Attitude
(Phil. 2:12-18)
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing:to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way.
—Viktor Frankl concentration camp survivor (Choices, Hardship)
Out West, a cowboy was driving down a dirt road, his dog riding in back of the pickup truck, his faithful horse in the trailer behind. He failed to negotiate a curve and had a terrible accident.
Sometime later, a highway patrol officer came on the scene. An animal lover, he saw the horse first. Realizing the serious nature of its injuries, he drew his service revolver and put the animal out of his misery. He walked around the accident and found the dog, also hurt critically. He couldn’t bear to hear it whine in pain, so he ended the dog’s suffering as well.
Finally he located the cowboy —who suffered multiple fractures—off in the weeds. “Hey, are you okay?” the cop asked. The cowboy took one look at the smoking revolver in the trooper’s hand and quickly replied, “Never felt better!”
(Complaining, Fear)
Don’t complain and talk about all your problems—80 percent of people don’t care; the other 20 percent will think you deserve them.
—Mark Twain (Complaining, Relationships)
CHANGE
A Long Train of Thought
The following story comes from the Internet: “The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between rails) is four feet, eight-and-one-half inches.
“Why such an odd number? Because that’s the way they built them in England, and American railroads were built by British expatriates.
“Why did the English adopt that particular gauge? Because the people who built the pre-railroad tramways used that gauge.
“They in turn were locked into that gauge because the people who built tramways used the same standards and tools they had used for building wagons, which were set on a gauge of four feet, eight-and-one-half inches.
“Why were wagons built to that scale? Because with any other size, the wheels did not match the old wheel ruts on the roads.
“So who built these old rutted roads?
“The first long-distance highways in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The roads have been in use ever since. The ruts were first made by Roman war chariots. Four feet, eight-and-one-half inches was the width a chariot needed to be to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses.”
Maybe “that’s the way it’s always been” isn’t the great excuse some people believe it to be.
—Clark Cothern Tecumseh, Michigan (Purpose, Tradition)
Blame
(Ex. 20:16, Ps. 50:20)
We have only one person to blame, and that’s each other.
—Barry Beck of the New York Rangers, on who started a brawl during the NHL’s 1997 Stanley Cup playoffs (Fighting, Teamwork)
Too bad the only people who know how to run this country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.
—George Burns (Criticism, Opinions)
Change
(Matt. 9:16,17)
In his book, An Anthropologist on Mars, neurologist Oliver Sacks tells about Virgil, a man who had been blind from early childhood. When he was 50, Virgil underwent surgery and was given the gift of sight. But as he and Dr. Sacks found out, having the physical capacity for sight is not the same as seeing.
Virgil’s first experiences with sight were confusing. He was able to make out colors and movements, but arranging them into a coherent picture was more difficult. Over time he learned to identify various objects, but his habits—his behaviors—were still those of a blind man.
Dr. Sacks asserts, “One must die as a blind person to be born again as a seeing person. It is the interim, the limbo … that is so terrible.”
To truly see Jesus and his truth means more than observing what he did or said, it means a change of identity (John 12:37-41).
—Terry Seufferlein Norman, Oklahoma (Identity, Vision)
Tradition, without purpose, merely propagates more tradition, without fostering growth and forward thinking.
—Ralph Neighbour, Jr., in The Seven Last Words of the Church (Purpose, Tradition)
Easter
(1 Cor. 15:54)
The German theologian Jurgen Moltmann expresses in a single sen- tence the great span from Good Friday to Easter. It is, in fact, a summary of human history, past, present, and future: “God weeps with us so that we may someday laugh with him.”
—Philip Yancey in Christianity Today (Grief, Laughter)
In Storytelling: Imagination and Faith, William J. Bausch shares: “In the Greek Orthodox tradition, the day after Easter was devoted to telling jokes . …They felt they were imitating the cosmic joke that God pulled on Satan in the Resurrection. Satan thought he had won, and was smug in his victory, smiling to himself, having the last word. So he thought. then God raised Jesus from the dead, and life and salvation became the last words.”
—cited by Donald McCullough in Christian Reader (Salvation, Spiritual Warfare)
Grief
(1 Thess. 4:13)
The home of Paul Laurence Dunbar, noted poet, is open to the public in Dayton, Ohio. When Dunbar died, his mother left his room exactly as it was on the day of his death. At the desk of this brilliant man was his final poem, handwritten on a pad.
After his mother died, her friends discovered that Paul Laurence Dunbar’s last poem had been lost forever. Because his mother had made his room into a shrine and not moved anything, the sun had bleached the ink in which the poem was written until it was invisible. The poem was gone.
If we stay in mourning, we lose so much of life.
—Henry Simon Belleville, Illinois (Mourning, Resurrection)
I am spellbound by the intensity of Jesus’ emotions: not a twinge of pity, but heartbroken compassion; not a passing irritation, but terrifying anger; not a silent tear, but groans of anguish; not a weak smile, but ecstatic celebration. Jesus’ emotions are like a mountain river cascading with clear water. My emotions are more like a muddy foam or a feeble trickle.
—G. Walter Hansen in Christianity Today (Emotions, God’s Nature)
EASTER
The Song Goes On In his allegory The Singer, Calvin Miller gives insight into the supernatural war that was waged in those days from the cross to the empty tomb. The Troubadour (Christ) brings a song of love to the world ruled by World Hater (Satan). Later, as the Troubadour is being tortured, World Hater cries out to God,
” ‘Look how he dies. Cry, Creator, Cry! This is my day to stand upon the breast of God and claim my victory over love. You lost the gamble. In but an hour your lover will be pulp upon the gallows. Did you tell him when his fin gers formed the world, that he would die on Terra, groaning with his hands crushed in my great machine?’
“He laughed and turned to look again upon the Troubadour. ‘Now, who will sing the Father’s Song?’ he asked the dying man.”
Later in the story, Miller paints this scene: “World Hater reached the threshold of eternity and found the doorway of the worlds, not only open, but clearly ripped away. He strained to hear the everlasting wail, the eternal dying which he loved. All was silent. Then he heard the Song.
” ‘ No!’ he cried. ‘Give me back the door and key for this is my domain.’ He felt again and found the great key at his waist had disappeared.
“He steeled himself for the battle out ahead. He would have to fight the Song. He would fight with every weapon in his arsenal of hate.
“But he knew that he would lose. And he knew that when the course of time was done, the door would be put back upon the Canyon of the Damned, and he would be locked in with all the discord of the universe. And he would suffer with all of those he had taught to hate the Song . …”
(Redemption, Spiritual Warfare)
Average times per month a woman cries: 5 Average times per month a man cries: 1 —Good Housekeeping (4/97) (Men and Women, Sadness)
In a recent sermon, Bill Hybels shared this story: “A friend of mine has a brain-damaged daughter. Sometimes the sadness she feels over her daughter’s condition overwhelms her, as it did recently. She wrote me this letter and gave me permission to quote from it:
” ‘ … I can hardly bear it sometimes. My most recent wave of grief came just last year before her sixteenth birthday. As the day approached, I found myself brooding over all the things that she would never be able to do. What did I do? What I’ve learned to do again and again: I did what I believe is the only thing to do to conquer grief, and that is to embrace it. … I cried and cried and cried, and faced the truth of my grief head on.’
“People who face their feelings and express them freely begin the journey toward hope.”
—Preaching Today (Perseverance, Sadness)
In her book First We Quit Our Jobs, Marilyn J. Abraham writes: “We signed up for a hike with a ranger, who told us a remarkable thing: when a tree’s life is threatened, stressed by the elements of fire, drought, or other calamity, it twists beneath its bark to reinforce and make itself stronger. On the surface, this new inner strength may not be visible, for the bark often continues to give the same vertical appearance. Only when the exterior is stripped away, or when the tree is felled, are its inner struggles revealed.”
God can use our grief to strengthen us in ways that are not visible to the world.
—Terry Fisher San Mateo, California (Strength, Stress)
Perseverance
(Phil. 3:12-14, Heb. 12:1)
In his forthcoming book, Pastoral Grit: the Strength to Stand and to Stay (Bethany), Craig Brian Larson writes:
“In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe Pioneer 10. According to Leon Jaroff in Time, the satellite’s primary mission was to reach Jupiter, photograph the planet and its moons, and beam data to earth about Jupiter’s magnetic field, radiation belts, and atmosphere. Scientists regarded this as a bold plan, for at that time no earth satellite had ever gone beyond Mars, and they feared the asteroid belt would destroy the satellite before it could reach its target.
“But Pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and much, much more. Swinging past the giant planet in November 1973, Jupiter’s immense gravity hurled Pioneer 10 at a higher rate of speed toward the edge of the solar system. At one billion miles from the sun, Pioneer 10 passed Saturn. At some two billion miles, it hurtled past Uranus; Neptune at nearly three billion miles; Pluto at almost four billion miles. By 1997, twenty-five years after its launch, Pioneer 10 was more than six billion miles from the sun.
“And despite that immense distance, Pioneer 10 continued to beam back radio signals to scientists on Earth. ‘Perhaps most remarkable,’ writes Jaroff, ‘those signals emanate from an 8-watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom night light, and takes more than nine hours to reach Earth.’
“The Little Satellite That Could was not qualified to do what it did. Engineers designed Pioneer 10 with a useful life of just three years. But it kept going and going. By simple longevity, its tiny 8-watt transmitter radio accomplished more than anyone thought possible.
“So it is when we offer ourselves to serve the Lord. God can work even through someone with 8-watt abilities. God cannot work, however, through someone who quits.”
(Longevity, Servanthood)
Behind the scenes of an Arizona circus, Bobb Biehl started chatting with a man who trains animals for Hollywood movies:
” ‘How is it that you can stake down a ten-ton elephant with the same size stake that you use for this little fellow?’ I asked, pointing to a baby elephant who weighed three hundred pounds.
” ‘It’s easy … ‘ the trainer said. ‘When they are babies, we stake them down. They try to tug away from the stake maybe ten thousand times before they realize that they can’t possibly get away. At that point, their ‘elephant memory’ takes over and they remember for the rest of their lives that they can’t get away from the stake.’
“Humans are sometimes like elephants. When we are teenagers, some unthinking, insensitive, unwise person says, ‘He’s not very good at planning,’ or ‘She’s not a leader,’ or ‘Their team will never make it,’ and zap, we drive a mental stake into our minds. Often when we become mature adults, we are still held back by some inaccurate one-sentence ‘stake’ put in our minds when we were young.
“Today you are an adult capable of much more than you realize. You are far more capable than you were even twelve months ago, and next year you will be able to do things you can’t imagine doing today.”
—Bobb Biehl in Masterplanning (Growth, Possibilities)
Chicago Tribune (11/7/96) writer Wes Smith, with tongue firmly in cheek, tells how the Illinois entry in the World Championship Punkin’ Chunkin’ contest in Lewes, Delaware, took first place for hurling a pumpkin the farthest distance. “Made mostly from junk parts, their massive air cannon, named the Aludium Q Pumpkin Modulator, left the local competition ‘a little awestruck.’
“The Illinois team, expecting to be provided with official ammunition, arrived with just a few practice pumpkins which had been picked weeks earlier and were turning soft. ‘The first launch was a Scud, it blew up on us,’ said one team member. The competition, on the other hand, had grown special pumpkins that were almost solid on the inside, then frozen before they were launched. ‘We didn’t think it was legal, but there wasn’t much we could do,’ said team captain Matt Parker.
“Allowed only fifteen minutes between shots, undaunted members of the Illinois team were quickly dispatched to round up a couple of decent pumpkins from local sources. Even with fresher ammo, the team still had to back down the pressure to accomodate the softer, ornamental pumpkins.
“The second shot was still short of the competitor’s best, but the third shot flew 2,710 feet for first place, a new world record, and the $1,500 prize.”
(Creativity, Recreation)
Prayer
(Ps. 86)
Prayer does not fit us for the greater works; prayer is the greater work —Oswald Chambers (Priorities, Work)
Servanthood
(John 13:1-16)
In 1989, Mother Teresa visited Phoenix to open a home for the destitute. During that brief visit, she was interviewed by KTAR, the largest radio station in town.
In a private moment, the announcer asked Mother Teresa if there was anything he could do for her. He was expecting her to request a contribution or media help to raise money for her new home for the impoverished in Phoenix.
Instead, she replied, “Yes, there is. Find somebody nobody else loves and love them.”
Mother Teresa was not the first to teach this kind of love. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matt. 25:40).
—J. Paul Covert Phoenix, Arizona (Love, Ministry)
Humble people don’t think less of themselves … they just think about themselves less.
—Norman Vincent Peale (Humility, Perspective)
PRAYER
Prolific in Prayer According to a poll on prayer for Newsweek (3/31/97), the following percentage said:
They ask for health or success for a child or family member when they pray —82
They ask for strength to overcome a personal weakness —75
They never ask for financial or career success—36
God answers prayers—87
God doesn’t answer prayers—51
They believe God does not play favorites in answering prayers—82
God answers prayers for healing someone with an incurable disease — 79
Prayers for help in finding a job are answered — 73
They believe that when God doesn’t answer their prayers, it means it wasn’t God’s will to answer—54
They don’t turn away from God when prayers go unanswered —82
—Princeton Research Associates (Dependence, Intercession)
We’re here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don’t know. —W. H. Auden cited in Hope Health Newsletter (Confusion, Selfishness)
Simon, the Cyrenian, a nobody in the crowd, is called upon to help carry the redemptive load of the Savior. What a privilege!” “So too, God is calling us—nobodies—with the challenge of carrying the cross to a needy world … a calling to help bear his redemptive load, so that it may make a difference, not just on Calvary, but in the communities where we live and work.”
—Senator John Ashcroft (R-Missouri) (Cross, Ministry)
Worship
(Ps. 42:1)
Favorite hymns of:
Dentists—”Crown Him with Many Crowns” Meteorologists—”There Shall Be Showers of Blessing” Golfers—”There is a Green Hill Far Away” Politicians—”Standing on the Promises” Optometrists—”Open my Eyes that I May See” IRS Auditors—”All to Thee” Electricians—”Send the Light” Shoppers—”The Sweet Bye and Bye”
(Hymns, Music)
The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great. If men are deprived of the infinitely great, they will not go on living and will die of despair. The Infinite and the Eternal are as essential for man as the little planet on which he dwells.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Eternal, Human Nature)
WORSHIP
Here’s Lookin’ at You
In his book Good Morning, Merry Sunshine, Bob Greene shares journal entries from the first year of his daughter’s life. At a marked transition in her social development, Bob writes: “This is something I’m having trouble getting used to. I will be in bed and there will be Amanda’s head staring back at me. Apparently I’ve become one of the objects that fascinate her. It’s so strange. After months of having to go to her, now she is choosing to come to me. I don’t know quite how to react.
“All I can figure is that she likes the idea of coming in and looking at me. She doesn’t expect anything in return. I’ll return her gaze, and in a few minutes she wants to be back in the living room and off she’ll crawl again.”
A mark of development for the believer is when we choose to come to the Father and find delight in the Lord’s presence.
—Greg Asimakoupoulos (Maturity, Presence)
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