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Tyler's story really touched me and showed me what makes someone a hero. In this case - an eight-year-old hero. Since he didn't have school on Martin Luther King Day, Tyler went to stay at his grandpa's trailer for the night. He wasn't the only one. Nine people slept that night in that little trailer.
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Okay so I'm a newspaper guy, sort of a news junkie. Yeah I get it on TV, I read it on the internet but I like to read my newspapers too. It's kind of one of life's simple pleasures. But I've found out that a newspaper isn't finished though when you finish reading it. Oh, no, no! It's more than informative, it's useful! What's in the news is useful for wrapping fragile items, or storing them or shipping them. We did that just the other day. It's useful for killing flies sometimes when I can't find the swatter. A newspaper is useful for lining pet cages and building a fire. What's in the news or in the newspaper is useful for saving lives.
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It was one of those rare mornings off for our Native American outreach team and someone had arranged for us to take a brief raft trip down the beautiful Snake River in Wyoming. Our guide pointed out these incredible sights along the way including a stand of tall Aspen trees along the bank. He told us that Aspens actually have a single root system. In other words, that stand of trees all came from the same root, just branching out a lot of different directions. That's amazing! And then our guide who I hope wasn't just putting on some dumb tourists said that the largest living thing in the world is in Colorado, a giant stand of Aspen trees. All the product of a single root. Many, many trees, one root. . .
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That statue in that church yard had been a beautiful statue. It was Jesus with his arms extended, arms wide open. Great statue! Then the vandals came along and broke off the hands. Strangely, the church decided not to repair the hands. They left it broken like that - the arms extended, but no hands. They put a sign that explained why. It simply said: "He has no hands but our hands."
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Nobody thought Gladys Aylward was good enough. During the 1920s, she had heard about the great spiritual need of China, and she sensed God's strong call on her life to go there. But she was only a chambermaid. When she applied to China Inland Mission in London, they rejected her because she wasn't educated enough and she was probably too old to learn the language they said. But Gladys Aylward made it to China and she made such a difference there that a number of books have been written about her life. Hollywood even based a movie on her life, "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" got an Academy Award winning actress in it too.
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When I was a little guy in Sunday School, we used to sing a little song that says, "I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery." (Okay, it's a Sunday School song...come on, give me a break.) "I may never fly o'er the enemy, but I'm in the Lord's army." And you had to sing it like that. "I'm in the Lord's army!"
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I never saw the movie Jaws, but I know it's about this shark that keeps snacking on people who are in the ocean. And that's why the lifeguard at Ocean City, New Jersey got my attention that summer day when he ordered all of us out of the water. Oh, I cooperated. I didn't even ask any questions. In moments, there were hundreds of people out of the water and lined up on the beach. But the shark was just in my imagination. The real problem was three children had gone out too far in high tide, and they were too close to the jetty in spite of a lifeguard's warning. So now they were in very serious trouble; they're going down.
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My wife and I had the opportunity to be in Geneva, Switzerland. Or as they say, "Genève." (I'm not sure about my French.) But it's a beautiful, French-speaking city in Switzerland. And since we were with our host most of the time, my wife and I got along just fine. But one day they left us on our own to do a little shopping, and we don't speak French. The first time I knew I was going to have a problem is when we went into this pharmacy, which, of course, was identified in French on the outside. I looked around, I had a couple of questions, and the pharmacist looked at me with a blank stare. Our English wasn't getting through.
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I was teaching my son to drive, I think. There were some pretty thrill-packed moments as he learned to drive. And there was a strange byproduct taking place as he learned to drive. My driving improved! Yes, and it needed it! See, we were living in the New York area. And when you're there, traffic tends to make you a little more careless about the right way to drive; the way you learn how to drive; the way the book says you ought to drive might be two different things when your survival is at stake, which it almost is constantly there.
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Do you want me to speak from the floor or up on a platform? See, sometimes I'm asked to make that choice before I speak somewhere. Now, I would rather be on the floor, given that choice, because I just like to be closer to the people I'm speaking to. The problem is, if I do that, I will disappear. I know on the radio you think I'm like six foot six. Well, in person I can only seem to muster, you know, about five feet six inches or something like that. But if I'm standing down on the floor kind of on everybody else's level, then you might as well be listening to a recording, because you can't see the expression on my face. So I need to be above the crowd at least a little in order to best communicate my message. See, I need a platform. So do you.
