When I was in Junior High School, we usually bought one copy of the local newspaper each day. Until the day after I won the County Spelling Bee! Aren't you impressed? (Autographs will come later.) Well, that day we got about 20 copies of the local newspaper. What was the difference? My name was in it this time.
John and Becky were gone when this huge windstorm hit their neighborhood recently. Although no one could be sure a tornado was involved, the winds were clocked at 70 miles an hour. John and Becky told me that when they returned later that day, their street was closed. A huge pine tree had been blown down, and it fell right across the road. Now other kinds of trees had lost some branches, but the wind had actually totally uprooted this evergreen. Well, a neighbor explained to John that it really isn't that hard to uproot a pine tree - no matter how big it is. Because even though it's a big tree, it has shallow roots - so it's relatively easy to bring it down.
You know, sometimes people just overwhelm me with their love and their kindness. Some dear people from the church I grew up in learned about some needs we've had in our home for a long time. And well, with the schedule I have, there really hasn't been much time to make some of the desperately needed improvements or repairs--not to mention the fact that I am constructionally challenged, shall we say. And with our limited budget, we haven't been able to pay anyone else to do it either. Well, in this amazing expression of God's love, a work crew from my childhood church came to our house for three intensive days of house transformation. And now we can see all over the house the wonderful results of their labors.
But while they were in the middle of that work, life got very interesting around our house. We couldn't park in the driveway. Walking through the house was like walking through a minefield of cans and tools and workers. Our clothes were out of closets and laying all over tables. Furniture that had to be moved out of the worker's way made it very exciting just to walk through the house. It was a total mess! And even though I didn't enjoy the mess, I could handle the mess--for one simple reason: they were making our house a mess in order to make it better than it's ever been before.
This past summer I introduced a group of young people to someone they started calling "Evil Bert." You see, Bert was actually a hand puppet I asked one of our more creative leaders to make for me. He was limited to the few materials we had at this training camp, but somehow he managed to create a primitive puppet - who just happened to have very black eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth - and a not-too-friendly expression. Some said he looked a little like "Bert" of "Bert and Ernie" fame on "Sesame Street" - so he was "Evil Bert". And he certainly lived up to his name. He held this styrofoam bat in his hand, and as I walked around the room with Evil Bert on my hand, he kept hitting people with it. But was Evil Bert really the problem?
You've probably seen the G. I. Joe action dolls. I never bought one of those for my boys - but I did buy a special version of G. I. Joe lately - as an object lesson for our "On Eagles' Wings" team of young Native Americans. This particular, limited edition doll portrays a group of unsung heroes from World War II called the Navajo Code Talkers. They were soldiers who worked in wartime communications in some of the fiercest battles of the Pacific campaign. They used their Navajo language to communicate in a code that baffled the Japanese. Some surviving Code Talkers were recently honored by the President in Washington. The Code Talker G. I. Joe actually says a few Navajo phrases when you pull his string. I wanted to use that doll as an example of how some young Native Americans helped determine the outcome of the battle - and how God wants to use young Native Americans to do that today in the battle for their people. Now my Navajo G. I. Joe has stayed unopened in his box for nearly a year since I bought him - they're pretty rare. Because he's almost a collector's item, I didn't really want to take Joe out of his box. But you can't get him to do what he does if you leave him in the box.
Every year with our "On Eagles' Wings" team of young Native Americans is an adventure, no matter what reservation or villages we're going to. But our two summers in Alaska were especially challenging. Our usual mode of operation is to travel by bus to each reservation, and we carry under the bus everything we need for our outreach events, literature distribution, and the care of our team. Not when we went to Alaska. Some of the Native villages there are 400 miles from the nearest road! So, goodbye, bus! Goodbye, carrying everything we need with us! Hello, airplanes! Hello, boats! Hello, shipping everything ahead for each village! Hello, whole new way of doing things!
President Ronald Reagan found it out the hard way. He was preparing to do his regular Saturday morning radio address (which by the way, is live radio) - and he offhandedly made some joking comment about bombing the Russians. Unfortunately, that comment went out over the airwaves. Oops! See, he didn't know the microphones were on. Take it from me. I spend a lot of time in a radio studio. That's something very important when you're doing live radio - knowing when the microphone is on - or you can actually end up saying something that you really didn't mean for other people to hear.
Our kids' first pet was one of those furry little fellows called a gerbil. Frankly, I think gerbils need to get a life. Did you ever watch a gerbil? They do the same thing almost all the time. I'd walk over to our gerbil's cage and there he was - on the wheel. Running on the wheel. Go back two hours later, there he is - on the wheel. Running on the wheel. Going nowhere. If you could talk to Gerbie, you might just say to him, "Do you know you're not going anywhere on that wheel? You're just burning up a lot of energy. Don't you think you should maybe change something?" So he does. He runs faster on the wheel, going nowhere! Dumb gerbil.
Our neighbor Dan is a walking miracle. Last year he was in a terrible automobile accident that many would say should have killed him. He was evacuated from the crash site by a helicopter, actually with multiple injuries, including his back being broken in two places. But God wasn't finished with Dan yet. He miraculously spared his life - and miraculously delivered Dan from the paralysis that his injuries should have given him. And through it all, Dan surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. What a testimony Dan has! Now, I've never had a serious injury in my life - I've never been in a hospital facing possible death or paralysis. Now look at what God healed Dan from! So my story is nowhere near as dramatic as Dan's. But that's OK. I'm excited about how God put Dan back together - but I'm glad I didn't have to be put back together!
When you hear a helicopter going over, you probably look up. I know I do. But it's probably not a major emotional experience for you. It is for Megan's dad. She told me she and her dad were outside recently when a chopper flew over. In her words, "My Dad suddenly hit the deck." In other words, he just instinctively fell to the ground. Now, you know you could look at that reaction and say, "Is he a little strange, or what?" No, he isn't strange. He's a Vietnam veteran. Obviously, Megan was really surprised by her father's unusual behavior - so she said, "What's wrong, Dad?" He said, "It's just part of post-Vietnam trauma. When I hear a chopper, it just triggers something inside. I'm suddenly in combat again." Now Megan understands.
Our daughter is all grown up, and married, and even a mom. But the other day she told me about the Bible verse she learned as a little girl and never forgot - "If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). Then she told me why she never forgot it. One day when she was pretty young I had brought her to my office. And at lunchtime, we walked downtown to get something to eat. And, as she remembers very vividly, we passed this storefront that must have been a fortune teller's place. There was a picture of a big human palm in the window, signifying that the occupant did palm reading. Our daughter tells me that I explained to her what that all meant - and that night she got to thinking about it. And really she was too scared to go to sleep. At which point she says I knelt next to her bed and I gave her a word for today from the Word of God - "If God be for us, who can be against us?" She went to sleep repeating those words - she never forgot them - and she hung onto them many times in the years to come.
It's been a long time since my wife and I had a baby around. And now that our daughter and son-in-law have given us a wonderful grandson named Jordan, we're into the baby thing again. And I want to assure you there is nothing wrong with this boy's appetite! Ooooo! I could tell that during his first couple of days on earth. He'd start crying to announce that it was time to eat. And he would not stop crying until he had his fill. And then that second day, he had just eaten, but right away he was again announcing that he had a need. Oh, we were able to distract him briefly by playing or singing or changing positions - but only briefly. Pretty soon he was at it again - until he got fed some more. Now even though our grandson is, of course, very special, I don't think this appetite thing is very unique. Babies will get their milk!
My wife recently received a lovely, family heirloom, diamond ring. And she took it to the jeweler the other day so he could look at it with that magic eye that jewelers have. As he looked at it under magnification, he let out a curious "hmmm." He told her that the diamond had a fracture in the middle of it, invisible to the naked eye, which caused her to ask how there could be a fracture in the middle. Why didn't it go all the way across the diamond? Mr. Jeweler gave a very interesting explanation. He basically said that while some diamonds are developing, some underground disturbance - maybe a quake or a tremor - causes the diamond to crack. But apparently some diamonds continue to develop anyway. Like the one we have. It was fractured, but it didn't stop growing!
There was just something about those great vacation adventures I would plan for our family- somehow our kids got to dreading my announcement that I had another one scheduled. Maybe it was that day on Cape Cod. Near Provincetown there are these monster sand dunes. And I had heard that if you climbed to the top of this particular mountain of sand, you would have a beautiful panoramic view of the ocean. So on a hot July day, we started trudging up that dune. And I kept encouraging the troops with the prospect of that fabulous view at the top. And when we finally reached the top, there it was - a panoramic view of another sand dune! Well, against strenuous protests, I moved the troops down that dune and up the next one, sure that our view was one dune away. And there, atop that next dune, we were rewarded with , yeah, another sand dune. And so went our afternoon, up a dune, down a dune, up a dune, down a dune. My mistake - I was sure that what I was looking for must be just over that next hill. It wasn't.
Hooper Bay, Alaska. It's a little Eskimo village on the edge of the Bering Sea. And it was a place missionaries had repeatedly wanted our Native American outreach team, "On Eagles' Wings," to go. They all spoke of the unparalleled desperation there. Well, thank God, we were able to go and see an amazing response to the Gospel - although we almost didn't get there! The weather closed in as our small missionary plane made its landing approach. My wife was in that lead plane with several of our Native team leaders. The clouds were very low, the rain was falling, fog was all around. And our seasoned missionary pilot was making literally moment-by-moment judgments as to whether he needed to turn back. Now, hanging out over the Bering Sea, approaching that tiny runway, there was a lot of praying going on. But my wife, who knows enough about flying to read the critical instruments at least, said everything was lined up perfectly. Oh no, not according to their senses, not according to their stomachs, but according to the instruments. And moments later, sure enough, they were safe and sound on that runway! With a total instrument landing!
One of the great privileges of my life was serving in the leadership of the Northern New Jersey Billy Graham Crusade in the Meadowlands. For many of us who had been trying to reach people in this very hard corner of America, it was thrilling to see that arena nearly full on that opening Wednesday night. The arena seats 18,000 people, and filling it in Jesus' name was a victory of historic proportions. By Thursday, it was totally full--but I was strangely restless. By faith, we had set up 8,000 chairs and jumbo-tron video screen in the parking lot, just in case there was overflow. It looked like we wouldn't need it - as the press so graciously reminded us. Even though we were seeing unprecedented attendances and spiritual harvests, I felt led to pull together several of our Crusade leaders after the second night. After thanking God for all He had done, I asked them to pray with me a prayer that I had never prayed before. "Lord, if anyone other than You is holding a lid on this thing, if there's even more You want to do - blow the lid off!"
The next night the arena filled pretty quickly. I was on the platform, seated next to Dr. Graham, when they handed him a note. He showed it to me. It said, "There are 13,000 in overflow!" Dr. Graham said, "I think you should go see it." Well, I did. And what a sight! Eight thousand chairs full, 5,000 people standing, sitting on car hoods, on the ground, even on the porta-johns...and Billy Graham preaching the Gospel on the big screen! It looked like a cross between the feeding of the 5,000 and a drive-in movie. And the rate of response that night was higher in the parking lot than it even was indoors! So much for that lid!
Maybe it's because my father-in-law was a corrections officer for a while, and I've heard his stories about the wasted lives behind prison bars. But whatever the reason I've always admired the men who minister as prison Chaplains. It's tough ministry but it's ministry where it's desperately needed. I've got a new friend, Bill, and he works as a prison Chaplain and he recently told me about an incident that touched me when he told me and it continues to touch me. Bill had been visiting this cell block and he went out in the exercise yard for some fresh air, he said. There was this clean cut, young inmate who walked up to him and said, "Hey mister! Are you broke?" Well, Bill kinda' fished around in his pocket and didn't find any money in there and the inmate said, "It doesn't matter, your money is no good in here anyway. Are you broke?" Only this time the inmate had tears in his eyes. And then here's what he said, "Mister, don't try to minister to people in here if you ain't broke, cause we all are." Now, that's not just inside prison walls.
Not long ago we met some wonderful radio listeners from the Sault St. Marie area of Michigan - way up north, you know, near the Canadian border. They told me this amusing, and slightly amazing, true story about a woman they met recently. She was driving from Detroit, which is about six hours south of them, and she was lost. So she stopped in at our friend's workplace, looking for directions. Now that's not anything unusual. But she walked in the door blurting one frustrated question, "Which way's Texas?" Texas! Well, for starters, ma'am, you need to turn that car around and go six hours back to the place where you started!
My wife was waking up to a sound she hadn't heard before - and she couldn't identify. It sounded like crinkling cellophane - and it was coming from inside our bedroom walls! Now, somehow I missed this little symphony, but she sure picked up on it. Since we were pretty sure no one was actually crinkling cellophane in our walls, we looked into other possibilities. Like carpenter ants, for example. And sure enough, that's what it was! Those little marauders were feasting on the wood in our house...and they were gradually eating our home! We didn't even have to think about what to do. "Hello, Mr. Exterminator?"
Our new grandson looks so tiny and fragile - and my grandfather's heart just hates to hear him cry, especially when he's really hurting, and the crying is long and intense. Like the other day when his parents took him to the doctor for some preventive inoculations. Now they've decided that's a step they wanted to take to protect their son from things like polio and measles and other harmful diseases. Of course, those loving reasons are a little hard to explain to a three-month-old. "You see little guy, there are all these nasty germs, and this shot will help immunize you." Forget it! It just hurts, and he doesn't understand why.
