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Legendary West Indian fast bowler Sir Wesley Hall was a strongly-built, larger than life cricketer who played international cricket between 1958 to 1969. His long run-up, fearsome pace bowling, outstanding personality, and exploits on the field, made him one of the most-loved sportsmen to emerge from the Caribbean. In 48 international test matches, Hall took 192 wickets at an average 26.38 runs per wicket.

Wesley Hall became an unforgettable part of cricket folklore having bowled the final nail-biting over in the first ever tied test match in the history of cricket between Australia and the West Indies in 1960. The last Australian wicket fell in the last over of the match with them needing one run to win. Thus, the scores of both teams finished the same (tied). It was a historic moment in the game of cricket

After retiring from the game he loved, Hall served in politics and as an Administrator for West Indies Cricket. He was knighted in 2012.

Wesley Hall's life was dramatically transformed, however, after attending a Christian meeting in 1988 on a trip to Florida. He gave his heart to the Lord that day and eventually answered the call to serve God. After attending Bible college, Hall was later ordained in the Pentecostal Church. He has been a much-loved preacher thereafter at Christian gatherings and at funerals-specifically those of West Indian cricketers.

Possible Preaching Angle:

At his trial before King Agrippa, the Apostle Paul, remembering the call of Jesus on the road to Damascus, said, “So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven” (Acts 26:19). Similarly, when God's call came to the prophet Isaiah, he responded, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isa. 6:8). God places His call on different people in different places. Sir Wesley Hall answered the call of God to serve Him. What about us?

Forty years ago, Steve Bell began building cabinets in his garage. Those humble beginnings have grown over the decades into Bellmont Cabinet Co., an award-winning manufacturing company specializing in the minimalist “frameless” cabinet, of which Steve was one of the first pioneers.

But Steve has pioneered more than just cabinetry – he is redefining the workplace and what it means to be a working Christian. “Growing up, there was this sense that if you’re really called to faith, then you're going to go into ‘the real Christian work’ of full-time Christian service. Everything else was basically a compromise,” recalls Steve, whose parents were disappointed that he didn't want to follow in his father's footsteps into pastoral ministry.

One day in college, he was reading RG LeTourneau's Mover of Men and Mountains. LeTourneau experienced success in his business, so he asked his pastor, “Do you think I should sell my business and become a missionary?” The pastor said, “Bob, God needs businessmen as much as he needs pastors and teachers and missionaries.”

LeTourneau went on to become one of the great industrialists of the World War II era. Steve also realized that his desires for the business and manufacturing sector were a conviction from the Lord.

Steve said: “I think we've got generations of people growing up in the church who don't understand the importance of their work … God doesn't just love the cabinet maker; he loves good cabinets too. He actually loves the work that we do. I’ve got over 300 employees here that go out every day to make something that’s beautiful. And God loves beauty.”

Steve says, “This 200,000-square-foot facility with these 300 employees—this is my ministry … We want everybody that touches Bellmont to see Christ reflected in the way we do our business.”

When a researcher started interviewing hospital workers—the people who cleaned out the patients’ rooms each day she assumed they would only have bad things to say about it. That was partially true, but she also found a second group of workers with the same jobs who felt their labor was highly skilled.

They described the work in “rich relational terms,” talking about their interactions with patients and visitors. Many of them reported going out of their way to learn as much as possible about the patients whose rooms they cleaned. “It was not just that they were taking the same job and feeling better about it … It was that they were doing a different job.”

This group didn’t see themselves as custodial workers at all. One described forming such a bond with patients that she continued to write letters to some of them after they were discharged. Another paid attention to which patients seemed to have few visitors or none and would make sure to double back to spend some time with them. They said things like, “I’m an ambassador for the hospital” or, “I’m a healer. My role here is to do everything I can to promote the healing of the patients.”

One woman told how she rotated the art in the rooms of coma patients. She would take paintings down in one room and putting them up in another. The woman explained that it was at least possible that a change in scenery might spark something in their comatose brains.

These workers were quietly creating the work that they wanted to do out of the work that they had been assigned to do. The researchers called them “job crafters.”

In 2020 Christian leader John Perkins interviewed the lawyer, Bryan Stevenson. Perkins, the son of a sharecropper, was born in poverty in Mississippi. Stevenson was born two years after Perkins’ conversion to Christ, in a poor, black, rural community in Delaware. Stevenson eventually graduated from Harvard law school and founded the Equal Justice initiative. He represents people who have been sentenced to death on flimsy evidence or without proper representation.

Stevenson told Perkins the story of his first visit to death row. As a law student intern, he’d been sent to tell a prisoner that he was not at risk of execution in the coming year. Stevenson felt unprepared. The prisoner had chains around his ankles, wrists, and waist. Stevenson delivered his message. The man expressed profound release. They talked for hours. But then two prison guards burst in.

Angry that the visit had taken so long, the guards reapplied their inmates’ chains. Stevenson pleaded with the officers to stop. He told them it was his fault they overrun their time. But the prisoner told Stevenson not to worry. Then he planted his feet, threw back his head and sang:

I’m pressing on the upward way,

New heights I’m gaining every day;

Still praying as I am onward bound,

Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.

Everybody stopped, Stevenson said, “The guards recovered, and they started pushing this man down the hallway. You could hear the chains clanking, but you could hear this man singing about higher ground. And in that moment God called me. That was the moment I knew I wanted to help condemned people get to higher ground.”

Condoleezza Rice, the former diplomat and Secretary of State, was a sophomore in college majoring in piano performance, working toward a professional musical career. That summer, she went to study and perform at the Aspen Musical Festival, a prestigious and competitively sought honor.

While there, she came into contact with, as she put it, “11-year-olds who could play from sight what had taken me all year to learn.” She knew that she could not compete with people of such innate talent. She knew she would never be the best, and that meant this wasn't the path she wanted to pursue.

At the start of her junior year, she changed her major from music to international relations. And the rest is history.

Rice earned graduate degrees in political science from Notre Dame and would go on to become an expert on the Soviet Union and eventually foreign policy. She served as the National Security advisor and then US Secretary of State, as the first woman of color to do so.

Her life, and the future lives of countless others, was changed that fateful day when 19-year-old “Condi” decided she would not be a pianist. She didn't waste time staring at a door that was closing, but instead, while the opportunity was still ripe, pushed a new one open.

Tim Keller said he would never forget the story about one of his mentors, a college professor named Dr. Addison Leach.

Two young women at the college were both bright and their respective parents wanted them to get Master’s Degrees and go on to careers. But, instead, they both became Christians. Both decided that they were going to become missionaries. Their parents had a fit. One of the mothers called Dr. Leach, thinking that Dr. Leach was one of the reasons that the girls had become (in the mother’s words) “religious fanatics, rather than pursuing the course they had hoped, getting a career and having security. Instead, they were going to go wildly off into the blue.”

This mother said, “We wanted our daughter to get a master’s degree, start a career, and get something in the bank, so she could have some security. Dr. Leach responded:

Please just let me remind you of something. We’re all on a little ball of rock called earth, and we’re spinning along through space at zillions of miles per hour. Even if we don’t run in to anything, eventually we’re all going to die. Which means that under every single one of us there’s a trap door that’s going to open one day and we’re all going to fall off this ball of rock. And underneath will either be the everlasting arms of God or absolutely nothing. So maybe we can get a master’s degree to get some security.

But the biggest savings account in the world cannot stop cancer. It can’t stop traffic accidents. It cannot stop broken hearts. It can’t give you anything … any of the things that only God can give you. He’s the only significance you can have. He’s the only love that you can get and can’t lose.

Possibly overlooked by many is the fact that on at least one occasion, Jesus cooked for his disciples. John 21:9 records that the disciples had been out fishing. When they came to shore, they found Jesus on the beach with a meal. “When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.”

Avery Gilbert, psychologist and fragrance scientist, writes that cooking is much more than just preparing a meal, it is an invitation. The savory notes of roasted meat and baked bread stimulate us enroute to a meal.

Food aroma is an invitation and a spur to action. Even before the first bite, it triggers an elaborate sequence of physiological events: salivation, insulin release by the pancreas, and the secretion of various digestive juices. The aroma of bacon, at a level so faint it can’t be consciously identified, has been shown to trigger the flow of saliva.

Possible Preaching Angles:

Jesus offers everyone an open invitation to eat and drink with him. “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me” (Rev. 3:20). “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” (Rev. 19:9).

Tributes and remembrances flowed across the internet for entrepreneur Tony Hsieh, former CEO of online shoe retailer Zappos, who died at 46 after suffering injuries in a house fire. Hsieh’s influence on corporate culture was felt far and wide. He eventually sold Zappos to Amazon, while still maintaining the freedom to run it as a separate division. In 2010, his corporate autobiographic memoir, Delivering Happiness, debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Among his many culture-shaping practices was something known simply as “The Offer.” After a week or so on the job, new employees at Zappos were given an option: they could continue on, or they could take a cash incentive to quit—an initial figure of $1,000 that only grew larger as the company did.

At the time of its inception, it seemed odd to pay people to leave the company, but Hsieh knew that it was worth far more to ensure that everyone who worked at Zappos truly wanted to be there. It is a way to ensure complete buy-in from new hires. But it is also a generous way to reward those who took positions at Zappos only to later regret it. The Offer was a painless off-ramp for the less-than-fully-committed. The radical idea was consistent with his business philosophy: “we don’t sell shoes; we sell customer service.”

The idea quickly caught on, and as proof of its appeal, it spread to Amazon after it purchased Zappos in 2009. Business writer Bill Murphy summed up its lesson in a recent profile for Inc: “Life is far too short to follow the wrong path. And today is always a great day to start finding the right one.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The call of discipleship should not be made lightly. One should count the cost before deciding to follow the way of Jesus, for it requires complete dedication and surrender.

In Christianity Today, Al Hsu writes:

Encouraged by a 25 percent-off coupon given to me by a friend, I went ahead and had [laser eye] surgery [to correct my vision]. ... It didn't quite take. ... My vision had been something like 20/400, and he was able to bring it to 20/40—tantalizingly close to clear vision, but still fuzzy. Then I happened to attend an InterVarsity Asian American staff conference. During corporate worship, I squinted to make out lyrics on the far wall. In one particular session, we sang "God of Justice ”:

Live to feed the hungry

Stand beside the broken

We must go

Stepping forward

Keep us from just singing

Move us into action

We must go

I closed my eyes as we repeated the chorus, praying that God would direct me. How might I move into action? The song cycled back to an earlier verse, and I opened my watering eyes. The lyrics on the screen shimmered slightly, then came crisply into focus. I could see. Clearly. Wow. I could read every word easily, without squinting.

Had God just healed me? ... I blinked several times, and my vision wavered back and forth. Clear, blurry, clear, blurry. Then I realized what was happening. While singing I had been tearing up, moved by God's call, and the thin layer of water on my eyeballs functioned like contact lenses. The tears had been making my vision clearer. ... I suspect that I will never see as clearly as I do when I have tears in my eyes.

The voice of E.T. (Extra-Terrestrial), in Steven Spielberg's film, was something of a problem. Technicians could not come up with a voice to match the appearance of the model star of the film. Spielberg’s technician, working on the film, happened to be in a store one day when he heard a lady talking to the shop assistant. Her voice was exactly what he wanted. He stopped her on the way out, gave her his card, and said “come for an audition.”

Mrs. Welsh used to be a speech trainer. But decades of cigarette smoking caused her voice to crack up, leaving her croaky and gasping for breath--exactly what Spielberg had in mind. And so Pat Welsh, an unknown American housewife, became part of one of the biggest money-making movies of all time.

Possible Preaching Angle:

All believers are called to speak on behalf of God. But when God called Moses to be his voice to Pharaoh, Moses replied, “Lord, I get tongue-tied, and my words get tangled.” Jeremiah pleaded “I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” And what’s your excuse? You don’t know enough? You’re not old enough, your too old, you’re not mature enough? However, those excuses don’t matter to God who has a unique place of service specifically for you. What he wants is a willing heart and an open mind.

Maria Stenvinkel, a corporate consultant from Sweden, asked 65 people from around the world, “What’s your greatest fear in life?”

As you might expect, people mentioned the fear of “dying alone” or of “losing my job.” But of these 65 people, at least 14 (more than 1 in every 5) expressed a different fear: Living a life without purpose or meaning.

Listen to their own words:

My biggest fear is never taking a risk in an effort to find my true calling. – Anthony, New York City

My greatest fear is to go through life living small but not realizing it until it’s too late. – Rebekka, Stuttgart, Germany

My greatest fear would be missing out on my purpose here on earth. … I know I have a purpose that I am not yet serving. – Danielle, Sacramento

To go through life without leaving a positive mark. – Luciana, Sintra, Portugal

My greatest fear is regretting all that I didn’t do, as I lay in my hospital bed as an elderly man. – Ralph, North Brunswick

David Ayres was just sitting in the stands with his wife, enjoying a hockey game, when he saw the goalie go down. At 42 years old, and 15 years removed from a kidney transplant, his dreams of playing professional hockey were long gone. The closest he came to professional ice was driving the Zamboni on the practice rink and serving as an on-call emergency goaltender, in the extremely rare event that both goalies were injured during the game. Usually, that just means a free ticket to the game and dinner for David and his wife.

After the first goalie went down, David left his seat to get half-dressed in his hockey gear. Then his phone started blowing up with text messages: another collision had occurred and the backup goalie was injured too. It was David’s turn to step into the spotlight. He said later, “I’ve been on this ice many times without fans. Put fans in the mix and it’s a whole different game, obviously. But hey, once in a lifetime, I’ll take it.”

Things didn’t start well when the first two shots he faced went right into the back of the net, but a teammate encouraged him: “Just have fun. We don’t care if you let ten goals in.” David said that was a turning point. He stopped the next eight shots to secure the win. The Hurricanes’ coach said, “He just gave us an incredible memory.” David goes down in history as the oldest goalie in NHL history to win his debut. David said, “I’d love to see somebody else in the league get the same opportunity. So would every fan.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus says to his followers, "Be ready for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect" (Matt. 24:44). It's not our job to know how the Lord is going to use us, but it is our job to be ready at all times to answer his call. He doesn't ask you to be the right age or have the right skills, but simply to be ready to serve. He'll take care of the rest.

Americans love to say things like "follow your passion," "pursue your dreams," or "do what you love and love what you do." But do these mantras truly represent the path to vocational clarity, personal fulfillment, and human flourishing?

Not according to a study by researchers from Stanford University and Yale-NUS College, which found that "following your passion" is likely to lead to overly limited pursuits, inflated expectations (career, economic, or otherwise), and early or eventual burnout.

The study's authors concluded:

People are often told to find their passion as though passions and interests are pre-formed and must simply be discovered. This idea, however, has hidden motivational implications … Urging people to find their passion may lead them to put all their eggs in one basket but then to drop that basket when it becomes difficult to carry.

Although our culture tells us to "look within," assuming a fixed set of passions to guide us on our way, researchers found more positive results among those who allow room for interests and intelligence to develop over time. The study encourages us to ask: Are we still looking only to the self or are we looking outward and upward as well? As David Brooks once wrote: "Most successful young people don't look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a [need or God's call], which summons their life."

Possible Preaching Angles: Surely it is better to say "develop your passion" than "find your passion," as the study concludes. But as we do so, let's remember to follow the voice of God and consider the needs of our neighbors and then align our hearts and hands accordingly.

Because of a peculiarity in professional hockey, the fate of the Chicago Blackhawks in their scrum against the Winnipeg Jets was decided by a fan who was called into emergency goalie service.

Scott Foster, a 36-year-old accountant, hadn't played a hockey game against serious competition in over a decade, but because of his background as a goalie for Western Michigan University, he'd been designated as an "emergency goalie," an honor that usually just results in free food in the press box. It wasn't Foster's first time in the role, but when rookie goalie Collin Delia- himself substituting for regular injured goalie Anton Forsburg-was injured in the 3rd period, Foster was called into service. He literally walked down from the stands, put on his gear, and took to the ice.

"The initial shock happened when I had to dress and then I think you just kind of black out after that," Foster said. "I don't think I heard anything other than 'Put your helmet on.'"

Whatever mental zone Foster entered as he took the ice, it was effective. He stopped all seven shots attempted, earned the team belt (an honor reserved for the game's best player), and set social media ablaze with tweets and posts from fans and analysts who could not believe he had never played professionally before.

"This is something that no one can ever take away from me," Foster said. "It's something that I can go home and tell my kids."

Potential Preaching Angles: Even if others overlook you, God has a mission in mind—even for unlikely disciples. God uses everything to prepare us, even when we don't feel ready.

Summer: a perfect time to send postcards, right? Apparently Europol, the European law enforcement agency, thinks so. They've been publishing "postcards" addressed to some of their most-wanted criminals, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase "wish you were here!"

Why postcards? According to an NPR report, Europol is hoping that "increased awareness will lead to more arrests." The cards can be found on the Europe's Most Wanted Fugitives website, decorated with colorful illustrations (often with an ominous pair of handcuffs included somewhere in them). The messages read as tongue-in-cheek pleas for criminals to return: "Dear Marko, the waters of the Adriatic are missing you. Come sail with us for a trip you will never forget! Regards, the Police."

In addition to reading the postcards, visitors to the Europe's Most Wanted Fugitives page can find a pictures of the fugitives and read more about them. Those targeted by the cards "are accused of serious crimes in 21 European Union countries and are believed to be outside of the countries where they allegedly committed the crimes," writes Merrit Kennedy for NPR. And while "it's highly implausible that the fugitives will answer the fawning messages from law enforcement," such methods have proved successful in the past: "European authorities say crowdsourcing has become increasingly important as a law-enforcement tool."

Potential Preaching Angles: Let's take a second (or many!) to be thankful that God reaches out to us not with ominous messages, threatening us to return or else—but rather with patience and love, drawing us back to himself.

In the early 80s, an image campaign began in the city of Atlanta with the hopes of encouraging Atlantans to see their city with pride and hope—despite some of its darker issues of race relations, violence, poverty, and unemployment. The jingle was endearing, if cheesy, chirping birds in the background and all: There's a feeling in the air, that you can't get anywhere … except in Georgia. I taste a thousand yesterdays and I still love the magic ways of Atlanta.

All of it was meant to inspire nostalgia, loyalty, and camaraderie—and to counter all the city's negative images. Those who remember it speak fondly of the "Hello Atlanta!" song's ability to highlight Atlanta's unique brand of urbanism and the pride.

Makes no difference where I go, you're the best hometown I know. Hello, Atlanta. Hello, Georgia. We love you on 11 Alive!

The song served as something of an anthem for the city, so much so that Ira Glass featured it on his program This American Life. He interviewed people who remembered the song. And then he completely burst their unique sense of city-pride by playing for them the exact same song and lyrics with "Milwaukee" or "Calgary" substituted out in chorus and pictures. As it turned out, this "image campaign" was a syndicated campaign that took place in 167 different cities worldwide. There's a feeling in the air, that you can't get anywhere, except … fill in the blank.

The Bible does not give us an image campaign about God's good news. It is not meant to play on a sense of nostalgia for generic people and places. The promise of the gospel is for particular people in particular places. And this good news can be for you today.