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Our son-in-law can only sit still for so long. When we lived back East, there was this one time when he was visiting us that he reached his limit regarding that. So he grabbed his basketball and went out to the hoop in our back yard. Now, it was a pretty primitive basketball setup. It was just several boards nailed to a tree at the back of our driveway. So, you know, very homemade, wooden backboard.
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When you work in a ministry as I do, your spending priorities are usually more on people than on things. For example, we have never invested real heavily in office furniture. We've sort of waited for what the Lord supplied, and God has really met our needs. Now, sometimes that gives our office sort of an eclectic look; it's not one style, but it's nice-it's functional. I remember when I once received a new guest chair for my office. It was a nice, black leather swivel chair, and it was a busy chair; a lot of people in and out of there. And it was always so interesting to watch people get in and out of it; especially out. It was relatively easy to plop down into this chair, but there was something about the height and the angle that made it a struggle to get out. You know, life has a lot of positions like that, doesn't it?
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I was thinking the other day about when my son informed me that our local supermarket near his high school had just installed a new air conditioning system. What he meant was that it had just been bulldozed! That store had been there since I could remember, and then in one day it was rubble in a vacant lot.
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I grew up in Illinois. It's hard to find high mountains there. I think the highest in the state was like 2,000 feet. So, man, when I go west, "Whew!" impressed by the mountains. And as my friend from the Rockies pointed out, what we called mountains were nothing more than glorified hills.
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You're missing a lot if you only expect God to speak to you in church. I mean, the other morning I was in a hotel in the shower and God spoke to me there. You see, it doesn't take much. I noticed as I was taking a shower this little gadget in the wall, and I looked at it and it said, "Retractable Clothesline." And I thought, "Well, that's a clever invention." Probably I've seen them before; I never noticed it really before. And I went, "Well, you know, that's a great idea." You pull out the clothesline when you need it to hang up something in the bathroom, you leave it out as long as it's useful, and then it disappears completely when it's in the way. Retract ability - that's a great idea when it comes to clotheslines. It's not such a great idea when it comes to more important things.
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Most women have learned that men are never lost. Oh no! Or so men think. Some man is driving, let's say, from Chicago to L.A., and his wife says, "Honey, why did we just enter Pennsylvania?" Is he lost? Oh, no, no! He's exploring a new scenic route.
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If you think about it, there are two words that's kind of unlikely would ever be matched up: channel and surfing. Channel surfing! Well, of course, that refers to the practice of skipping from one channel to another to see what's on each one. Drives my wife crazy! But everybody knows the man is the king of the remote, right? We are experts at that! Have master's degrees in that. Now, when there were only a few channels, we didn't surf much. But look what cable and satellite did! I mean, you've got dozens, maybe hundreds of channels to check out. And as you surf, you may get a glimpse of a sports channel, a travel channel, a food channel, a movie channel, and a country music channel, nature channel, and of course a home shopping channel. Let's really skip that one.
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I love to drive through Custer State Park in South Dakota. This time, we were driving through on our way to an outreach for the Lakota young people on a nearby reservation. I love the drive because, if I'm lucky, I'll get to see a lot of buffalo. I know you'll find this surprising, but seeing buffalo is one thing; riding them is another.
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The world looks a little different through three-year-old eyes. Peter was three and he was the grandson of one of our ministry team. Little Peter was out with his Mom, and they drove past this construction site and saw one of those giant cranes. Well, Peter got all wide-eyed, and he's watching this mechanized monster moving things around. Finally, in total amazement, he tried to find a way to express how big that crane looked to him. Here's what he said: "Mommy, it's bigger than God!"
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You've got to feel bad for Dorothy, and the Scarecrow, and the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion. I mean, they went through so much to get to the Emerald City, all so they could see the Wizard of Oz. He had some great press releases didn't he? He was known as The Fearsome Oz, The Mighty Oz, and he ruled the Kingdom of Oz with that huge reputation. And when they got to his Throne Room, they were greeted by this booming voice, and bright lights, and mysterious smoke everywhere. The wizard behind the curtain was intimidating...until Dorothy's little dog, Toto, (Remember?) pulled away the curtain around the wizard. There was no giant wizard; just a little old professor talking into a microphone and cranking wheels to make big lights and big smoke. He was all image!
