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In many years of youth ministry I have learned that teenagers love to get mail, and if they get mail, whatever form it's in, they probably look at it. They don't actually get all that much sometimes. And then, oh yeah, well, we used to send out promotional pieces when, you know, there was snail mail. And there had to be a good attention-getter on it.
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Well, Spring is tornado time, and there were some Mississippi folks at the conference we were at getting some pretty scary reports from back home. There were friends in a ministry organization we know of who were deeply wounded by the death of a coworker and daughters in Arkansas.
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A number of years ago I was driving for a pretty extended trip with my son. And in that relaxed moment I said, "Hey, there's something we need to talk about." He rolled his eyes, "Dad, is this 'the talk'?" Well, he must have read me pretty well. He was right. It was time for "the talk."
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I've never really been addicted to TV game shows. But years ago, my son got me to kind of be interested in one. It's called Jeopardy. Three contestants, given several categories ranging from U.S. presidents to cat food, and the contestant picks a dollar value question. The host gives the answer to the question in that category. Then the three contestants vie to see who can get the right question, because the right answer is the question. Understand that. Some of them do very well and they win lots of money; others just kind of fold up. I said to my son, "Look at those people! They wind up in the hole with their money! How did they get on the show?" He reminded me, "Dad, it's hard to come up with right answers when you have all that pressure on you." (OK, I stand corrected.)
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You know, I've been told so many times in my life, "Go take a hike," so I finally did. Yeah, this particular summer I was at a lovely Christian conference center in California. One day when I wasn't speaking, they had a nature hike. They had a fellow called Father Nature who took us out (you didn't know there was a Father Nature I'll bet) and he showed us the four different kinds of nature zones they had on their property.
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We had a few days off, and the phone rang in our little cabin in the woods. A family member was calling. She said, "You need to turn on the news. A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center." I watched the news for much of the next three days. I was trying to absorb a scene that I had no mental file folder for. I don't think any of us did. I felt sickened, I felt vulnerable and profoundly sad beyond words.
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Okay, for all too many of us the words diet and failure are synonyms. I guess that's why Weight Watchers was born and others like it. There were a lot of people who have never lost weight, or at least been able to keep it off, and suddenly the word diet became synonymous with success.
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This is probably going to take a little imagination; maybe a lot of imagination. Let's say you go to buy a new car and you're going to pay in cash. So, let's make up a number - $30,000 in cash. Now, the dealer stamps the invoice Paid In Full. He says it will be here in two weeks. You show up all excited about getting your new car and you say, "Here I am. Remember me?" He says, "Oh yeah! Sure!" And he gives you this gift-wrapped box, shakes your hand and walks away. You go, "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute!" He says, "No, open the box, I think you're going to like it." So you open it up and here's a new steering wheel, a new carburetor, and a new hub cap. You go, "Hey, wait, Buddy! These are just spare parts! I paid the full price! I should get the full product."
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As a kid, I often rode my bike up to the old theater on 79th Street for the Saturday afternoon flick. But this day was different. They handed me this strange-looking pair of glasses made of cardboard with tinted plastic lenses. Those goofy-looking glasses opened up a whole new world where the events in a movie no longer just stayed flat on the screen. They leaped off the screen and right into my face. Hello, 3-D!
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We met this couple at a conference we were attending. They were telling us about how just the day before, a storm had blown in across the lake while they were down at the beach.
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Now, the problem with professional football games is they keep slowing down for huddles and time outs; especially those commercials. I'll tell you when they don't slow down. It's near the end of the game where your team is behind, and with two minutes left, a team often skips the huddle, all the delays, and they just go right from one play to the next. They forget the game plan; there's two minutes left. They go for broke!
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He was five years old, and his mommy wasn't feeling well. So she was taking a nap. His little two-year-old sister wanted an ice cream cone, so he did what Mommy would do. Yeah. He picked up the car keys Mommy had left on the kitchen table, took his little sister out to the car, put her in the back seat, turned on the car and somehow started driving (this is a true story). Then Mr. Five-Year-Old pulled out into the main thoroughfare at the corner. Thankfully, a police officer saw the car going by apparently without a driver from what he could see. That got his attention! He pursued the mystery car and managed to get the driver to pull over. Needless to say, there was one shocked policeman when he opened the door and saw a little boy at the wheel. I'd say it's a pretty good thing he stopped him.
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Now if you've ever been a football widow, you understand how long those games seem to take. "I want my husband back. When is this thing going to be over?" Of course the commercials help it feel a lot longer, but you might ask yourself, "Well, what about all those huddles? I mean what a waste of time! Do they have to do that? There's a game to win. These guys are stopping after every play to get their heads together." Well, of course, it's not a waste of time at all. If they try to play without that regular huddle, they're going to all go off in all kinds of directions, all kinds of confusion. Oh, by the way, and so will we.
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I've lived in the city; I've lived in the country. And when I live in the country... there are a lot more farm animals, so I learn a lot. I've actually learned a lot about donkeys. It's kind of fun to hear their braying. I mean there's no other animal that sounds quite like a donkey. Now, the ones that I knew best, the gray one and the brown one, but they both have the same marking on their back. It's one long dark line along their spine and then there's a shorter dark line across their shoulders. It actually makes a cross. One old farmer told my wife that all donkeys have that cross, and that they have it because a donkey carried Jesus to His birth and on Palm Sunday. I don't know the reason, but there's no doubt that many donkeys carry the cross on their backs.
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I'll bet you remember these familiar words, "I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can." Sure you do. Well, I hope you do, or else you had a deprived childhood. Because most of us grew up on those words. It's that little book, The Little Engine That Could. I think Fred Flintstone must have read it to his kids. I mean it's that old. Remember, the little engine tries to make it up to the top of the mountain, with this train load of toys. It's a mountain no other train was able to navigate. And as he gets near the top, he says, "I think I can. I think I can (puff, puff, chug, chug)." Oh, I've read it so many times to my kids and my grandkids. Well, as you remember, of course, he makes it to the top of the mountain. It's a great book. It's got a great philosophy of life. It's a great confidence builder. But maybe right now you've hit a mountain that you really can't climb. Maybe you need to read that book again - or I've got an idea. How about a much better book.
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Raising children! You know, it's not easy to know what's best for those little lives that God entrusts to us is it? A lot of times we don't know until years later if we did too much or not enough, or just the right amount. We have choices to make about discipline, medical treatment, and education. We've got to decide where the boundaries are going to be; what happens if they go out-of-bounds. Some choices actually make the difference between life and death.
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Hey, I really like Florida. It's a great place, but I'll probably never live there. I enjoy going there, but my problem is I'm a four-seasons freak. I grew up with the four seasons. I enjoy the changes of season. I think I would miss that a lot. Of course, I grew up in the north and I probably got used to it.
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The real Noah stirred things up when he was here. Guess what? He did it again a few years ago. Yeah, on the big screen they did a Noah movie Noah and his ark. Yeah, the movie version; it had a big launch when it came out. And actually Captain Noah proved that he still has the ability to be controversial. Except this time, it was mostly among Bible people.
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The Kentucky Derby always has its share of drama. I remember the 2006 Kentucky Derby. That was a blowout! A horse named Barbaro took the lead in America's most famous race and left every other horse in the dust. Barbaro won the Kentucky Derby by an astounding 6 & 1/2 lengths! Many thought that horse could go on to be one of the few who has ever won the Triple Crown. Well, sadly, an injury ended that dream. But it didn't take away the glory of Barbaro's dramatic Kentucky Derby victory.
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My wife and I had just visited her father and we were driving on this busy Interstate that's right near a large city. Suddenly everyone was coming to a complete stop, and we immediately thought, "Oh, there's got to be an accident, or maybe construction."
