Subscribe  

Friday, October 12, 2018

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Our Native American outreach team traveled across Alaska one summer to villages that were a long way from the nearest road. So, we spent a lot of time on small missionary airplanes. Missionary pilots, man, they are some of the best pilots in the world - my heroes. They have to be. I mean, every travel morning, they're on the phone, carefully checking the weather conditions. And if the weather wasn't safe, we didn't fly until it was no matter how urgent our schedule. And that's a good thing. Our pilot explained to me a condition that has cost many a pilot his life – it's referred to as get-thereitis. You know, it's cutting corners, rushing into your flight because you're obsessed with getting there. Then he told me a pilot's saying that I had to think about for a minute. He said, "Many a pilot has been buried on a sunny day." Translation: if only he had waited just a little longer.

Thursday, October 4, 2018

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Hey, if you're looking for a great real estate deal, don't go looking in the metropolitan New York area. Yeah, housing in the metro New York area is just really expensive. When people from another part of the country start looking at home prices there, they usually get a paralyzing case of sticker shock. When our friend Rachel and her husband moved to the New York area to serve the Lord, they went through that cost-of-living trauma. Rachel was talking one day to my wife about this and it led her to tell about a minor, but particularly irritating, frustration she had with their house. It was about that pipe in the corner of the dining room. Rachel said, "I have wallpapered the room. I have tried everything to get that dumb pipe to blend in, but nothing works! It's ugly!" Then she paused for a moment and she said, "You know, I told God I'd live in a grass hut in Africa if He called me to, and I meant it! Why can't I live in a house with an ugly pipe in New Jersey?" Then Rachel answered her own question. "I know why." The diagnosis that followed might provide an x-ray of what's going on in you.

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Download MP3 (right click to save)

If you want to get into Manhattan from New Jersey, you have several choices. You can take a long bridge, one of two long tunnels, a ferry trip, or a long un-recommended swim. The Hudson River is really pretty wide when it reaches Manhattan, but it's not very powerful. If you could see the Hudson River near its headwaters in upstate New York, man, it's roaring along with a really strong current. Upstate its banks are confined and the force is greater. By the time it reaches Manhattan, it's not so powerful. The Hudson's so spread out that its power seems kind of weak by comparison. I know people like that.

Monday, September 10, 2018

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Some friends are involved in a ministry whose offices are out in the country. The setting is beautiful and far enough out that it even has some interesting four-legged neighbors. Like the mountain lion that several workers and neighbors say they've spotted. There's not supposed to be a mountain lion in their area, but someone forgot to tell the mountain lion. (He didn't get the memo.) I understand this has caused the folks who work there – especially if they're there after dark – just a little more vigilance when they're coming or going from their car. Personally, I think it's better for the person to see the lion before the lion sees the person. Right?

Thursday, September 6, 2018

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Oh, it was a happy day for our then one-year-old granddaughter! It was a milestone day. I mean, ever since she started riding in the car with her parents, she had been in the back seat in her infant seat, facing backward – just like the safety folks recommend you should do. Her Mom and Dad travel a lot of miles, and so even as a little girl, she saw a lot of country as it was going by. But not then! No, not anymore! Not after she got twenty pounds. Yeah, she weighed twenty pounds, the magic threshold. When you get to twenty pounds, you reach that great milestone. Mom and Dad turn your seat around and you get to see where you're going instead of where you've been. 

Monday, August 20, 2018

Download MP3 (right click to save)

And now once again it's time for another of my science guy experiments. Let's say I'm looking at this beautiful scene on a calendar. It's a picture of snow-capped mountains in the background with stately evergreen trees in the foreground and a azure-blue sky. In the upper left-hand corner, an eagle is soaring majestically over the trees. I love eagles, so I decide that's the thing in the picture that most catches my attention. In fact, forget the rest of the picture, I'll just take a closer look at the eagle. So I bring him closer to my eyes and closer and now my nose is touching the calendar. I am totally focused on the eagle and I am suddenly cross-eyed!

Thursday, August 16, 2018

Download MP3 (right click to save)

My wife and I have always, yeah we enjoyed Mexican food. Actually, I just like food, but she really liked Mexican food, but she liked it much hotter than I do. She liked the salsa, the hot sauce – the really hot stuff. I like wimp sauce, yeah. But not even she could handle what our friend from Mexico went for. See, he doesn't just like hot sauce on his food. He likes molten lava. Even the candy he eats has chilies in it. (What in the world?!) It brings tears to our eyes; he pops it like we do M & M's. Recently, he told me about a Mexican pepper that he had never tasted before. Some friends recommended it to him. He took a big bite out of it and he really enjoyed it. It wasn't hot, it was actually mild. He enjoyed it so much, he ate some more. No fire, no burn, just a nice taste experience – until a few minutes later. Here's how he told it, "Suddenly, my mouth burst into flames!" Now, when he thinks something's hot, it's on fire, man! But there was no hint of the fire when he was biting into it. I loved what he named this particular pepper. He calls it "The Liar."

Monday, August 13, 2018

Download MP3 (right click to save)

You can have some say in what seat you get on an airplane. In fact, I try to reserve the kind of seat I want in advance. But you don't have any say in who your neighbors will be. No, like the children who were in the seat behind me on one flight. My first clue that it was going to be an interesting flight was their squealing and crying and we hadn't even taken off yet. Mom just didn't seem to have her young daughter and her younger son under control, but she was trying. As we took off, I heard her tell her daughter loudly, "Don't squeeze your brother's head!" That's a good idea. That sounded like a pretty reasonable request to me. Then she gave a reason, "You know he's got a fever and he keeps throwing up!" Oh, good! Great, great! For some strange reason, I instinctively ducked. Well, the way I figured it, a straight trajectory would carry anything that came from that boy's mouth right to my head. (And that's enough of that discussion.) I looked at the passenger next to me and we both just kind of shrugged and bent our heads down. Well, nothing terribly gross happened, but all during the flight I kept thinking about those flu germs flying all around me and I hoped I'd taken enough Vitamin C that morning!

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Download MP3 (right click to save)

The Lord's been good to our ministry and given us vehicles when we needed them through His people. It's been a wonderful thing. And I remember years ago, He provided our ministry with a used car. It was the easiest car to drive we've ever had up to that time. The windows were interesting. Looking out the windshield, everything looks clear. Looking out the side windows; that was another story. They were tinted for privacy. But over the years and the miles and all the heat, the tinting had started to create ripples in the glass. So everything you looked at through those windows just didn't look quite right. It's was blurred, it was distorted, it was dark.

Monday, July 30, 2018

Download MP3 (right click to save)

We tend to measure life by its milestones. Take our first born child, our daughter. There have been a lot of milestones in her life. I remember looking at the films of her learning to walk. Now, that's a big milestone from a long time ago. Her first piano recital; we have pictures of that of course. Her first band concert; that was a big one. Let's see, there was her junior high graduation, then her high school graduation, her college graduation, her wedding; man, there have been a lot of things. I remember that when she graduated from college there was a sense of completion I think for all of us. She had a double major in college. She graduated with honors. She got a degree from a great school, and I wrote something on her graduation card for all the work and all the money that that degree had cost. I told her there is another degree that she needs. One that is far more important.

                

GET IN TOUCH

Hutchcraft Ministries
P.O. Box 400
Harrison, AR 72602-0400

(870) 741-3300
(877) 741-1200 (toll-free)
(870) 741-3400 (fax)

STAY UPDATED

We have many helpful and encouraging resources ready to be delivered to your inbox.

Please know we will never share or sell your info.

Subscribe

Back to top