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Friday, October 20, 2006

I have had a lot of young women complain to me about a condition they find rampant in young men these days. I guess I will call it "commitment phobia." Now, this guy's willing to show interest, he's willing to date you, charm you, agree with you, spend money on you, and then you reach this level of mutual compatibility and that's good. And then, you're on the edge of commitment and he's gone. I hear it's pretty frustrating. I met a beautiful woman myself many years ago and we spent a lot of time together. We found that we agreed on all the important things. We reached a place of affection for each other and agreement with each other, so we were married - right? No.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

You may not remember much from your World History class, but you probably at least remember that the nations of Europe fought it out for a long time to see who was going to be Number One. For many years, their biggest way to fight it out was with their big navies. So, if a ship from England saw a ship from France, you could expect some fireworks. Of course, the way you knew what country a ship was from was that flag they flew from the top of the mast - their colors. When they would see a ship approaching on the horizon, they usually lowered their colors until they could see whether that other guy was a friend or an enemy. But occasionally there was a ship that approached those encounters in a radically different way. There were a few courageous captains who would give a simple six-word order to their crew, "Nail our colors to the mast!" But you could just hear the first mate saying, "Captain, that means we can't lower our colors, no matter what." To which the captain would say something like this - "That's right."

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Why would a teenage girl go swimming in the ocean at night? Nobody knows. We do know she was in serious trouble by the time the rescuers finally rescued her. It was nighttime; there were no lifeguards on duty. We were in Ocean City, New Jersey, and the only people who could help her were people who ran from the boardwalk and stripped off their shoes and some of their clothes to try to get in there and help her. Now, one person had the presence of mind to bring a life preserver. The girl who was drowning refused it. She actually fought off the rescuers who were battling this strong undertow, and then you heard this strange cry out there, "Hit her!" Sounds cruel but they thought that was the only way to save her. And they hit her. And she did go under; she ended up unconscious. They grabbed her. They brought her in and finally rescued her. When I heard "Hit her!" I remembered what my friend Jim had said. He was a lifeguard on the Pacific Coast for a couple of years and he described what he called a hard rescue. He said, "Ron, if they keep fighting a rescue, knock them out."

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

When our grandson was 18 months old, I called him a member of the Lewis and Clark Junior Cadets. In other words, he loved to explore! He moved faster than you can blink. He was into everything and, of course, he had one basic maneuver - grab! Now, that's a little guy's way of exploring something new. The problem is some things are fragile; a concept, of course, beyond the comprehension of a toddler. But Mom did a great job of protecting what was breakable while not discouraging that explorer spirit. She taught him one word - "gentle." So when she saw the junior explorer closing in on something fragile, she simply said that important word, "Gentle. Gentle." And suddenly he slowed down and he touched his target carefully and softly - "gentle."

Friday, October 13, 2006

New York City is a bit of a shock to any first-time visitor. It's especially jarring for someone who has spent her whole life on an Indian Reservation. Now Linda was from the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and she was part of our ministry's Native American Youth Outreach Team. We call it "On Eagles' Wings." She was able to see New York from a distance at first. There's the Empire State Building, there's the skyline, and she said she wanted to see it all up close. Ha! That may have changed now that she has seen it up close. See, she went in with us when I spoke in the city one night and the traffic and the crowds - they were all over the place and they made her feel like maybe she was on a battlefield without a helmet. She also found certain aspects of the city exciting and, you know, she might want to go back. But as our team was driving along the Hudson River, we were headed for the George Washington Bridge, and Linda must have been reflecting on her life on the reservation for a minute because she looked up into the Big Apple sky and she just said two words, "No stars."

Thursday, October 12, 2006

When I was new to this business of wearing glasses, it took me a while to adjust to those new things on my face. But I had to get them. It was easier to get glasses than to get longer arms, and the glasses were cheaper. Sometimes when I'm real busy, I start noticing clouds developing between me and what I'm trying to read, and I see strange little spots. Then I remember I'm wearing my glasses which I have neglected to clean for a few days. When I hold them up to the light, I can see the source of the fog and the spots: dirty glasses. It's amazing how much better you can see when you clean your glasses! The world looks so much clearer!

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Every World Series has its memorable moments, but the 1989 World Series will always have a distinctive claim to fame. The game was being played in Candlestick Park in San Francisco. And maybe you remember, in the third inning, the ground suddenly started shaking - an earthquake hit the stadium! People began to flee, the players quickly left the field, and many suddenly cared about only one thing - whether the people they loved were safe. The Giants catcher, Terry Kennedy, was living his dream that day. He was playing in the World Series. But suddenly, in one redefining moment, that changed. When a sportscaster inquired about his reaction to the quake, that catcher summed it up pretty well. He said, "Sure does change your priorities, doesn't it?"

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

As many of us were growing up, Mom was really there for a lot more of our disobediences than Dad was. She was at home when we did our thing while he was conveniently at work. Actually, that seemed to be in our favor in many cases - Mom tended to be a little easier to deal with than Dad on these discipline things. Moms often mingle punishment with sympathy; Dads often mingle punishment with pain. And there was always that brief relief when Mom would say, "I'm not going to do anything to you." Yea! Judgment is cancelled! Then came that fatal next sentence, "I'll wait 'til your father gets home." So judgment wasn't cancelled. It was just postponed.

Friday, October 6, 2006

It was the house Grandma and Granddad built with a little help from their granddaughter, who also happens to be my wife. That was over 40 years ago. Grandma and Granddad are gone, and the house has been in the hands of renters for a number of years. And the landlord, my wife's dad, lived hours away. His age and his health prevented him from keeping up with what was happening to the house and to the land around it, too. When he deeded that house to my wife and her sister, they weren't real pleased with what had happened over the years. The house was run down; the carpet was infested with bugs; various encroachments had slowly whittled away about three acres of the property, and fences had been moved. That's a long list. And nobody in the family had to do anything to accumulate this mess. All we had to do was do nothing.

Wednesday, October 4, 2006

As the construction of our ministry's headquarters progressed from stage to stage, I enjoyed walking through the halls and the rooms to see the progress. Of course, you had to look past a lot of mess and clutter, and you had to use your imagination to see what it eventually would look like. But the point at which I really start to realize what God is doing is when I climbed this little ladder to the catwalk that encircles the building above all the rooms below. Before the ceiling goes in, you can just walk along that catwalk and get the big picture of how far things have really progressed and the scope of what God is doing there. There's a view from up there that really provides an exciting perspective - much more inspiring than when you're just standing in one of the rooms down below.

Tuesday, October 3, 2006

A runaway train: that's how they billed the upcoming story on the evening news, and believe me, I stayed tuned. And they weren't exaggerating. Somehow a freight train in Ohio started rolling down the tracks with no one on board. And it kept rolling for many miles across the Ohio countryside, sometimes at speeds of nearly 60 MPH. It was pretty amazing to see footage of a railroad intersection, lights blinking, gates down, cars stopped, and here is a train just rolling through without anyone at the controls. Now, using a combination of ingenuity and heroism, they finally managed to get a couple of men aboard who were able to stop it. And that's a very good thing!

Monday, October 2, 2006

Sister is a dog. I did not say my sister was a dog, actually she's my sister-in-law, and she's an angel! But my friend Curtis has a dog named Sister, which leads to some fairly amusing sentences. When I first met Curtis and Sister, she lived in this big fenced-in area outside the house. But Curtis got a nice doghouse for Sister and went to work making it a nice winter home for her. He installed two inches of insulation, he put in a new floor, he even put a water bed heater under the floor and then some zip-loc bags with water for the heater to heat. Sister basically has a warm home with her own waterbed. But for the first couple of weeks after her home was completed, she wouldn't go in it! Curtis was away for the weekend and he asked a friend to check on Sister. Well, one of those days was a day a powerful nor-eastern hit our area, and I mean, we're talking drenching rain. And when Curtis' friend visited Sister, there was that dog running around outside the doghouse in the wind and the pouring rain, still refusing to go in the home that had been provided for her!

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Commercial flying can be a real adventure. Like the day I booked a last-minute flight to the Northwest to support some Native American friends of ours who had just lost their young son. I was supposed to fly into Spokane, Washington, but fog shut it down and we were diverted to another airport for the night. So, the airline put us up in a hotel overnight and promised us they would do their best to get us to Spokane the next morning. I knew if I didn't get to the reservation that next day, I would have missed what I was going for. I really needed the real scoop on whether or not our plane was going to get into Spokane.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

We've got a close friend who recently moved from Arizona to the Midwest. She loves the green. There's not much of that in the semi-arid area that she's from. And she loves all the things that bloom in her new part of the country, but that's not to say she doesn't miss what she grew up with. She really misses the beauty of the Southwest. Some might travel through the long, largely barren stretches of her part of the country and not see much beauty, but it's there. Sure, it's a different beauty from the lush, green parts of America, but there is a stark, wild, wide-open majesty in the desert; a beauty all its own.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Occasionally I see that bumper sticker that says, "I brake for antique shops." I'm not a bumper sticker guy, but we could qualify for that one. I guess it depends on who's driving - my wife or me. If it's my wife, we're a lot more likely to break for an antique shop. But my wife is not so much into collecting old stuff, it's about finding items that she had as a girl growing up on a farm that had few modern conveniences. And she's got an eye for what's real and what's just a reproduction: Depression Glass, pottery, butter churns, even old violins. Take the famous Stradivarius violin - there are relatively few originals. There are a lot of copies.

Friday, September 22, 2006

There have been a number of airplane crashes over the years. A few of them are the kind you just don't forget. One was the crash of United Flight 232. Captain Al Haynes and his crew were desperately trying to control a plane that was almost out of control due to an equipment failure. They were diverted from Chicago to Sioux City, Iowa. There was no way they were able to maneuver that plane to the airport. Their best hope of saving at least some lives was to try to bring it down in a nearby cornfield. Captain Haynes became a national hero when he somehow managed to do just that. Tragically, some lives were lost in the crash landing and the subsequent fire, but there were many survivors from a crash that could have easily killed all aboard. Captain Haynes said he had a hero that day. His crew had checked every procedure book to see what to do in an emergency like they were facing. They found no procedure. So Captain Haynes' hero was the flight controller that talked him through that terrifying crisis. Here's what the captain said: "There's nothing like a calm, soothing voice talking to you, telling you everything you need to know."

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Okay, here is one of my un-favorite sentences, "I guess we have to go to the emergency room!" I'm glad the emergency room is there, but I hate to go there. I remember one time our son had a mild stomach disorder and we knew it had to be checked out. Actually, we went late at night when it really gets busy. I guess it was rush hour for sure that day we were there. We had already waited for a while and finally they noticed us. They began to give some attention to our son, and then suddenly all the doctors and nurses vanished. I'll tell you why. There was a word that had been sounded across that emergency room - "STAT" - and everybody came running to an accident victim. It was a severe situation. It was life or death. "Stat" means it's time to drop everything.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

It was a great honor to be one of the 10,000 participants at Billy Graham's Amsterdam 2000 conference for evangelists. It's pretty unforgettable to look out over an audience with Christ's ambassadors from 209 countries! The most international gathering in the history of this planet - and it was in Jesus' Name! One Great Commission challenge I just could not get out of my mind that week: almost half the world is under 25 - three billion young people! That's why I was literally moved to tears by the way this historic conference ended.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Once upon a time there was a machinist who lived with his wife, his four-year-old son, and his new baby boy in a cheap apartment on the south side of Chicago. He spent a chunk of his meager earnings on alcohol and cigarettes and gambling, and then the bottom dropped out of his life. His baby boy died suddenly at the age of only six months. He was crushed by inconsolable grief, and this machinist (John was his name) took his one surviving boy to church. Now, John didn't go in. He didn't go to church. But he did wait out in front in his car, smoking his cigarette and reading his Sunday paper. Until the day one of the men of the church looked outside and noticed that man in the car. He didn't wait for John to come in. He went outside to John's car, introduced himself, asked a few questions, and then invited him in. Well, when John said he wasn't dressed for it, the man told him it didn't matter how he was dressed. That little boy gave his heart to Jesus in that church. And only a few months later, his Dad started coming to the men's Bible class. John tearfully walked the aisle on Christmas Eve; accepting Christ's forgiveness for his sins. He would grow in Christ and ultimately he'd become a deacon, and then the chairman of the deacons, and then an active Christian lay leader. The little boy was me. The machinist in the car in front of the church was my dad.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

I was with some missionaries in Guadalajara, Mexico. David was there leading a team that was reaching young Latin Americans through a historic youth radio broadcast. Now David is a big guy and I had my picture taken with him; he was wearing a tie - I was wearing a sport shirt. It looked like "bring your son to work day." Guess who looks like the son? Because of the crime rate in David's area, he and his family needed a guard dog, and they had one - a big one that's a match even for his master, David. The dog is appropriately named General and he's pretty much in charge at the house. When David came home from a night of ministry, General was right there at the gate, waiting to play. Playing with this aggressive German Shepherd could cost you a finger or two if you're not careful. But, somehow, David had done a good job of mastering the dog. In fact, I heard him tell General, "Get your bowl, and I'll feed you!" General just wanted his master to give him food, but David wanted him to go for it. So, this German Shepherd bolted up the walk to his big, empty plastic bowl, grabbed it in his iron jaws, and trotted up to his master with it. Sure enough, if he got his bowl, his master would fill it.

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