Big Wings - #8713
June 3, 2020
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I've never been able to get this little four-year-old girl out of my mind. I never met her, but I'll tell you what, I saw her story and it really affected me.
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How Your Fire Can Produce New Life - #8706
May 25, 2020
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It was one of those milestone wedding anniversaries for my wife and me. I got congratulations cards. She got sympathy cards. But we had a wonderful couple of days in a romantic location, even doing some romantic things. Like a horse-drawn carriage ride through some beautiful countryside. Along the way, our driver pointed out a forest of tamarack trees which the Indians reportedly called "twice-burning wood." Our driver explained that tamarack trees need a fire in order to reproduce. Their bark is petroleum-based rather than glucose-based like most trees, so it takes a fire to burn off the bark to expose the seeds that produce new life. Interesting!
Night Vision - #8700
May 15, 2020
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Throughout the history of warfare, there always have been those weapons or tools that gave an army an edge. When I was a boy, it was the iron chariot or the catapult. Later, it was the crossbow, and then the latest rifle. While it's not exactly a weapon, there is a new military tool that can give military folks an edge. It's called night goggles, and they help soldiers live up to their reputation for "owning the night." Night goggles literally allow the wearer to see an illuminated view of what's going on in the darkness; things that would otherwise be invisible. If you can see through the night, you can see what others can't see and you can operate when others can't move.
COVID Testing - Pass or Fail - #8695
May 8, 2020
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Our high school grandson came up with "Hmmm" kind of gems. "Life's different from school. In school you have the lessons then the test. In life, you have the test, then the lessons." Like I said, "Hmmm." Now, we hear a lot about the need for more testing in this pandemic to know what's going on inside of people if we're going to contain and trace this virus. Yeah, we need to be testing for coronavirus, but the fact is the coronavirus has been testing us with fear and financial stress, disruption and distance and loss of control and connection. There's something about a crisis like this that exposes what's inside.
Battlefield Blindness - #8674
April 9, 2020
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"Embedded reporters." It was a concept I had never heard of until Operation Iraqi Freedom years ago. But the U.S. Military decided to allow reporters to actually travel with and report from active combat units, fighting for the liberation of Iraq back then. The result was these amazing live transmissions from sandstorms, rapid troop movements, actual combat in progress, and even the takeover of some of Saddam Hussein's palaces. It was the ultimate in reality TV. Of course, it had one disadvantage; one that briefers and Pentagon officials kept reminding people of. The embedded reporter could only report on the small slice of the big picture that he was able to see from his unit's vantage point. A seasoned military observer expressed it this way on television: "The closer you are to the battle, the less you can see the whole war."
The Platform You Would Never Choose - #8673
April 8, 2020
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A lot of us were broke most of the time we were in college. Sound familiar? So, it was always nice to find some free Saturday night entertainment. And in downtown Chicago, there was a place called Bug House Square. Yeah, it's not the real name I don't think, but that was how it was affectionately known in the neighborhood at the time. See, Bug House Square was a small city park just north of downtown Chicago. And it was a place where anybody could get up and make a speech about anything - thus, the name. So, people who couldn't find a platform anywhere else, well, they could find one at Bug House Square. Some frustrated people got to deliver the message that they never got to deliver anywhere else. You know, and actually it's frustrating to have a message and no platform to proclaim it from. And it's surprising sometimes where our platform turns out to be.
Last-Second Victories - #8672
April 7, 2020
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They're usually some of the most exciting moments in sports - that touchdown, that field goal that wins the game with no time left on the clock. That game-winning basket; the buzzer-beater as the final buzzer sounds. The game-winning home run with two out in the bottom of the ninth. Whatever the sport, there's nothing like a sudden victory when victory seems out of reach, and the fans go ballistic.
Big Issues - Bite-Size Chunks - #8634
February 13, 2020
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First, our kids couldn't feed themselves. Then they slowly began to learn to do it themselves. Right? Yeah. And then they got really good at it. But in those very early days of teaching them to feed themselves, we didn't just hand them this big slab of meat to eat and say, "Go for it kid." Every parent knows the drill: you cut the big piece into bite-size chunks so it's manageable. I got so used to doing it, it was kind of embarrassing when I'd got out to lunch with a businessman and I started cutting up his meat up for him!
Your Proven Provider - #8626
February 3, 2020
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Helen Roseveare was a veteran missionary, and I heard a true story from her life and it really touched me. And it reminded me of why I can face some huge needs with perfect peace. I thought it would be an encouragement to you today, too. Maybe you need this. Helen was a medical missionary in Zaire, and she told about the night she had tried to save a mother in the labor ward. And those efforts did not succeed. The mother died, left the missionaries with a crying two-year-old daughter and this tiny, premature baby. Now, they didn't have an incubator. They didn't have electricity to run an incubator, and they didn't have any special feeding facilities. And even though they lived on the equator where the nights got pretty chilly. So they wrapped the baby in cotton wool, put him in a box then, and they stoked up a fire. What they really needed was a good, old fashioned hot water bottle for the tiny newborn, but they discovered that the last one they had was burst and there was no way to get one. So they put the baby as near the fire as they could safely and they hoped it would be enough. But it was a touch-and-go fight for that little life. And then came the little girl's prayer.
When Daddy's On Deck - #8603
January 1, 2020
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I've never been in a storm at sea and that's fine! I've heard the stories. You remember the ship, some years ago, that was making this transatlantic voyage from Liverpool to New York. One night, at a time when most of the passengers were asleep, the ship was hit by this "mega" Atlantic storm. The wind and the waves were so violent at one point they actually tipped the ship almost on its side, and down below, the passengers were thrown out of their beds. They're freaking out! I mean, this is a rude awakening! Now in this one cabin, a little girl was thrown out of her bed like everybody else and her mother was already awake from the intensity of the storm. But there was one thing different about this particular passenger. See, her daddy was the captain! While she was all bleary eyed, she asked her mom the only thing she really wanted to know about the situation, "Is daddy on deck?" Her mom said, "Well yes he is, honey." The little girl's response was right to the point, "Then I'm going back to bed."