Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Chimney Mountain! I had to get to the top of it. Why? Because it was there! Of course, I had to drag my young family into this obsession with me. One vacation day, I made that "Daddy's Great Adventure for the Day." Now it wasn't a steep hike; a trail through the woods that gradually took you to the top of the mountain. As we walked along, my wife and the kids kept noticing little things - like chipmunks and squirrels and flowers and interesting rocks. Of course, whenever we noticed one of those little things, we had to stop; which was not my favorite thing to do. I had a goal, folks, and chipmunks and interesting rocks didn't help me get to it. At one point, they stopped us just to listen to the wind blowing through the tall pine trees. That's nice, you know, but not if you wanted to see the top of Chimney Mountain before sunset. Finally, my frustration made it to my mouth, "Honey, the reason for this hike is to get to the top. Don't you understand?" To which she said something like this: "Oh, I thought we came to enjoy the hike." Great! I was interested in the result; she was interested in the process!

Monday, April 10, 2006

When I say this man is a veteran test pilot, I mean he's easily old enough to be comfortably retired. Instead, he's still blasting through the skies at these mind-boggling speeds, testing some of America's most advanced aircraft. He told his amazing life story recently on a national television program. It's a story of a lifelong adventure in the skies and a long spiritual search here on earth that ended - well, with the pilot of the universe piloting his life. As he concluded his story, he told about an incident where he was sent up in a state-of-the-art aircraft to help a pilot in distress.

The fog was thick; the weather was dangerous for flying, and a rookie pilot was lost in that fog and unable to get through the weather in a plane that wasn't equipped for it. Well, Mr. Test Pilot flew close to that imperiled aircraft until he was actually positioned at its left wing. And then he radioed the desperate pilot and he simply said, "Look to your left." Then he said, "Now stick with me. Turn when I turn." Then in a plane so advanced that the veteran said that it can make a game out of bad weather, he led his frightened fellow-pilot to that glorious point where they broke through the fog and they saw the bright lights of that landing strip below. When they landed safely, the rookie got out of his plane, ran to his rescuer, and hugged him as if he had saved his life. He probably had.

Friday, April 7, 2006

As Lenny left our headquarters a few days ago, I said, "Man, you have really made a difference around here!" He really had. A company that was getting rid of a lot of office furniture donated about a dozen desks to our ministry, and we were thrilled to get them! They're good desks, but well, not exactly beautiful desks. They were all scarred and beat up, and on the surface they didn't look particularly useful. In fact, the company that donated them actually was getting ready to discard them before they learned about our need. So here, in a storage area, were all these ugly desks - until Lenny got his hands on them. One by one, he went to work with his magic touch and he slowly restored their original beauty. By the time he was done, it looked almost like we had just gotten a shipment of expensive new desks.

Thursday, April 6, 2006

The wind was blowing so hard that day, I was afraid someone was going to end up in Oz; and this isn't even Kansas, Dorothy. I was in my office during one of those blustery hours, but you couldn't miss the roar outside. At times the winds were approaching hurricane force. I mean, they were knocking out electric power to many customers, tearing branches off trees, and in one case, actually causing the deaths of four schoolgirls in New York City. They were actually in their church-school van when a 60 miles per hour gust whipped down the street and uprooted a 68-foot high maple tree, which fell on the van, killing those girls instantly. But the next day the mayor suggested that this was a tragedy that did not have to happen. Several months earlier, a nearby sidewalk had been paved without a permit, possibly weakening the roots of that tree. It may not have been the storm that caused the tragedy - it may have been the weakened roots.

Tuesday, April 4, 2006

I felt like the Big Bad Wolf in that story of Little Red Riding Hood; the part where he's masquerading as grandma. Little Red says, "What big eyes you have!" That was me when I left the ophthalmologist's office the other day. He had put dilating solution in my eyes for an eye checkup. Well, the checkup was over, but my eyes didn't know it. They stayed dilated for the next couple of hours. And everyone said, "What big eyes you have!" It wasn't really much fun. Even though it was basically a cloudy day, I was squinting and I was trying to cover my eyes. With my pupils so big and so wide open, the light was blazing right into my eyes. I wasn't missing anything and it was blinding!

Monday, April 3, 2006

Scotty was only four years old, and he was lost in Brooklyn. A police officer spotted this little guy standing on a street corner in this huge city, crying. Of course, he tried to help the boy by asking him his address, and Scotty didn't know. The officer asked him his phone number, and he answered through his tears, "I can't remember." The officer was running out of options. He was just about to take the little guy down to the station when he thought of one last question: "Little boy, is there anything near your house that I might recognize?" That was the moment that little guy discovered the one thing that really helped him finally get home.

Friday, March 31, 2006

She's a princess in the royalty of Hollywood; one of the most successful, most admired actresses in America. Behind the glamour, there are unrelenting struggles and unanswered questions. Recently, she was given some major recognition at an international awards ceremony, and as she expressed her gratitude, she also opened up her heart in a brief moment of extreme candor. She said, "You know, I play so many roles, sometimes I wonder who the real me really is." You don't have to be a Hollywood star to have that going on.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

It was early 1997, when Americans heard those unsettling words on the evening news, "airline pilots strike." Man, I hate words like that! The threat of American Airlines pilots going on strike threw everyone affected by it into a tailspin. Panicky travelers were scrambling to double book their reservations on another airline just in case, resort areas serviced by American Airlines began to add up the zillions this might cost them, the White House started adding up the devastating financial cost on the economy - so much that the President stepped in to at least delay the strike. Well, the simple fact is, planes are going nowhere without pilots. If they don't show up for their job, it gets real crazy real fast.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Maybe you're like me; one of those people who lives in a climate where there are four seasons, where the fall and spring are spectacularly beautiful and where winter is really winter, and summer is really summer. There's probably one change of seasons, then. that is probably anticipated by you more than any other - the end of winter! I've always lived with four seasons. I like them all. I just think one of them lasts a month or two too long. That's why I was so excited during a February ministry trip to South Carolina. Now February is still winter where I was living, but on this February weekend in South Carolina, the trees were starting to bloom! Not only were the flowers out on the trees, but the shorts were even out on the humans! I don't remember seeing dogwood blooming in February! That was early even for the mid-South, but there had been a string of days in the 70s with temperatures that were still mild at night. So those little flowers said to themselves, "Hey, it's warm, guys! I guess it's time to bloom!"

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

We were staying one time at, well, as the camp song says, "a little cabin in the woods." As soon as we got unpacked, our seven- or eight-year-old son went for an exploratory bike ride up the trail. When he returned he got going a little fast, and then he hit a patch of gravel right near the cabin. The bike spun out from under him and he hit the ground pretty hard. When he got up, there was a lot of blood around his mouth. He had broken a tooth and it had punctured his lip. We raced him to a hospital emergency room where they fixed him up with a few stitches. Now, he took the second bike ride that day. That was the tough part; especially after what had happened on the first bike ride. But his Mother and I encouraged him to get right back on his bike. We knew if he didn't, it might take him a long time to get the confidence back to ride again. Well, sure enough, the boy bounced back. In spite of his fall, he decided to ride again and he kept riding for many years after that.