Wednesday, January 7, 2004

We tend to know the TV shows that were big when our children were growing up. So, I happen to know something about a program called "The A-Team." Our guys had a must-not-miss date each week with Hannibal Smith and B. A. Baracus, and the rest of this team of fugitive Vietnam vets who took on the causes of people victimized by the bad guys. The basic plot of each show was fairly predictable - bad guys pick on person, person hires A-Team, bad guys are about to win, A-Team comes up with a brilliant, and usually unlikely, plan, A-Team wins. These elaborate plans were hatched by the leader of the team - Col. Hannibal Smith. And he never seemed to tell anybody, including his team, why he was doing what he was doing, or asking them to do. But at the end, when the strategy finally unfolded victoriously, Hannibal would always smile and say those trademark words, "I love it when a plan comes together."

Tuesday, January 6, 2004

There is no way we could have taken our "On Eagles' Wings" team of young Native Americans across Alaska without the help of our wonderful missionary partner Grant. He made the arrangements for us in village after village and helped fly us across the area, and took on much of the follow-up. Now, Grant is a pilot. You almost have to be when the villages you serve are often hundreds of miles from the nearest road. You can imagine how hard it hit us when we heard that another pilot had crashed and totaled the plane that Grant's ministry depends on. Miraculously, no one was seriously injured, but Grant was without a plane and without any funds to replace it.

Well, we joined Grant and his really dedicated family in fervent prayer for God's provision. And God really provided! The plane Grant lost was a four-seater - not big enough to even transport his whole family in one trip. The plane God replaced it with? A better aircraft, a bigger aircraft - a six-place plane that now enables him to take his whole family - or, in our case, many young Native missionaries - in one load.

Monday, January 5, 2004

It was one of those primitive science experiments that a lot of boys try. OK, it's a sunny winter day. You lay out a board out on the ground - this is what I did anyway. Now you can leave it there all day with the sun beating down on it. It won't even get warm. Now comes the exciting part of the experiment. You take a piece of glass and you focus the sun's rays on one spot on that board. Same sun, same board - very different result. Eventually, that board starts to get hot - and you've got smoke - maybe even fire going there. Amazing, huh?

Friday, January 2, 2004

Somewhere on cable or late night TV, you might run into my old hero. He's a masked man who rides on a white horse, who shoots silver bullets and always brings in the bad guys. Every episode ends with someone asking, "Who was that Masked Man?" And as the exciting William Tell Overture crescendos in the background, someone will say, "It's the Lone Ranger!" I'm getting all emotional here. Now there was one other thing about the Lone Ranger. He had a faithful sidekick, that Indian man in buckskins, Tonto. He's the one who got famous calling the Lone Ranger "Kemo Sabe." I never did know what that meant. Maybe the Lone Ranger didn't know either. Maybe that's a good thing. But there is one thing about the Lone Ranger that always seemed a little hard to understanding - even the Lone Ranger wasn't alone.

Thursday, January 1, 2004

There are some things that are just tough to advertise - like things people need but don't want to think about. Like insurance to pay your funeral expenses some day. Now, a local insurance agency gave it a good try recently in a newspaper ad they ran. In bold letters it said, "Final Payment." It went on to make a case for doing something now to take care of the last obligation of your life. Of course, that ad had a serious inaccuracy.

Wednesday, December 31, 2003

When a police officer shows up for his shift, he has no idea where he's going to end up that day. That's not really up to him. His car is connected to headquarters by way of radio - and on the other end sits that person who will tell him where he's going next - the dispatcher. An officer can be cruising along peacefully one minute and the next minute racing full speed to the scene of a crime. Police officers don't decide where they're going to go next, they go wherever the dispatcher sends them. It's that voice from headquarters who sends an officer to where he or she needs to be next.

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

So how much would you pay for a piece of cardboard - $100, $500, $2,000? Actually, people do it all the time, if that cardboard is a valuable baseball card. Now, my sons have really profited from collecting that cardboard strategically. They tried to anticipate rookies who would be stars and bought their cards before there was much demand. Later, when lots of people wanted those cards and there weren't many to be found, our guys cleaned up. Our oldest son did so well that his cards actually helped pay his way through college. He didn't have any of those cards that sell for thousands. They're most valuable for one reason. There just aren't many of them. You have something like that.

Friday, December 19, 2003

It's time to wash the bathrobes again - for the boys to wear in the Christmas pageant. Like thousands of boys at Christmastime, I, too, was drafted into being one of those shepherds. I'm not sure my bathrobe got washed any other time of the year actually. Not to be petty, but I always thought the guys playing the wise men had a better deal. They got to wear some fancy clothes, and they had something to give to Baby Jesus when they came - I think we used to call it gold, frankenstein, and myyrh. But not us shepherds. Oh, no! Since the Bible doesn't describe any specific gift the shepherds brought, we came empty handed. I thought we looked a little cheap. But I've learned something since then.

Thursday, November 20, 2003

Actor Mel Gibson's movie, "The Passion," has broken new ground for Hollywood - and triggered a firestorm of controversy. "The Passion" tells the story of the day of Jesus' death with an attempt at Biblical accuracy that is seemingly unprecedented in movie-making history. The dialog is even spoken in the languages spoken at that time. And the portrayal of the crucifixion of Christ is said to be intensely realistic, following as closely as possible the Bible's description of what happened that day on a place called Skull Hill. The controversy revolves around the portrayal of the role of the Jewish leaders on that day in conspiring to have Jesus crucified by the Romans and their statement inviting His blood to be "upon us and our children." So, for centuries, Jews have been wrongly persecuted as "Christ-killers," allegedly guilty of "deicide." What a tragic mistake! The truth of why Jesus died so brutally on that cross is far more shocking.

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

Hurricane Isabel was roaring up the East Coast, bringing with her 100 mile-an-hour winds, flooding deluges of rain, and a trail of destruction. As the storm moved from North Carolina toward Virginia and Washington D.C., something unprecedented happened at one of America's most hallowed sights. At Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place of many of the nation's honored dead, there stands the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, guarded proudly by military sentinels, day and night. For some seventy years, the guards have been there, marching with impressive precision, their rifle on their shoulder. But with a violent storm headed that way, the guards were given the unprecedented option of leaving their post long enough to seek shelter. They refused.

Friday, November 14, 2003

Recently I met a man from St. Joseph, Missouri, and I surprised him with my trivia knowledge when I said, "Pony Express country, right?" He confirmed my recollection that his town was the beginning of the famous Pony Express. Those guys rode their way right into the history books. They're practically legends of the Old West - riding endless hours through hostile territory, risking their lives to deliver the mail to the West Coast. You probably know that part. What you may not know is how many guys we're talking about here in this legendary operation - just 80 riders, and only one mail delivery was ever lost. How long did the Pony Express run? Only 18 months! It only took a few people a short time to make a great impact!

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Well, I'm not much of photographer, but I'm married to one. So, a few years ago I was able to open doors to minister to our local football team by being on the sidelines and shooting slides of them in action. Now, my wife gave me this crash course in photography, and one thing I had to learn fast was how to focus my lens. See, I was shooting from all different angles, all different distances. If I said, "Well, I'll just focus my lens on this first photo, and then I'll leave it like that," I would have had a pile of blurry pictures and not many friends on the football team. See, the picture kept changing, and I had to constantly refocus for each new situation.

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

If I ever want to know anything about gardening, I ask the man in my world who is the master gardener - my friend, Mel. He doesn't ever need to shop in the produce department - he has his own produce department in his backyard in this fabulous garden of his. Not long ago he was telling me about these incredible raspberries he saw growing in the woods near his home. But why have to go hunting for them in the woods, huh, when you can just transplant those raspberries and grow them in your own garden, right?

Well, Mel was sorry he did that. In the woods, where God planted them, the berries had been big and many. In Mel's garden, where he planted them, those same bushes produced berries that were small and few.

Monday, November 3, 2003

Missionary pilots are my personal heroes - especially since the incredible job they did moving our Native American team across Alaska recently. Often there really wasn't much of a runway to land on or good weather to fly in, but they always got us there safely. Now, on one flight, I was in the co-pilot seat in our little six-seater aircraft, and our pilot, Gary, was flying us to a Yukon River village through some low visibility, low ceilings - just generally lousy weather. And as we neared our destination, he said, "I hate this part. We're in the dead zone." Now "dead zone" isn't exactly what I want to hear from a pilot when I'm flying with him, so I asked Gary what he meant by that. He described that part of a flight where you cannot communicate with the tower or with any other aircraft. You're kind of all alone. It doesn't last long, he explained, but if you're in trouble or you're going down, nobody knows. It's a lonely stretch. Well, after a couple more minutes, Gary broke into a big smile and he said, "Good. We're back." I smiled, too.

Friday, October 31, 2003

Movies wouldn't be nearly as exciting without those stunt men. You know those high-priced stars aren't going to take all the risks that give the viewer those big thrills. Every once in a while, a script will call for a man to fall off a building or a cliff. And that star says, "I'm outta here, folks." But later the viewer will see a man hurtling through the air backwards, and you know it isn't a dummy because his arms are flailing. Or maybe some might argue that the stunt man is a dummy for taking a plunge like that. But it sure looks like we won't be seeing that falling man again. Oh, but appearances aren't everything. No! It looks like he's headed for a crash, but he's actually headed for a net!

I had the TV on while I was getting ready to go somewhere, and I caught a snatch of a TV talk show. The host was interviewing a former FBI agent - a man who had successfully infiltrated the Mafia and had been responsible for some major indictments. Now, in his underground life, he was, as you might expect, surrounded by cocaine. The talk show host asked the FBI man, "Did you ever have to use cocaine to maintain your cover?" Good question - after all, his life depended on his fitting in. But he answered that question with a firm "No." The host said, "Then how did you avoid having to use cocaine?" I liked his answer. It might even help you where you're feeling the pressure to fit in.

Monday, October 27, 2003

I used to just be concerned about me or someone I love picking up a virus. Now I have to be concerned about my computer picking up a virus! And more and more of them are infecting various computer systems. Now, if one of those viruses contaminates your computer, it can cause you to lose valuable data. It can even cause your computer to crash. But, thankfully, I have this special software feature that's called a virus scan. When I turn on my computer, basically the virus scan checks to see if any of those destructive little bugs have gotten in, and it warns me if they have. And that's a good thing. You want to get it before it infects everything.

Friday, October 24, 2003

The first hijackers I remember in the headlines were terrorists who kidnapped airplanes and their passengers and released them if and when their demands were met. But since the events of September 11, 2001, the word "hijacker" has taken on a new and more deadly significance. Now we know it can mean someone who takes over a plane and its passengers with the intent of using that plane as a deadly weapon. On a smaller scale, some of our big cities have had to deal with the relatively new threat of carjacking, where a criminal forcibly takes over the car of some unfortunate driver. I think most of us would agree, hijacking in any form is wrong, and it should be punished with serious penalties.

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

It drove our kids crazy. In the countdown to Christmas, the basement door had a sign on it, banning our children from going down there. And every night, Mommy and Daddy would disappear downstairs. And, off and on, the kids would hear hammering sounds in the basement. They knew some kind of "Christmas business" was going on, but they didn't know what. The first year, the surprise turned out to be a doll house that our daughter discovered on Christmas morning under the tree. We'd built it for her. The next year, same scenario - closed basement, vanished parents, building sounds. Man, did they bug us, wanting to come down there, wanting to know what was going on. Hey, not until Christmas, kids. That's when our oldest son got the barn that we had built for him. Following year - they were frustrated again by the waiting and the not knowing. And on Christmas morning, our youngest son got his general store. They loved - and still love - what we made for them. But the waiting drove them crazy!

Friday, September 26, 2003

It's amazing what a difference a camera can make, isn't it? Allan Funt, the creator of "Candid Camera" sure proved that over and over, and now his son is proving it on an updated show based on the same idea. People do these dumb little things, and they're totally unaware that the camera is rolling and the nation is watching. If they knew, they'd never do what that show tricks them into doing. Of course, the results of unknown cameras aren't always humorous, like incriminating photos being taken of a Presidential candidate or a Christian leader - and they have been. How many times has the subject of an incriminating photo said, "If I'd only known they were recording this"? Maybe you should assume they are.