Conformity

A Florida man was bitten on the leg by an unexpected visitor: An alligator waiting right outside his door. Daytona Beach resident Scot Hollingsworth was watching TV when he heard a bump at the door. He said, “I jumped up and headed over and opened the door, stepped out while trying to reach the lights and barely got out the door and got my leg clamped on and (it) started shaking really violently. I suspect I surprised the alligator as much as he surprised me.”

He was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries from the nine-foot gator.

The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said that people should keep a safe distance from alligators at all times. You should also keep pets on a leash, swim only in designated areas during daylight hours, and never feed an alligator.

The commission also explains on their website that Floridians can anticipate seeing more alligators than usual as the weather warms up. The reptiles are also most active between dusk and dawn.

Florida is home to a total of around 1.3 million alligators, according to the commission’s website. The agency routinely euthanizes so-called “nuisance” gators, which are four feet long or larger and pose a threat to people or wildlife. The commission says relocated alligators will usually try to return to the site where they were captured and continue to create problems, so they must be euthanized or rehomed to zoos or wildlife rescues.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Satan also lurks in the shadows and is ready to viciously attack any unsuspecting Christian. Our defense is similar, be on guard, and be prepared to resist him by putting on the full armor of God (Eph. 6:10-18).

When Duke Energy officials got to the bottom of the power outage, nature was to blame. It wasn’t wind or rain, or thunder or earthquakes … or even, as is sometimes the case, human nature. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden, it started with a snake.

A snake got into the electrical equipment in a local substation, which ended up causing an electrical fire that created the outage. By 10am that morning, more than 1,400 people had lost power.

Duke Energy Spokesperson Jeff Brooks said,

This is one of the reasons we are making electric grid improvements in the region. We often think of storms and trees which are the leading cause of outages, but other items like cars hitting utility poles and snakes and squirrels getting into equipment also cause a number of outages for electric utilities. That’s why it’s so important we make these improvements to strengthen our electric grid and protect it from a variety of disruptions.

Power in the region was restored later that day.

Possible Preaching Angle:

All it takes is one agent of sin and destruction to bring dishonor and harm to many in the community. The same is true in the spiritual community. The “ancient serpent” brings havoc and harm to the entire world.

Hungry patrons at a local buffet in Alabama took “hangry” (hunger combined with anger) to a new level when a fight broke out allegedly over crab legs. The unexpected brawl went down at Meteor Buffet in Huntsville as diners were waiting to feast on a freshly boiled batch of crab legs.

Among the restaurant goers was police officer Gerald Johnson, who recalled hearing yelling and tongs clashing. “Literally, as I sat down and maybe took two bites out of my plate,” Johnson said. “There’s a woman who’s beating a man. People are moving around, plates are shattering everywhere.”

“It’s not something you typically hear, if you can imagine a fencing match,” Johnson said of the guests allegedly using tongs as weapons. As for why the altercation took place, “Everyone was saying, ‘She cut me in line. He cut me in line. I was here first.' They’d been waiting there for the crab legs for a good 10, 20 minutes. When they finally came out, it’s very heated. Especially if someone is taking more than their fair share,” Johnson said.

Following the fight, police arrested John Chapman and Chequita Jenkins. Chapman sustained a cut on his head while Jenkins was uninjured. Both Chapman and Jenkins allegedly admitted to letting their temper cloud their judgment.

High up in a tree in British Columbia's Shoal Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary, six birds are sharing a nest: specifically, two bald eagles, their three eaglets, and a baby red-tailed hawk.

Sure, birds of different species sharing the same nest may sound rather strange, but for those bird aficionados out there, this will sound especially strange—because most of the time, bald eagles and red-tailed hawks are enemies, "known to fight each other to the death."

Bird experts have been theorizing about how this "unexpected interspecies family" came to be. According to NPR, "[T]he two options essentially boil down to a timeless question—which came to the nest first: the chicken (ahem, hawk) or the egg?"

The Hancock Wildlife Foundation's David Hancock pointed out that "[t]his little red-tailed chick is sharing the nest with three fast-growing, usually aggressive siblings … Sibling rivalry and fratricide is not uncommon in eagles."

For now, however, Sanctuary caretaker Kerry Finley has described the eagles as attentive caregivers: "It's quite something to see the way [the red-tailed hawk] is treated. The parents are quite attentive."

Potential Preaching Angles: Our world is fraught with divisions and enemy lines—from the animal kingdom to our churches. But for now, in their own small way, these birds are modeling the kind of upside-down world that we long for, a day in which God "will judge between the nations / and will settle disputes for many peoples" (Isa. 2:4).

New research has revealed that employees waste an average of $1,500 and an 8-hour workday for every crucial conversation they avoid. These costs skyrocket when multiplied by the prevalence of conflict avoidance.

According to the study conducted by the authors of the New York Times bestselling book Crucial Conversations, 95 percent of a company's workforce struggles to speak up to their colleagues about their concerns. As a result, they engage in resource-sapping avoidance tactics including ruminating excessively about crucial issues, complaining, getting angry, doing unnecessary work and avoiding the other person altogether. In extreme cases of avoidance, the organization's bottom line is hit especially hard.

The study of more than 600 people found that eight percent of employees estimate their avoidance costs their organization more than $10,000. And one in 20 estimate that over the course of a drawn-out silent conflict, they waste time ruminating about the problem for more than six months. Joseph Grenny, author of Crucial Conversations, says it's time organizations stop viewing interpersonal competencies as soft skills and start teaching their people how to speak up and deal directly with conflicts rather than avoiding them.

Unity becomes precious when you walk through conflict in order to reach it.

We can over-spiritualize conflict; sometimes the issues are just about change.