A Living House

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. 

At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. 

But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. 

What on earth is He up to? 

The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. 

You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. 

He intends to come and live in it Himself.

C.S. Lewis

The Accuser and Martin Luther

Martin Luther the Reformer told of how the devil approached him one day and accused him of the enormous sin in his life. Satan laid out a long list of sins of which Luther was guilty, and thrust them under his nose in accusation.

Luther said to the devil, “Think a little harder; you must have forgotten some.” So the devil thought a little harder and added another few hundred to the list.

When the devil was finished, Luther said, “Okay, now take a pen and some red ink and write across that list 'The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.'”

James Emery White

God of Ample Means

Missionary statesman, Hudson Taylor, had complete trust in God's faithfulness. 

In his journal he wrote: "Our heavenly Father is a very experienced One. He knows very well that His children wake up with a good appetite every morning...He sustained 3 million Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years. 

We do not expect He will send 3 million missionaries to China; but if He did, He would have ample means to sustain them all.

Depend on it, God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply.

Our Daily Bread, May 16, 1992.

The Piano Player

Imagine a family of mice who lived all their lives in a large piano. To them in their piano-world came the music of the instrument, filling all the dark spaces with sound and harmony. 

At first the mice were impressed by it. They drew comfort and wonder from the thought that there was Someone who made the music--though invisible to them--above, yet close to them. They loved to think of the Great Player whom they could not see. 

Then one day a daring mouse climbed up part of the piano and returned very thoughtful. He had found out how the music was made. Wires were the secret; tightly stretched wires of graduated lengths which trembled and vibrated. 

They must revise all their old beliefs: none but the most conservative could any longer believe in the Unseen Player. 

Later, another explorer carried the explanation further. Hammers were now the secret, numbers of hammers dancing and leaping on the wires. 

This was a more complicated theory, but it all went to show that they lived in a purely mechanical and mathematical world. 

The Unseen Player came to be thought of as a myth. But the pianist continued to play.

Source: LONDON OBSERVER

Follow Your Bubbles

"I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." Psalm 119:11 (NIV).

Vern Treat tells about a scuba diver who said that when you're in deep water, you're encircled by light, so there's no way you can tell which way is up because the water diffuses the light. You're also totally weightless, so you have no sense of gravity. The only way you can tell which way to get out of the water is to go the direction the bubbles are going.

Surrounded in an aura of light and weightless, it's very easy to lose all sense of direction and get disoriented. You may sense that this way is up even though your air bubbles are going sideways. You may be so convinced that your perception is true that you decide to ignore your bubbles and go the way you think is up.

One of the first things we were told when learning to scuba-dive, Trent said, was to always trust your bubbles—to always follow your bubbles. No matter how you feel, no matter what you think, your bubbles are always right.

Life can be like that at times too. If we base the rules of life on our feelings, perception or what we think, we can be very easily led astray. The philosophy, "If it feels good it must be right," is a dangerous guide to follow because our feelings can play all sorts of tricks on us. If something is wrong, it is wrong regardless of how we feel or what we think. True, it's important that we don't deny or repress our feelings, because we can learn to trust them; but what we can't always trust is our interpretation of them.

The only safe guide to follow when it comes to the rules of life is to trust God and His Word, the Bible. Therein lie the "bubbles of life" to follow. These "bubbles" are always right. Always!

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank You for Your Word, the Bible, and for giving us principles for healthy living and loving. Give me a great appreciation and love for Your Word, and the desire to hide it in my heart so I won't sin against You. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus's name. Amen.

Dick Innes

Looking-Glass Self - What God Thinks About You

Sociologists have a theory of the looking-glass self: You become what the most important person in your life (e.g., wife, father, boss, etc.) thinks you are. 

How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible's astounding words about God's love for me, if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?

Brennan Manning told the story of an Irish priest, who on a walking tour of a rural parish, saw an old peasant kneeling by the side of the road, praying. 

Impressed, the priest said to the man, "You must be very close to God." 

The peasant looks up from his prayers, thinks a moment, and then smiles, "Yes, He's very fond of me."

(Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com Adapted from Phillip Yancey, What's So Amazing about Grace?)

Keeping A Promise - Tiger Phong and Tiger Woods

Earl Woods, the father of Tiger Woods, with a photo taken with his good friend, Colonel Tiger Phong.

In the latter days of the Vietnam War, an American Colonel named Earl Woods made a promise. Woods believed that his friend, a South Vietnamese colonel named Vuong Phong, had saved his life. In gratitude for that act, Woods promised to name his son after his friend, who was known as “Tiger.” Sports fans will immediately understand that the promise was kept. That son has immortalized his father’s friend, for most everyone has heard of Tiger Woods.

 J. Michael Shannon

-------------------------
Here is the story in detail,

On the last day of 1975, the day after Eldrick Woods was born, Tiger Woods was born when his father gazed into a maternity glass and saw both the future and the past.

"Don't worry, Woody," Colonel Phong told Earl in a hushed voice, "I've never lost an advisor yet."

"'I'm glad to hear it, Tiger," he whispered back, "but I damn sure don't want to be the first one."

Tiger Phong and Earl Woods were deep in Vietcong country, exactly where, only Phong knew. The two-jeep caravan of the two light colonels from Phan Thiet was a familiar convoy throughout Binh Thuan Province, where Phong was the Deputy Province Chief for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and Woods was more than just his U.S. advisor.

The Americans were pulling out. "I got to go," their commander said. Phong's troops were supposed to take over the fire base, but they were overdue. It was sort of a preview of the coming years.

"That's all right, we can defend it ourselves," Phong asserted.

"What?" Woods said.

"You take this cover, I'll take that. My driver can man the third flank, your driver the fourth."

"Tiger, this is ridiculous."

Phong smiled at his friend. Yes, war is certainly ridiculous.

Before taking his position, Woods retrieved an M-79 grenade-launcher from the jeep and set it down in a row with his M-16 rifle and .45-caliber pistol. For three hours, he sweated.

When the ARVN forces eventually showed up and Colonel Phong finished grinding their captain into a fine dry powder, Woods radioed for a helicopter.

The chopper hadn't flown 50 yards before they were under fire. The VC had been there all along. "Wham, wham, wham, wham, wham!" The rounds shot up through the floor of the helicopter directly between the two colonels. As they twirled out of range, Woods said, "Tiger, you crazy son of a bitch." Colonel Phong just laughed.

Later they had a drink in Earl's quarters, "The Blue Room," their mission central and private retreat. More than one drink. It was Phong who had organized the preposterous paint job -- ceiling included -- that gave the room its identity. It was Woods who nicknamed him "Tiger," an expression of admiration but also irony.

Not all of the South Vietnamese soldiers could be called tigers.

The two were closer than friends, brothers. When they weren't fighting side by side, they were playing tennis or tricks. Woods schooled Phong on the rudiments of jazz; Phong gave Woods philosophy. They laughed a tremendous lot, lest they cry a tremendous lot.

But this was a quiet night. Aretha Franklin was singing on the record player. Phong was retelling his dream of being a schoolteacher someday -- he looked like a schoolteacher already. The thing he wished most for his children was just an absence of helicopters.

Woods was thinking of that afternoon in the artillery field: When the Americans left, the Communists should have stormed. Why didn't they? He should be dead. Why wasn't he? Then, and forever, he told himself over and over, "There has to be a reason." 

(Tom Callahan)