Obstacles

Firefighters from three departments responded to a report of a house on fire in the Cherry Grove area of Vancouver, Washington. When an engine from Clark-Cowlitz Fire Rescue (CCFR) arrived, fire personnel announced there would be “access issues” to the single-story residence because of clutter.

Fire and smoke were visible from the windows in the kitchen and living room area of the home, but the yard around the house was cluttered with appliances, vehicles, and storage bins. That made it difficult for firefighters to quickly stretch hose lines to the structure.

A news release stated: “Once firefighters were able to clear out some of the clutter and make access to the house, the fire had grown too large to safely make an offensive interior attack. In addition, the interior spaces of the house were also very cluttered with high piles of clothing, storage bins, appliances, furniture, and other items.”

Fire Chief John Nohr said, “Normally in these types of fires, we bring in a track hoe to tear apart the piles. Due to the clutter in the yard, we weren’t able to get heavy equipment in there to help with extinguishment.”

Extreme clutter is dangerous for firefighters, especially when mixed with a smoky environment, because responders can get lost in the clutter. The piles of items can also tip over, crush, or entrap firefighters.

Nohr said, “In 37 years in the fire service, this is one of the most extremely cluttered homes I’ve ever seen. I feel for the family that has lost all of their possessions, but I also feel for the firefighters who put themselves at significant risk trying to fight a fire in a house this full.”

Possible Preaching Angle:
Like houses, a clean life is more than just convenient. It could also be the difference between a close call and destruction. Honest confession of sin provides the opportunity to clean out your stuff now. You don't want to try to desperately clean up in an emergency. New Years is an excellent time to reevaluate your life.

In a remarkable story of perseverance and hope, a 47-year-old mother of five from Cookeville, Tennessee, has graduated from Tennessee Tech University after losing her sight in 2020. Despite the challenge of blindness, Amanda Juetten graduated magna cum laude, refusing to let her condition define her or limit her aspirations. “I want people to know that blindness doesn’t have to stop you from pursuing your dreams,” said Juetten.

Throughout her studies, she relied on assistive technology, the support of her family, and her own determination to overcome obstacles. “There were days when I felt overwhelmed, but I kept telling myself, ‘You can do this,’” she said. One professor remarked, “Her dedication to her education and her family is truly extraordinary.” Another classmate added, “She’s shown all of us what’s possible when you refuse to give up, no matter the circumstances.”

Now a proud graduate, Juetten plans to use her degree to advocate for the blind community and help others facing similar challenges. “I want to be a voice for those who feel unseen,” she explained. Her story is a testament to the power of determination and the importance of never losing sight of one’s dreams, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even when we refuse to let our limitations define us, we are called to trust that God’s purpose for our lives remains—He can use our greatest challenges as platforms for His glory.

You see them everywhere, from rural fields to suburban yards. Fences come in many different styles, and just about everyone seems to have one. They represent safety and security, protecting our loved ones, making our yards into sanctuaries, and keeping our property safe. Did you ever think about the history of the fence? In many ways, fences have had a major impact on the development of modern civilization.

Whether it is for safety, wealth, or isolation purposes, there is no denying that fences still carry significant symbolic importance in many societies today. But they are also ubiquitous: Strung together, the world’s fences would likely reach the sun. Just taking the American West by itself, it is latticed by more than 620,000 miles of fence—enough to encircle the earth more than 75 times.

Who first came up with the idea of fences? There are certainly famous “fences” in ancient history, from the Great Wall of China to the Walls of Jericho. Fences became a feature of civilization as cultures transitioned from nomads to landowners and farmers. In a way, fences have laid the foundation of the modern world.

In the modern era, fences have continued to evolve, with the development of new materials and construction techniques. Today, fences are an essential part of any security system, providing both physical and psychological protection. They are used to protect everything from homes and businesses to government installations and military bases. Innovations such as electric fences, security cameras, and access control systems have made it possible to create highly secure environments.

These new technologies have also made it easier than ever to monitor and control who enters a particular area. Implicitly, the ability to access these physical barriers require some sort of credential — such as an invitation or pass — suggesting the presence of a system that excluded certain people from access.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Scripture mentions fences, walls, hedges, and boundaries nearly 350 times. These structures serve literal purposes, such as defending cities, protecting livestock, and marking territorial boundaries. However, their symbolic significance is profound. Satan challenged God's protection of Job by referencing a "hedge" around him (Job 1:10). Jesus likened himself to a "good shepherd" who encloses his sheep in a protective fold (John 10:1-10). The New Jerusalem, described as having a wall, symbolizes a place of ultimate safety and exclusivity for the saved, while excluding the unrighteous (Rev. 21:27).

The Grammy-award winning rock musician Lenny Kravitz was asked, “How do you stay positive?” Kravitz replied:

It’s a choice. I grew up around some very positive people, namely my grandfather. Being a Black man growing up at the beginning of the century and all he went through, he retained a positive outlook regardless of all the roadblocks and mountains in front of him. This man was the man of his family at 9 years of age—his father died and he had a mother who was bedridden and four siblings in the Bahamas on an island with zero electricity. He went out into the world and found work and took care of his family. So, he always taught me this way.

As a young adult, writer Andrew Leland was diagnosed with a rare disorder that caused him to become blind. In a New Yorker article, he notes that throughout history people have either bullied or coddled visually impaired people. But he gives an example of one school that empowers the blind by challenging them to achieve new heights of independence. Leland writes:

In 2020, I heard about a residential training school called the Colorado Center for the Blind, in Littleton. The C.C.B. is part of the National Federation of the Blind and is staffed almost entirely by blind people. Students live there for several months, wearing eye-covering shades and learning to navigate the world without sight. The N.F.B. takes a radical approach to cultivating blind independence. Students use power saws in a woodshop, take white-water-rafting trips, and go skiing. To graduate, they have to produce professional documents and cook a meal for sixty people.

The most notorious test is the “independent drop”: a student is driven in circles, and then dropped off at a mystery location in Denver, without a smartphone. (Sometimes, advanced students are left in the middle of a park, or the upper level of a parking garage.) Then the student has to find her way back to the Colorado Center, and she is allowed to ask one person one question along the way. A member of an R.P. support group told me, “People come back from those programs loaded for bear”—ready to hunt the big game of blindness. Katie Carmack, a social worker with R.P., told me, of her time there, “It was an epiphany.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

In the same way, our heavenly Father will stretch us by “dropping” us into challenging situations.

Success is the unrelenting prize of our culture. We will sacrifice whatever we must to avoid feeling the pain of failure. And when we do fail, our society tells us to move on as quickly as possible. But what if there's something to be gleaned from times when we do not succeed.

In the film Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal, and Greed, Joshua Rofé describes the unseen parts of Ross' fame. The painter and television personality mesmerized audiences in half hour blocks. Mountains, bushes, and rivers emerge seamlessly before our very eyes. His ideas passed effortlessly from pallet, to brush, to canvas.

But, of course, this fluidity did not imply flawlessness. Often, Ross would extend a stroke too far or lay down a color that did not match with what he had imagined. When this happened, Ross simply labeled the mistake a "happy accident" and adjusted his plan to incorporate the mistake into a masterpiece.

Near the end of the film, Steve Ross gave some insight on this topic:

It's hard to tell people their faults. It’s even harder to admit that you have made a “happy accident.” A lot of times, I've wondered if it's not your mistakes that teach you a lot more than your successes. After success, you just move on to the next thing. But when you make a mistake, or have a “happy accident,” as Bob called it, suddenly you learn all kinds of new ways to correct it. And through that learning process you really start developing in new ways.

Noriyuki Morita developed spinal tuberculosis when he was two years old. It was so severe that he was hospitalized for nine years. He was told that he would never walk again, but he eventually learned how to walk again at the age of 11, when a surgeon fused four vertebrae in his spine. As an adult, he gave up his job in engineering and became a stand-up comedian as well as becoming a member of the Groundlings, a Los Angeles improvisational group. He eventually went on to become a very successful actor and was Oscar-nominated for his performance as Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Paul says “In my weakness I find my strength” (2 Cor. 12:7-9). You may have struggled with the circumstances of your life. Try to embrace them. Allow yourself to be shaped by them. Perhaps your weakness will become a unique strength.

All of us have odds to overcome, but those odds are not the enemy. ... By his own admission, Elon Musk had a difficult childhood. He was bullied during high school, spending time in the hospital after getting pushed down the stairs and beaten until he blacked out. His home life wasn't much better. He described his childhood as "nonstop horrible."

One day, when he was ten years old, he saw a computer at an elec­tronics store in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was love at first sight. That Commodore VIC-20 had five kilobytes of mem­ory and came with a workbook on the BASIC programming language. That language was supposed to take six months to acquire, but Musk learned it after three sleepless nights.

Could Elon Musk have learned to code without a challenging child­hood? You bet. But he might not have pursued coding with the same kind of passion. Everything we experience is a two-sided coin. It can make us or break us, and that's up to us. You can get frustrated with the fact that you're right-handed or left-handed, or you can cultivate ambi­dexterity. You don't get to choose how your story starts, but the ending is up to you.

As he wrapped up his work as the voice of Darth Vader in the 2014 Star Wars film Rogue One, James Earl Jones opened up about his struggles with a speech impediment. Listening to his deep booming voice threatening inept generals of the Empire, you would never realize that the talent for which he is best known is simultaneously a pervasive struggle.

His familiar voice was largely silent in his younger years, a result of a severe stutter. Though he was quiet, a teacher noticed that he enjoyed writing poetry. He told Jones "If you like words that much, James, you ought to be able to say them out loud." To address his stutter, Jones began performing Shakespeare. He shares, "If I hadn't been a stutterer, I would never have been an actor."

Backstage, his script is always within reach. The words, even after seven decades, have remained a career-long struggle. "I mangle a word or two every night because the consonants get into a fight with the vowels."

Interviewer Jamie Wax referenced Jones’ career labeling it "a pursuit of happiness." Jones had this to say:

By taking one step at a time, I've found great treasures. Every step I take ... It's just about being content, that's all. I don't know what the pursuit of happiness is. What do you mean pursuit of happiness? No, contentment. If that doesn't put a glow on your face, nothing really will.

Modern people like to see freedom as the complete absence of any constraints. But think of a fish. Because a fish absorbs oxygen from water, not air, it is free only if it is restricted to water. If a fish is “freed” from the river and put out on the grass to explore, its freedom to move and soon even to live is destroyed. The fish is not more free, but less free, if it cannot honor the reality of its nature.

The same is true with airplanes and birds. If they violate the laws of aerodynamics, they will crash into the ground. But if they follow them, they will ascend and soar. The same is true in many areas of life: Freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones, those that fit with the realities of our own nature and those of the world.

The SEALs, arguably one of the most elite fighting groups in the world, did not develop from a grand strategy of the military. But instead from one individual who refused to allow his condition to keep him from moving ahead. His name was Draper Kauffman, and today he is known as the godfather of the US Navy SEALs.

Upon his graduation from the Naval academy in 1933, Mr. Kauffman's plan was to follow in the footsteps of another great man, his father, who also served in the US Navy. But it wasn't to be. It was not because of drug abuse that Mr. Kauffman's dreams were shattered, nor was it because of a life of crime. He simply had poor eyesight and this was enough to prevent him from receiving his commission. What do you do when you invest years of dreaming about a bright future and making plans to get there, only to find it sabotaged by something that seems so small? This is where Mr. Kauffman can inspire us all.

With his door to the US Navy closed, he joined the American Volunteer Ambulance Corps in France. This warrior trained to lead other warriors into combat found himself behind the wheel of an ambulance. He was imprisoned for a short time in France when the Germans occupied the country in 1940. After his release, he joined the Royal Navy Reserve in England and served in their bomb disposal unit.

While he was home on leave, the US Navy wanted to learn from his experiences. At their request Mr. Kauffman organized an underwater demolition school. After the United States entered the war, Kauffman's experience and trainees became crucial to US amphibious operations around the world. They changed the course of the war through disarming underwater bombs and conducting top-secret reconnaissance. Had Mr. Kauffman allowed poor eyesight to be the final draft of his identity, the Allies' strategy during WWII would have been different.

In an interview about his book (2020), apologist Timothy Paul Jones was asked:

In your final chapter, you talk about how one barrier to the faith is the way Christians, both throughout history and today, have used the Bible in ways that are abusive to the Bible. So many today find it difficult to trust a book that was used to justify the Crusades or used to justify chattel slavery. How would you answer the individual who’s struggling with that objection?

Jones replied:

Well my answer is the Beatles’ White Album. As we all know, the Beatles’ White Album, especially the song “Helter Skelter” was used by Charles Manson as an excuse for the Manson murders. He felt like the White Album was calling him to commit all of these murders, and yet nobody has ever indicted Paul McCartney for those murders. And the reason that they haven’t is because of the fact that the misuse of the White Album doesn’t reflect on its creator. Just because the White Album was misused doesn’t mean the creator of it was at fault. And I think we have to help people recognize that: The Bible is used [to justify terrible things]. But was it rightly used for these things?

There are 290 species of pigeons in the world, but only one has adapted to live in cities. But that one species has an amazing skill—the ability to carry an important message and then to find its way home. Recent studies have suggested that they navigate using human structures as well as natural ones: they follow roads and canals, and have been observed going round roundabouts before taking the appropriate exit. They can fly extremely fast—up to 110 miles per hour—and can cover 700 miles in a single uninterrupted flight. There are faster birds, but none can fly horizontally, under its own power, as quickly as a pigeon.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries they became important as messenger birds. During the Siege of Paris in 1870, pigeons were taken out of the city by balloon and returned carrying thousands of letters stored on microfilm and sewn into their tail feathers. During the First World War, soldiers at the front used pigeons to communicate with those behind the lines and with tank commanders when their radios failed. In the Second World War, most bomber crews carried a pair of birds in a specially designed floating cage. If they were shot down they would release a pigeon bearing a message detailing their position.

Major General Fowler, the British army’s chief of signals and communications wrote, “If it became necessary immediately to discard every line and method of communications used on the front, except one, I should unhesitatingly choose the pigeons. When the battle rages and everything gives way to barrage, machine gun fire … gas attacks and bombings, it is to the pigeon that we go.”

Possible Preaching Angles: In the same way, as a follower of Jesus, you do not need to be the fastest or most amazing witness for Christ. But we are called to be faithful and reliable to carry the message of Christ to others.

In Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Batman assembles a team of super-champions to take on a rising tide of super-villains. An ancient entity named Steppenwolf is leading an army in a hunt for a weapon powerful enough to destroy the planet. Humanity needs a team of heroes.

The film’s world of CGI heroics and villainy is humanized when high school student Barry Allen is invited to join the league. Initially, Allen (aka Flash) is super-excited to be in a super-hero league. It is always more exciting to “be” than it is to “do.” But when it comes time to do what superheroes do (i.e. save people), the Flash finds himself paralyzed with uncertainty. Preparing to take on the evil Steppenwolf, the Flash tries to explain his emotional struggle to Batman:

Here’s the thing. See, I’m afraid of bugs, and guns, and obnoxiously tall people. I can’t be here! It’s really cool you guys seem ready to do battle and stuff, but I’ve never done battle. I’ve just pushed some people and run away!”

Batman brings clarity to fear with two simple words:

Batman: “Save one.”
The Flash: What?
Batman: Save one person.
The Flash: Which one?
Batman: Don’t talk. Don’t fight. Get in. Get one out.
The Flash: And then?
Batman: You’ll know.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Big tasks are commonly accompanied by big doubts. We need God’s power in our weakness. (2) Sometimes Jesus doesn’t ask us to do big, heroic deeds. He merely calls us to do the small deeds of kindness right in front of us.

In 1960, two men made a bet. There was only $50 on the line, but millions of people would feel the impact of this little wager. The first man was Bennett Cerf, the founder of Random House. The second man was named Theo Geisel, but you probably know him as Dr. Seuss. Cerf proposed the bet and challenged that Dr. Seuss would not be able to write an entertaining children’s book using only 50 different words.

Dr. Seuss took the bet and won. The result was a little book called Green Eggs and Ham. Since publication, it has sold more than 200 million copies, making it the most popular of Seuss’s works and one of the best-selling children’s books in history.

At first glance, you might think this was a lucky fluke. A talented author plays a fun game with 50 words and ends up producing a hit. But there is actually more to this story and the lessons in it can help us become more creative and stick to better habits over the long-run.

What Dr. Seuss discovered through this little bet was the power of setting constraints. Con­straints are not the enemy. Every artist has a limited set of tools to work with. Every athlete has a limited set of skills to train with. Every entrepreneur has a limited amount of resources to build with. Once you know your constraints, you can creatively figure out how to work with them.

There are a lot of authors who would complain about writing a book with only 50 words. But there was one author who decided to take the tools he had available and make a work of art instead.

Possible Preaching Angles:

God has also given us constraints, such as, lack of education, lack of resources, a painful past, a besetting sin, or physical disabilities. But as we rely on God to overcome, we showcase his power and bring glory to him (2 Cor. 12:7-9).

In her article "Soaring Journeys," Jill Carattini relates that on March 1, 1999, Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones stepped into the gondola of a hot air balloon and lifted off from the Swiss alpine village of Chateau d'Oex. Nineteen days, 21 hours, and 55 minutes later, traveling 28,431 miles, they landed in the Egyptian desert. Their journey successfully marked the first nonstop flight around the world in a balloon, earning them the distinction of a world record, a book deal, and a million dollars from the sponsoring corporation. Their victory photograph now rests in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum beside the "Breitling Orbiter III" itself.

But like almost any significant life journey (like spiritual growth), the journey of the Breitling Orbiter III didn't take an easy or straight line. As its name suggests, the Breitling Orbiter III was built upon two previous attempts. In fact, the journey that would end with a world record actually had three hopeful starting points and two frustrated finishes. The original Breitling Orbiter launched in January of 1997. Only a few hours after takeoff, the balloon was forced to land when the crew was overcome by kerosene fumes from a leaking valve. One year later, the Breitling Orbiter II stayed in the air nine days longer than its counterpart, but their flight was cut short when they were refused permission to use the airspace over China. Yet both of these setbacks contributed to the strategy that would allow Piccard and Jones to finally pilot their balloon across the Pacific.

Possible Preaching Angles: Spiritual growth; Spiritual formation—The journey of knowing and growing into Christ also takes many twists and turns, many failures, before we finally start to make progress.

A special report on This American Life follows the lives of several people currently living what they unequivocally call "Plan B." Host Ira Glass expounds his thoughts on an informal poll and a seemingly universal human reality. He asked a room of hundred people to think back to the beginning of adulthood when they were first formulating a plan for their lives. He called it "Plan A," "the fate you were sure fate had in store." He then asked those who were still following this plan to raise their hands. Only one person confessed she was still living Plan A; she was 23 years old.

Unless you're a true jazz aficionado you've probably never heard of Horace Parlan who made news headlines in 2017 because the 86-year-old musician died on February 23rd. According to his obituary in The New York Times, "Horace Lumont Parlan was born in Pittsburgh on Jan. 19, 1931. His parents, who adopted him when he was a few weeks old, gave him piano lessons as therapy when he was 7, two years after polio left him partly paralyzed on the right side of his body. His teacher was not encouraging, and the lessons did not last long. He gave the piano another try with another teacher when he was 12, and this time he embraced the challenge."

Parlan then gave up on music and studied law, but then abandoned law to pursue a career in jazz. More from the article: "Unable to use the middle two fingers of his right hand, Mr. Parlan still forged a style that impressed critics. … as well as his fellow musicians … Mr. Parlan's approach to the piano required 'developing a facility with my right hand that I worked out myself,' he explained to The New York Times in 1984. I was trying to voice chords using as few notes as possible.' Of necessity, he also made greater use of his left hand than most jazz pianists do when improvising melody lines. As he put it to JazzTimes magazine, 'I had to find a groove of my own.'"

It's a common wedding scenario: ceremony takes place in one location, guests and wedding party hop in their cars and take a quick trip to the reception venue. Simple, right?

For one Ohio couple, things got a little more complicated. After their ceremony, Jeff and Rebecca Payne left for the reception, along with the rest of their guests. They were met with an unexpected (and unwelcome) surprise: a traffic jam that left them sitting on U.S. Route 35.

After being parked there for an hour, another surprise development unfolded. A couple of fellow drivers, who had "noticed the wedding dress and asked what [the couple] would be doing if they weren't stuck in traffic," had a creative idea: how about have the first dance right there on the highway?

Jeff and Rebecca decided to do it, getting out of the car and dancing to an Alison Krauss song (a bystander played it from their Spotify).

Another bystander, who filmed the dance, said that the newlyweds "were two sports. They handled the whole thing so well. They did great. The dance turned it into a party."

Thankfully, the unconventional first dance turned into a happily-ever-after: "[A] friend of the groom's father pulled up in the opposite lane, so the Paynes could hop over a guardrail, get into the car and start the rest of their life."

Potential Preaching Angles: "Stuck," "waiting"—they're not fun words, and they're not fun feelings, yet we so often find ourselves describing our situations with them. How are we hoping and keeping faith until we're able to hop over our own guardrails and "escape"? How do we live in the midst of our own traffic jams?

Anyone who's lived near train tracks knows the hassle and inconvenience a passing train can cause. You're already running late, you're driving up to the track crossing, and then—the barriers start flashing. It's a frustrating feeling.

But imagine if that happened as you were trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

That's exactly what happened to more than 100 runners in Pennsylvania, as a train crossed the marathon course—and crossed it very slowly. One runner, who was using the race as his last opportunity to qualify for Boston, said that he "missed his qualifying time by eight minutes."

Race officials had communicated with the railroad line prior to race day, and had received "absolute assurances…that trains would be suspended" during the race. Yet those assurances didn't stop a train from crossing the course's seventh mile.

"The incident is especially regrettable and was quite unexpected," the marathon's account posted on Facebook, noting that those times that were affected would "be addressed on a runner-by-runner basis."

Potential Preaching Angles: We may have a plan laid out for running our best race, and we may have set goals and dreamed dreams, but one truth makes itself abundantly (and sometimes painfully) clear: "In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps" (Prov. 16:9).