Acceptance
Peter Marshall wrote a little poem worth recalling:
We have the nicest garbage man. He empties out our garbage can. He’s just as nice as he can be. He always stops and talks to me. My mother doesn’t like his smell. But mother doesn’t know him well.
—Calvin Miller on Preaching Today
Delegation
There are three ways to get something done:
- Do it yourself.
- Hire someone else to do it.
- Forbid your kids to do it.
—Homiletics (Jan.-Feb./96)
Explanations
Cubs relief pitcher Bob Patterson described his pitch, which the Cincinnati Reds’ Barry Larkin hit for a game-winning home run: “It was a cross between a screwball and a change-up. It was a screw-up.”
—Wall Street Journal (7/9/96)
Resurrection
A letter came from Health and Human Services to a resident of Greenville County, South Carolina: “Your food stamps will be stopped, effective March 1992, because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if your circumstances change.”
—S. Bowen Matthews Wilmington, Delaware
Self-Esteem
From John Maxwell’s book The Winning Attitude:
Two cows were grazing in a pasture when they saw a milk truck pass. On the side of the truck were the words, “Pasteurized, homogenized, standardized, vitamin A added.”
One cow sighed and said to the other, “Makes you feel sort of inadequate, doesn’t it?”
—Ron Willoughby Augusta, Georgia
Seen on a bumper sticker: I took an IQ test and the results were negative.
Wealth
The other twenty million finalists might as well give up. One of the gold-sticker-laden sweepstakes entry forms and magazine sales pitches that show up just about weekly in most Americans’ mailboxes has been sent to God.
American Family Publishers sent its computer-generated entry form to “God of Bushnell,” at the Bushnell Assembly of God, a church in central Florida.
“God, we’re searching for you. You’ve been positively identified as our $11 million mystery millionaire,” the form read.
The fine print showed the Creator was merely a finalist, but the letter encouraged him to try his luck.
“Imagine the looks you’d get from your neighbors … but don’t just sit there, God, come forward now and claim your prize.”
Bill Brack, the church’s pastor, told the Tampa Tribune that he had not yet decided whether the church would enter the sweepstakes. “God already has $11 million,” he said.
—Reuters Limited
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