a little hard to focus on my work. Finally, I asked her what she was listening to; what she was laughing at. It was actually Bill Cosby talking about life at 50, including this hilarious description of an all too familiar experience - getting up to get something from another room, forgetting what you went in there for, going back and sitting down, and then remembering what it was, and so on. You forget and you wander. My wife was laughing because she says that's us. Well, I don't know if it's because my brain is fuller than ever or because my memory is going, but there's a lot I don't remember these days. You may say, "Well, yeah, that's a problem for you old people." Actually, memory loss is a problem for all ages.

Monday, January 7, 2008

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It was #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and then a major motion picture - the story of one of the most famous race horses of all time, Seabiscuit. While many of us may not be excited about horse racing, the story, set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, illustrates some things pretty inspiring. Seabiscuit was the son of a champion but definitely not like his father. He had been forced to run with better horses so they would gain confidence by beating him. When he raced, he did what he was trained to do - lose. Because of the poor treatment Seabiscuit received, he became an angry, almost uncontrollable horse. Until he was given a chance by a trainer that many considered to be too old and a young man most thought was too big to be a jockey - a man blind in one eye and bitter from his parents' abandonment.

But Seabiscuit thrived in the care of people who believed in him and became one of the greatest horses of all time, along with his jockey. The trainer sees in the horse something that others have missed. He says when Seabiscuit's eventual owner is deciding whether to buy this apparent loser, "You don't throw a life away just because it's been banged up a little." And when the trainer wants to fire his jockey, the owner reminds him, "You don't throw a life away just because it's been banged up a little."

Friday, January 4, 2008

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It's one of the most popular convention locations in the United States - Las Vegas. We can each guess as to what some of the reasons for its popularity might be. But it's become a popular destination for people other than conventioneers. A recent advertising campaign is offering Las Vegas as the place to go if you want to get away with something. Using some scenes that suggest some covert relationships and secret romantic liaisons, the tantalizing promise that flashes across the screen simply says: "What you do here stays here." Wrong!

Thursday, January 3, 2008

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Usually a total eclipse of the moon seems to happen when I'm counting sheep in the middle of the night. But this one started about 9:00 at night, and this one I got a chance to see. It's a pretty amazing sight to watch that shadow slowly move across the moon until it eventually covers it completely. I said to the friend who was assisting us with ministry that weekend, "I just wish we had binoculars." "Me, too," he said. Then it dawned on him, "Hey, I do have binoculars in my truck!" All of a sudden we moved from seats near the back to something like front row seats on the eclipse. Those binoculars revealed the craters and all the fascinating details of that disappearing moon. What a difference it made to see it up close!

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

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It's not much fun to perform without an audience. Toddlers believe that for sure. Our family was having one of those rare opportunities to have all of us together, and we were having some great conversations, keeping one eye on our little two-year-old granddaughter. And one eye wasn't enough for her. Using her recently enhanced motor skills, she started running wide circles right in the middle of the room. After her first two spins—which did manage to get our attention—she called out two little words I didn't even know she knew, "Watch this!" We did.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

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One little light. That's all it took to render our car totally unusable. The little light in the rear of our vehicle was left on one night after we unloaded some things, and it stayed on for several days while we were gone. When we got back, everything in that car said, "I'm not starting, pal!" because that one little light totally drained our battery, of course. But then came the hero - our friend in his pickup truck with his trusty jumper cables. And those cables delivered the energy that my flat old battery needed to run again!