Leadership Journal

ASSURANCE

In 1958, a U.S. soldier wandered the streets of Berlin to see the sights. Despite the bustling new life in parts of the city, reminders remained of the destruction of World War II.

Walking through a residential area one evening, across the cobblestone street he saw an open space edged with flowers. In the center stood the stone front of what had been a church. The building was no longer there, but the rubble had been cleared away in an attempt to fill the empty space with a little park.

The former church's main door was shaped in a Gothic arch, and over it was carved into the stone in German: HEAVEN AND EARTH WILL PASS AWAY, BUT MY WORDS WILL NOT PASS AWAY. As he stepped through the arch where the doors had once been, of course he wasn't inside anything. What was once a place of worship had been reduced to a patch of stone pavement and open sky.

Not so with the Door-Jesus Christ! As we step into Christ, we enter into his unshakable, eternal presence. It cannot be reduced; it can only be experienced-forever.

- Coleman L. Coates

Cadmus, Michigan

HEAVEN

I once led a man to Christ who loved the sunny country of common sense, but he could not put up with the mysteries of godliness. He kept shoving common sense at me, while I kept trying to show him that the mysteries held the meaning of faith.

One day he said, "Pastor, you know this new eternal life I have-well, I've been thinking about it. What are we going to do all day long for eternity?"

"We'll praise the Lord," I said.

"Forever-for ten million years!-we're going to stand around and praise the Lord?"

"Well, yes," I said, although heaven was beginning to sound like cable television.

"For millions and millions of years?" he said. "Couldn't we just stop now and then and mess around a while?"

I kidded him about his "dumb questions," but I have to admit similar questions of my own at times. How meager our understanding of praise-and heaven!

- Calvin Miller

Omaha, Nebraska

COVERING SIN

A man purchased a white mouse to use as food for his pet snake. He dropped the unsuspecting mouse into the snake's glass cage, where the snake was sleeping in a bed of sawdust.

The tiny mouse had a serious problem on his hands. At any moment he could be swallowed alive. Obviously, the mouse needed to come up with a brilliant plan.

What did the terrified creature do? He quickly set to work covering the snake with sawdust chips until it was completely buried. With that, the mouse apparently thought he had solved his problem.

The solution, however, came from outside. The man took pity on the silly little mouse and removed him from the cage.

No matter how hard we try to cover or deny our sinful nature, it's fool's work. Sin will eventually awake from sleep and shake off its cover. Were it not for the saving grace of the Master's hand, sin would eat us alive.

- Laura Chick

Denver, Colorado

FAITH

In April 1988 the evening news reported on a photographer who was a skydiver. He had jumped from a plane along with numerous other skydivers and filmed ...