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May 3, 2022

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Normally, Hainan Island is thought of as a tourist attraction. But the 24 American military personnel who were held there by the Chinese in early 2001? They probably didn't feel much like tourists. As the Americans reported it, their reconnaissance plane had been disabled by a Chinese jet that had flown too close and crashed into them. The jet pilot was lost and the American crew almost was, except for some extraordinary flying that managed to land their damaged plane on that Chinese island. There were days of tense negotiations, with the Chinese insisting on an apology and the Americans insisting on the release of their crew. The stalemate was finally broken by two words that the President of the United States included in a statement to the Chinese; words that expressed our sorrow over the loss of the Chinese pilot, not over the incident. The words? Yeah, you might have guessed, "I'm sorry." That's all it took. The next day our crew was on their way home.

May 2, 2022

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It takes a little longer to pick out a cereal at the supermarket than it used to. You've got to read all the ingredients these days; all the nutrients, and how much calcium, and how much of my daily requirement of vitamin C, and vitamin X there. You know all that. Well, it's on the package. In fact, on everything we buy in the supermarket, it's there because of laws that we call "truth in packaging." Good idea.

April 29, 2022

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Buck Helm - yep, that name was one light in the darkness on October 17, 1989, the day of the tragic San Francisco earthquake. It was the day the whole freeway collapsed, burying scores of people. And just when the rescuers thought there was no life left to find, an engineer spotted movement under one heavily damaged section. Under there they found, still alive miraculously, Buck Helm, a 57-year-old longshoreman. He'd survived four days in that rubble. And I think that's why we felt so sad when word came four weeks later that Buck Helm had died suddenly in the hospital. He was rescued, but he was lost. We can't always hang onto what we save.

April 28, 2022

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A lot of my writing, including for these visits we have together, takes place while I'm on the road. There was a time my wife did a chunk of driving to some ministry events, and she did that often. So me and my little friend laptop could do some work. Now, I had about 12 hours of writing work to do and my computer battery lasted for maybe two or three hours. No problemo! Power strip that I can plug into the cigarette lighter, and when I plug Laptop into that, he's running on the power in the car, not just the power in himself. Which means there's basically no limit to what we can do together!

April 27, 2022

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My friend, Ian, is unexplainable. He may very well have been at that time the best known Christian leader in all of New Zealand. A powerful, popular speaker and he had a great Christian TV program. If you heard him speak in any public setting, you'd have been very impressed. I was, and you'd want to meet him when he came off the stage. And he would extend his hand, and probably begin to stutter. You might kinda laugh and go, "Come on, you're kidding." And then you'd realize he's not; this is serious. See, Ian had a noticeable stutter when he spoke to other people anywhere but in a large meeting. But when he got up to speak about his Lord in front of a crowd, it's just amazing. Something happened, but not necessarily something unique to him.

April 26, 2022

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Our friend Mark grew up on the farm; actually on an Ozark Mountain farm. And that means rocks in your fields! One local grandfather used to say, "Every time it rains I grow rocks in my field." Mark knows all about that. Over a period of time, his mother made him clear hundreds of rocks out of one of their fields when he was just a little guy. Well then, Mark bought some land from his mother as an adult. And as he started to work one of those fields, he was really pleasantly surprised by how amazingly rock-free it is. Then it dawned on him, this was the field he had made rock-free when he was a boy!

April 25, 2022

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It was a tough stretch for our two-year-old grandson. Mommy was expecting his soon-to-arrive baby brother, and she was sick with a respiratory infection. Normally, Mommy and Daddy were both in the room where my grandson slept. But for comfort and health reasons, Mommy had to sleep in another room for a few nights. My grandson never said anything about his mother not being there during the night, but it obviously affected him. He slept in the big bed with Daddy, but he didn't sleep much. Neither did his father of course. Every few minutes, he'd snuggle up against Daddy and just say two words until his father responded, "Daddy, hold."

April 22, 2022

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When I would tell our kids we were going to Buttermilk Falls, I could expect two equally sincere reactions: "Oh good!" and "Oh no!" See, the "oh good" part was because it was just one of the "coolest" places in our area. There was this high, cascading waterfall, tucked in a remote place that few people knew about. It was magnificent to look at and it was fun to hike around. The "oh no" part was because of the road to get to this special spot. Think moonscape - potholes big enough to swallow an old Volkswagen. You couldn't avoid these craters; they were everywhere. So you went about as slow as a car can go, bracing yourself for a big bump and then another big bump. And then you were there, and it was great!

April 21, 2022

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Our grandson was gaining weight, and boy, he was going to be glad! (Unlike his grandfather who happens to find weight gain depressing.) Yeah, he was soon going to be over 20 pounds. Well, that meant his parents would turn his car seat around. No more looking out the rear window. That's a great feeling! You know, you don't have to keep looking back at where you've already been. It's all about looking where you are going - now.

April 20, 2022

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If you're walking along the street and you see some couples' initials written in the sidewalk cement (isn't that romantic!), you know it wasn't put there today. It's doubtful they spent hours chiseling it into the cement. You know those impressions had to be made when that sidewalk had just been laid. I mean, right before it turned hard. You know that famous theater in Hollywood where they have the footprints of many stars in the sidewalk. They didn't use a jackhammer or chisel. No, they did it in fresh cement; soft enough to write in. If they waited, well it would be pretty tough to leave their mark.

April 19, 2022

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I don't talk about it much, because I don't want people putting me on a pedestal or asking for autographs. But the fact is I was the (Are you ready for this? Drum roll...) the champion of our county's 8th grade spelling bee. Yep, I even got a trophy. That's right.

April 18, 2022

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I never had a sister when I was growing up, but my sons did. Our daughter is the oldest, and her two brothers each came at about two year intervals after that. As I watched their relationship over the years, it was interesting to see what I had missed: a lot of kidding around, some exciting disagreements, some hugs, some advice, some conflict, but a lot of loyalty. One thing was always really clear, say between our daughter and her older brother. No one had better do his sister wrong. He was always her personal "look-out-forer." Is that a word? And until our son-in-law came along, no guy had ever been good enough to get her brother's "thumbs up." Two years younger, he was always her protector. You know if you're a sister, it's nice to have a brother like that.

April 15, 2022

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I'm having sort of flashbacks of some very special Easters past; often at a sunrise service. Like the Easter in Miami, with the sun rising over Biscayne Bay as I spoke about Jesus rising from the dead. Or celebrating Jesus with Native Americans in a public park. And the... Oh, yeah, there was the one on the mountaintop near New York City.

April 14, 2022

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The land is flat around Joplin, Missouri. And then after the great tornado that hit there, much of the town was leveled by that F-5. It was just heartbreaking devastation as far as the eye could see. But you know what? In the midst of all that devastation, there was still one thing still standing. A reporter commented on it as the camera scanned across this sea of wreckage, and you couldn't miss it. It was a cross, and his words went right to my heart, "The church is gone, but the cross is still standing."

April 13, 2022

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When our daughter was just a baby we had a pretty small house where you could look in all the rooms from the kitchen. During the summer we had this big old exhaust fan on the floor in the kitchen, which was really the only way to suck some air through the house. Well, our daughter thought this fan was kind of intriguing, she thought it would be neat to explore. I walked into the kitchen one day and here she is toddling toward that fan with her hand fully extended. She wanted to put her fingers in the fan! Guess what? I didn't say, "Oh go ahead honey, I love you." No, I said, "No!" She tried again a few minutes later. She really wanted to do this. So I kind of spatted her on the bottom and said, "No, no! Don't do that." Now if I tried to explain it to this little toddler, she wouldn't have understood at all. I just had to stop her. Can't you imagine what she would have said, if she could've said, "Haven't you heard of love? If you love me, you'll let me do what I really want to do." No, not in this case. Today I think she's pretty glad that I didn't think that was love.

April 12, 2022

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I know you've experienced it. Let's call it customer frustration. Maybe it's all about a bill you think there's a mistake on, or a problem with your phone or some other service, or maybe it's a store policy that seems like it's got you going in circles just trying to get an answer. You've talked yourself blue in the face, trying to get some resolution from this salesperson or this customer rep. Then it dawns on you...this person doesn't have any authority to make any difference in this situation. They're just reading from the company script. So what do you do? You ask for the boss, the manager, the owner. That's where I usually get an answer, because they've got the authority to do something!

April 11, 2022

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My son really likes to read. In fact, he had this spot by his office window where he liked to sit in the morning and read as the sunshine came streaming in. The one book he read there every morning was his Bible. He wanted to make sure that he got his time with Jesus right at the top of the day. He still does that. But this particular day was particularly unforgettable because as he opened his eyes from praying, there was a little chair next to his big chair and our then two-year-old granddaughter (precious girl) was there reading (well, excuse me, she was reading as much as a two-year-old can) a book. It was her toddler's Bible. Oh yeah, and next to her was one melted daddy all over the floor.

April 8, 2022

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We had rented this nice cabin in the mountains, and we really didn't want to leave it much. The view across the valley was like a painting. It would change as the sun changed and the weather changed; all kinds of moods, you know, like you see in the mountains.

April 7, 2022

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Years ago there was a cowboy hero, and a young boy who thought he was a big deal. The boy was me. And my parents bought me this plate with my hero's picture on it and an inscription that said, "That a boy! You cleaned your plate." I wanted his approval very much, so I just kept cleaning my plate...and filling it so I could clean it again. By the time I was in high school, I weighed 210 pounds. And whose fault was it that I was so heavy? I've told many people - it was the fault of that cowboy hero, of course. Well, at least I wish I could have blamed him.

April 6, 2022

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They were very exciting years; those days when God launched our radio outreach to young people. The Lord used that youth program to present Jesus to young people in almost 400 areas of this country and about 60 countries of the world. And the early ones; the first ones we did, they were especially exciting because it was like a new kind of Christian program in the country. We were living in New Jersey. The program originated from Chicago, and it was neat to have two or three children with me for those pioneer broadcasts. We kind of shared the excitement.

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