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Buttermilk Falls is a beautiful spot! That's what I had been told, and I was always open for a great new spot to go for a Sunday afternoon drive with the kids. So we drove out to the country and set out to discover the beauty of Buttermilk Falls. I did have to stop and ask directions a couple of times; I guess a lot of people didn't know where this great spot was.
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The lion is supposed to be the king of beasts. If there was a king of birds, I think it would have to be the eagle. I remember one point in our Native American ministry when we had arrived on this reservation. And as we were praying and preparing for our outreach there, someone pointed up toward the sky and said, "Look!" It was an eagle, soaring above our heads. We all felt as if God had sent that majestic bird to virtually affirm His care for us. It's hard not to be inspired watching an eagle soar. But if it were up to baby eagles, they probably never would. They love the softness of the eagle nest - until one day, when they're out walking around the nest, and Mother Eagle starts pulling the fur and the foliage out of the nest, leaving a bed of exposed sticks and stones. Suddenly, that comfy little nest isn't so comfy anymore. At that point, Mamma Eagle manages to get that eaglet out of the nest, onto her back, and into the sky. I'm sure that eaglet can't imagine just hanging out there in the sky all by himself, but that's what he was born for. He wasn't made for staying in a cozy nest, and neither are you. He was made to touch the sky, and so are you.
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Our friend told us that their youngest child, Ralphie, was like "Mr. Christmas" at their house. Very early every Christmas morning, he was everyone's alarm clock to get up and get going on those presents. That's what made this one Christmas so strange. Two weeks earlier, Ralphie was doing a little exploring in the closets while his parents were gone, and he found where they had hidden their presents! He couldn't resist. He opened this one bag and saw the major gift they had bought for him. Well, then came Christmas. Everyone slept later than they ever had on a Christmas morning because Ralphie didn't get up! Everyone was waiting impatiently around the Christmas tree, so Dad called up the stairs, "Ralphie, are you coming?" "Yeah," Ralphie replied. All the other kids were psyched as they opened their gifts. Not Ralphie. He opened his with little emotion, sort of a halfhearted thanks. Dad took him aside and said, "Ralphie, are you sick, man? You're always like Mr. Christmas around here!" And Ralphie explained why his "joy to the world" had gone. "Dad, the problem is I opened my gift early, and I ruined Christmas."
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The little kid with the round head and the pitiful tree! He's become a regular part of America's Christmas. Our kids watched "The Charlie Brown Christmas" when they were little, and that thing's been around so long, their kids love it and their parents never stopped loving it.
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My wife had gotten a really nice wedding gift for our friend. This beautiful little serving dish and some cut glass and some silver. One of those things people get only at their wedding, usually. Well, here's the problem. The girl had been married for four years, and four years later, well, we found the present. Yeah, we put it behind a chair to get it out of the way one day, and we found it four years later. We had planned to have our daughter take it to the wedding for us. Well, we totally missed the time that you should give a gift like that.
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I met Gary when we were both working with our local high school football team. He was a coach. I was the football. No, actually I was sort of an unofficial chaplain for the team. Gary was basically a happy guy, pretty laid back. Until "they" come up in the conversation. "They" are the men who were prisoners of war or missing in action in the Vietnam War. When it came to the subject of the MIA's who had not been accounted for, Gary wasn't laid back anymore. Suddenly he was really intense, really serious. See, Gary was one of a number of veterans determined to do whatever they could to make sure that we would do everything we could to locate them, and at least to give an account for missing soldiers.
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Well, it's got to be the Christmas season! You know, you keep seeing the UPS trucks going up and down like a fleet, and those drivers are busy! They must collapse into bed at night after those long, long hours they work. But their job could be worse. I mean, what if they had to shop for all those packages, and buy them, and package them and deliver them? Well, fortunately it's not up to the UPS guy to create the package; he's just got to deliver it. It's kind of like you and me.
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A friend of ours told us about a lady in this area who had just lost her husband. They had this beautiful farm, but it was really more than she wanted to maintain without him. Some of it was devoted to a wonderful vegetable garden that she'd cared for many years. After her husband's death, she offered to let her neighbors treat that garden as if it was their garden. Well, one day the man next door was picking carrots. and he suddenly stopped to examine one carrot that was very unusual. It seemed to have grown into an hourglass shape; it was wide at the top and at the bottom. It was really, like, narrow at the center. And as he brushed the dirt off that carrot, he was shocked at what he found. There was a gold ring right in the center of the carrot!
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If you've ever had to make a marathon drive over a long distance, or if you just wanted to squeeze every possible hour out of your vacation, you know what it's like to drive all night probably. If you're a long-haul truck driver, pushing through the night, that could well be a way of life for you. For me, that last hour or two before dawn, oh, man, that's tough. That's when you turn on the most obnoxious radio station you can find and you blast it. That's when you start doing aerobic workouts behind the wheel. It's when you roll down the window in spite of the 30-below wind chill and the hurricane force winds. What makes the last hours of the night particularly challenging is the truth of that old cliché, "It's always darkest before the dawn." It usually is the darkest time, right when the night is seeming to be the very longest. Then suddenly, you start to see that glow on the horizon. The glow gets steadily brighter, and it starts radiating light across more and more of the dark sky. And then, there it is - the sunrise! Hallelujah, the long night is over! Just when it felt like it was never going to end!
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Years ago a friend of mine told me this, "If people who don't know Jesus want to know the difference Jesus makes, let them come to our funerals."
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That particular Christmas I saw something I would not soon forget. I was visiting a theme park that has a wonderful Christmas festival, including a service in their old log chapel. We sang some of the old carols and then there was a short time when we had our eyes closed in prayer. As I opened my eyes, I noticed that someone had slipped in to the old wooden bench across from me - Santa Claus. Yep, there he was red suit, real white hair, real white beard - except for his Santa hat which he had removed to pray. There was Santa Claus, eyes closed and head bowed on his folded hands praying. Look, I've seen a lot of Santas. I've never seen one praying before. As I visited with him afterwards, he told me how he tried to remind each boy and girl who sat on his lap of the Savior who came on Christmas to die for us. Now, that's one amazing Santa!
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My wife and I have had some of the most special weeks of our lives on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and New Mexico. But there was a cloud over one visit during a summer ministry we had there. See, there had been this mystery illness; it was all over the news. It had already taken some 20 lives. People suddenly were developing severe breathing problems, and in a short time they were gone. Well, since then, that same disease has surfaced in places all over the country. That demonstrated that the killer was not a reservation disease. But in the early stages, there was panic on the reservation.
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Antiques and young children - not a good combination. It is, in fact, an invitation to disaster. Like that lovely antique teapot my wife had out years ago when the kids were little. You know what happened, right? One moment a teapot, the next moment pieces of a teapot. But my wife quickly rallied to remedy the situation. No, she did not disown one of our children. She sent me out for a tube of some sort of super glue. And amazingly, she put those pieces together and recreated that old teapot. And that glue? It's held it together to this very day!
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My friend, Gary, was flying with a friend in a World War II vintage airplane. In fact, this man was a former WWII pilot. And my friend, Gary, was full of questions. He said, "What's this dial for?" And, "What does that light do?" And, "What's this stick do?" Well, fortunately he didn't grab for the stick when he was asking. And then Gary said, "Now, what's this red mark on the fuel gauge?" The pilot said, "Well, when we reached the point back in WWII days in which there was only enough fuel to get back, but the mission wasn't completed, we had a decision to make. And at that mark, we had to decide, shall we turn back or shall we go on? And then pretty soberly, and like he was bringing up some memories, the pilot said, "That mark is called 'the point of no return'." Believe it or not, you could be at that point right now and not even know it.
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Okay, fill in the blank. Dog collars are for _________. Right! Dogs. Well, of course, there was one case, it was a not-so-bright nephew. My friend's nephew decided it would be fun to put his dog collar on around his own neck. Well, it wasn't just any dog collar; it was the kind that gives the dog a little shock when he's barking too loud. You want to guess the rest? Yeah, well without thinking, he yelled something to someone across the yard, which triggered a shocking reaction from the collar, which made the young man, of course, scream in pain, which gave him another shock, which caused him to shout "Ow!" again. Which caused… You got the idea.
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There's one vacation spot our family has always wanted to go back to - Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. As you walk through this bustling, restored Colonial capital, suddenly you say, "Whoa, it's not "now" anymore." You feel like you're in the 1770s again. I mean the buildings, the gardens, and the elegant rooms carry this charm that even children can sense. But it wasn't always that way.
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I've been privileged to have a lot of friends in law enforcement over the years. Not because I was in their custody. Let me make that clear. Some of them have the intriguing, and harrowing, assignment of being involved with both a SWAT team and a Hostage Negotiating Team. Needless to say, they're specialists who are called in when there's an especially dangerous situation; often involving people who are being held hostage by a felon. Their mission, one way or another, is to do whatever it takes to bring out those who have been taken captive.
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For years, I flew out of Newark Airport a lot. And I was usually in a hurry when I was there. And because I was in a hurry, I was focused on getting to my gate. I wasn't real observant of the little changes at the airport. But one day I was flying down the concourse when a little poster grabbed my attention. It was a picture of a smiling, attractive teenage girl, and there were two words in bold, black letters that grabbed me - "STILL MISSING." Now the smaller print revealed that she lived more than a thousand miles away, but someone who loves this girl has spread the word all over the place. Those two words on that poster just went straight to my heart.
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They take more abuse than anyone in professional baseball. More than the managers who make some dumb decisions. More than the players who mess up. No, it's those umpires that so many fans love to hate. Oh sure, they make some calls the fans don't like or agree with, but I'd hate to think of a ball game without some objective official deciding whether the pitch is a ball or a strike, or whether a hit is foul or fair. Let the players decide? I don't think so. It would be chaos without the umpire. Perhaps the place he's needed the most - and sometimes appreciated the least - is those close judgment calls when the runner and the ball arrive at the base at the same time. Everyone holds their breath as the umpire signals his verdict "Safe!" or "Out!"
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Well, I watched it as a kid, and then my kids watched it, and now my grandkids are watching it. Yep! Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has been around for a pretty long time! And those Rockettes, Well, the announcer said they've been around for over 50 years! That's just amazing they can still get their legs off the ground at that age isn't it?
