The "YES" Face!

During Thomas Jefferson's presidency he and a group of travelers were crossing a river that had overflowed its banks. Each man crossed on horseback fighting for his life. 

A lone traveler watched the group traverse the treacherous river and then asked President Jefferson to take him across. The president agreed without hesitation, the man climbed on, and the two made it safely to the other side of the river where somebody asked him: "Why did you select the President to ask this favor?" 

The man was shocked, admitting he had no idea it was the President of the United States who had carried him safely across. 

"All I know," he said, "is that on some of your faces was written the answer 'No' and on some of them was the answer 'Yes.' His was a 'Yes' face."


"The most significant decision I make each day is my choice of an attitude. When my attitudes are right there's no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme and no challenge too great." - Charles Swindoll

You Are Not Alone

A young Christian university student was home for the summer. She had gone to visit some friends one evening and the time passed quickly as each shared their various experiences of the past year. She ended up staying longer than she had planned and had to walk home alone. She wasn't afraid because it was a small town and she lived only a few blocks away. As she walked along under the tall elm trees, she asked God to keep her safe from harm and danger.

When she reached the alley, which was a shortcut to her house, she decided to take it. However, halfway down the alley she noticed a man standing at the end as though he were waiting for her. She became uneasy and began to pray, asking for God's protection. A comforting feeling of quietness and security wrapped around her, and she felt as though someone was walking with her. When she reached the end of the alley, she walked right past the man and arrived home safely.

The following day, she read in the newspaper that a young woman had been raped in the same alley just twenty minutes after she had been there. Feeling overwhelmed by this tragedy and the fact that it could have been her, she began to weep. Thanking the Lord for her safety and to help this young woman, she decided to go to the police station.

She felt she could recognize the man, so she told them her story. The police asked her if she would be willing to look at a lineup to see if she could identify him. She agreed and immediately pointed out the man she had seen in the alley the night before. When the man was told he had been identified, he immediately broke down and confessed.

The officer thanked her for her bravery and asked if there was anything they could do for her. She asked if they would ask the man one question. She was curious as to why he had not attacked her. When the policeman asked him, he answered, "Because she wasn't alone. She had two tall men walking on either side of her."

Hugging For Safety

In the fall of the year, Linda, a young woman, was traveling alone up the rutted and rugged highway from Alberta to the Yukon. Linda didn't know you don't travel to Whitehorse alone in a rundown Honda Civic, so she set off where only four-wheel drives normally venture. The first evening she found a room in the mountains near a summit and asked for a 5 A.M. wake-up call so she could get an early start. She couldn't understand why the clerk looked surprised at that request, but as she awoke to early- morning fog shrouding the mountain tops, she understood. Not wanting to look foolish, she got up and went to breakfast. Two truckers invited Linda to join them, and since the place was so small, she felt obliged. "Where are you headed?" one of the truckers asked. 'Whitehorse'

"In that little Civic? No way! This pass is dangerous in weather like this." "Well, I'm determined to try," was Linda's gutsy, if not very informed, response. "Then I guess we're just going to have to hug you," the trucker suggested. Linda drew back. "There's no way I'm going to let you touch me!"

"Not like THAT!" the truckers chuckled. "We'll put one truck in front of you and one in the rear. In that way, we'll get you through the mountains." All that foggy morning Linda followed the two red dots in front of her and had the reassurance of a big escort behind as they made their way safely through the mountains. Caught in the fog in our dangerous passage through life, we need to be "hugged." With fellow Christians who know the way and can lead safely ahead of us, and with others behind, gently encouraging us along, we, too, can pass safely.

Don Graham.

Surrounded But Undefeated!

As believers in Jesus Christ, we are engaged in spiritual warfare with unseen wicked forces. To overcome our enemy in the power of the Holy Spirit, we must remain resolute in our confidence in God and determine never to accept defeat.

A story from the Korean War illustrates this attitude. As enemy forces advanced, Baker Company was cut off from the rest of their unit. 

For several hours no word was heard, even though headquarters repeatedly tried to communicate with the missing troops. Finally a faint signal was received. Straining to hear, the corpsman asked, "Baker Company, do you read me?" 

"This is Baker Company," came the reply. 

"What is your situation?" asked the corpsman. 

"The enemy is to the east of us, the enemy is to the west of us, the enemy is to the north of us, the enemy is to the south of us." 

Then after a brief pause, the sergeant from Baker Company said with determination, "The enemy is not going to get away from us now!" 

Although surrounded and outnumbered, he was thinking of victory, not defeat. (Our Daily Bread)

The Farm Animals And The Mouse Trap

A mouse looked through a crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package. He was wondering what was in it. To his horror, the farmer had brought home a mouse trap. 
Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning, "There is a mouse trap in the house! There is a mouse trap in the house!"

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell you this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me; I cannot be bothered by it."

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mouse trap in the house."

"I am so very sorry Mr. Mouse," sympathized the pig, "but there is nothing I can do about it but pray; be assured that you are in my prayers."

The mouse turned to the cow, who replied, "Like wow, Mr. Mouse, a mouse trap. Am I in grave danger, Duh?"

So the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected to face the farmer's mouse trap alone.

That very night, a sound was heard throughout the house. It was like the sound of a mouse trap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught.

In the darkness, she did not see that it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.

The snake bit the farmer's wife.

The farmer rushed her to the hospital.

She returned home with a fever. Now everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup and so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.

His wife's sickness continued and so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer's wife did not get well. In fact, she died, and so many people came for her funeral. The farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide meat for all of them to eat.

So the next time you hear that someone is facing a problem and think that it does not concern you, remember that when the least of us is threatened, we are all at risk.

"Do not forget to do good and to help one another, because these are the sacrifices that please God." - Hebrews 13:16

You Can't Just Sit There

Lawn Chair Pilot

Larry Walters always wanted to fly. When he graduated high school, he joined the service with the distant hope that somehow he might someday end up piloting a military plane. However, his dreams were cut down when an eye exam he took as a new enlistee revealed that, even though his eyesight wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t quite good enough to qualify him for pilot training. So, after a minimum stay in the service and a brief stint in Vietnam, Larry turned to a more down-to-earth career–truck driving–and had to content himself with watching others steer planes across the sky in his hometown of Long Beach, California.

But Larry never forgot about flying. And finally, one day in 1982, he decided to do something about his dream. He went on a little shopping excursion that day. His first stop was the local Sears store, where he bought a sturdy aluminum lawn chair. He then rode over to his local Army-Navy surplus store and bought a heavy-duty 50-foot cable and forty-five heavy-duty weather balloons. (Each of those balloons would measure six feet across when inflated.) Finally, he bought several tanks of helium.

With the help of several friends, Larry planned his “flight.” The next morning, one week before Christmas, after tethering his lawn chair securely to the ground and to his Jeep, he and his friends inflated the 45 balloons with helium and attached them to the lawn chair with the 50-foot cable. Then Larry gathered together some unusual “supplies”–a parachute, a large bottle of soda, a camera, a pellet gun, several gallon jugs filled with water, and a portable CB radio–and climbed aboard the lawn chair which he had now named “Inspiration One.”

You see, Larry’s plan was for the helium balloons to carry him slowly up into the Long Beach sky, to an altitude of a couple hundred feet, where he would drift around for awhile and enjoy the cool, crisp December air, take some photographs, and fulfill his dream. The gallon jugs of water were for ballast, to keep the craft steady; and Larry figured that, when he was ready to end his flight, he would use the pellet gun to pop the balloons, one at a time, until he started to drift down again. So, after securing himself in his Sears lawn chair, Larry signaled to his friends to release the tethers.

Minutes later, he was calling for help over his CB radio.

You see, instead of drifting up lazily into the air, Larry Walters streaked into the Los Angeles sky as if shot from a cannon. Instead of leveling out at a couple hundred feet, he continued to climb until he 16,000 feet–more than three miles–above the ground. Oh, he tried to do what he originally planned–shooting out some of the balloons with his pellet gun–but he only got through a couple of them before he lost his gun overboard. So there he was, scared and cold (even though December is mild in Los Angeles on the ground, it tends to be a little chilly three miles up in the air)–and, to make matters worse, he soon drifted into the approach corridor of Los Angeles International Airport. He was spotted first by a Delta pilot, and soon thereafter by a Trans World Airlines pilot; these pilots had the “interesting” task of radioing LAX and informing the tower of what they had seen. (The FAA would later try to bring charges against Larry for violating the Federal Aviation Act, but they weren’t really successful because they could never decide exactly which part of the Federal Aviation Act he’d broken.)

Well, anyway, after a couple of hours the helium in the balloons began to dissipate, and Larry’s contraption slowly floated down to earth–where his adventure continued, as he drifted right into a set of power lines, knocking out all the power in Long Beach for half an hour. The chair dangled some six feet above the ground, and Larry jumped down, and of course was promptly led off by law officers.

A reporter stepped in and asked Larry Walters, “Why did you do it?” His answer was a classic: “Well, you can’t just sit there, can you?”

Even The Price of Choking Is Relative

When the wealthy businessman choked on a fish bone at a restaurant, he was fortunate that a doctor was seated at a nearby table.

Springing up, the doctor skillfully removed the bone and saved the man's life.

As soon as the fellow had calmed himself and could talk again, he thanked the surgeon enthusiastically and offered to pay him for his services.

"Just name the fee," he croaked gratefully.

"Okay," replied the doctor. "How about half of what you'd have offered when the bone was still stuck in your throat?"

Many of us make promises to God when we face extreme difficulties or dangers. If we can only keep half of those promises after the danger is over, we would have achieve much for the kingdom of God.

Let Me Tell You How I Save Myself!

The first thing we need to understand is we cannot save ourselves. Imagine being on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and falling overboard. Because no one saw you fall in, the ship continues toward its destination, leaving you hopelessly stranded.  

After treading water for several hours, you find yourself surrounded by sharks. You face certain death at any moment. Exhausted from trying to stay afloat, you slip underwater and begin to drown. Somehow, you force your way to the surface for one more gasp of air.

As you are about to go under for the last time, a helicopter appears miraculously out of nowhere. The rescue squad inside the helicopter throws out a rope and lassos your hand, pulling you out of the water just seconds before the sharks move in for the kill. The helicopter flies you back to shore, where you receive treatment in the hospital.

After you recover, you begin to brag about how you saved yourself.  "I'm really proud of my hand. This hand saved me. Let me tell you how I found the helicopter in the middle of the ocean...."

           

Just like we can't save ourselves if we were stranded in the Atlantic, we are also helpless to save ourselves from hell. God doesn't want our help, either.  Because Jesus does all of the saving, we have no right to brag about anything we have done.  

 "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).  

(Kent Crockett, The 911 Handbook, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003, 221)

Cushion of the Sea

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging."¹

Several years ago a submarine was being tested and had to remain submerged for many hours. When it returned to the harbor, the captain was asked, "How did the terrible storm last night affect you?" The officer looked at him in surprise and exclaimed, "Storm? We didn't even know there was one!" The sub had been so far beneath the surface that it had reached the area known to sailors as "the cushion of the sea." Although the ocean may be whipped into huge waves by high winds, the waters below are never stirred.²

Being a Christian doesn't deliver us from the trials and troubles of life because we live in a broken world where it rains on the just as well as the unjust.³ However, our faith in Christ gives us an anchor in the storm and a hiding place in the shadow of his wings. As David the Psalmist prayed, "Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy! I look to you for protection. I will hide beneath the shadow of your wings until this violent storm is past".⁴

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, in the words of the hymn writer, 'When the storms of life are raging, Stand by me; When the world is tossing me Like a ship upon the sea Thou Who rulest wind and water, Stand by me.'⁵ And when the storms of life are raging, help me to put my trust in you so I will find a sense of calm and inner peace regardless of the circumstances that are threatening to drown me. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."

1. Psalm 46:1-3 (NIV).
2. Rev. Adrian Dieleman, Sermon: "Receive the Holy Spirit."
3. See Matthew 5:45.
4. Psalm 57:1-2 (NLT).
5. "When the Storms of Life Are Raging," Charles A. Tindley.
By Dick Innes

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Those Gray Forms!

“Are there any alligators in this river?” asked the man in the water. “No, not a single one,” assured his friend who was standing near. 

The swimmer was still disturbed.  Again he asked: “If there are no alligators, what are those gray forms I see? Are you sure there are no alligators?” 

“Certainly,” replied this newly made friend who was standing on the bank.

“There are no alligators down there. Those gray forms you see are sharks that have chased the alligators away.”

There is the tendency for persons nowadays to think that modern technology, education, psychology, medicine can solve all of our problems. So often, though, all we do is swap alligators for sharks.

Can You Trust Your Rope?

Can you trust this rope?

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death. 

It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. 

Wouldn’t you then first discover how much you really trusted it?

C. S. Lewis

A Grief Observed

Too Busy to Take Heed of Six Warnings

One account of the Titanic says that ships close by warned them six times that they were headed for an iceberg and would sink. On the sixth time the Captain of the Titanic signaled back, "Shut up I'm busy." That's what we are telling God and the Preacher and the Holy Spirit.

Let's read all the ice-warnings that the Titanic received on the 14th of April, 1912.

1. At 9:00am the Titanic received an ice-warning from the Caronia, the message was delivered to the bridge at Captain's request, for other officers to take note.
'Captain, Titanic west bound report bergs, growlers and Field ice in 42*N, from 49* to 51*W, compliments, Barr'


2. At 1:42pm the Titanic received an ice-warning from the Baltic, the message was delivered to Captain Smith, and he talked about it with Ismay. Ismay then put the ice-warning in his pocket and later showed it to other passengers, then the Captain asked for the return of the warning, and he posted it in the chart room at 7:15!

'Greek steamer Athenia reports passing icebergs and large quantities of field ice today in latitude 41*51* N, longitude 49*52* W wish you and Titanic all success. Commander'

3. At 1:45pm the Titanic received an ice-warning from the Amerika, this was really a private message over heard by the wireless operators, and never made its way to the bridge.

'Amerika passed two large icebergs in 41*27* N, 50*8* W on April 14.'

4. At 7:30pm the Titanic received an ice-warning from the Californian, this message was also over heard by the wireless operators and was delivered personally to the bridge by one of the wireless operators Harold Bride. Captain Smith was not made aware of this ice-warning, he was dining in the La Carte resturant with the Wideners.

'To Captain, Antillian latitude 42*3* N, longitude 49*9* W, three large bergs five miles to the southward of us. Regards Lord'

5. At 9:40pm the Titanic received an ice-warning from the Mesaba, this message never reached the bridge. Harold was taking a much needed rest, and Phillips was too busy sending commercial traffic to Cape Race.

'From Mesaba to Titanic. In latitude 42* N, to 41*25* W, to longitude 52*30* W, saw much heavy pack ice and great number large icebergs, also field ice, weather good, clear.'

6. Around 11:00pm the Titanic received an ice-warning again from the Californian, this liner was only 10 miles away from the Titanic. As Phillips was busily sending private messages the Californian was going to tell Titanic that she was stopped for the night because of field ice, but when he started transmitting he was so close that it burst into the already stressed ears of Jack Phillips, He did not wait for the warning to come through before he replied angrily "shut up, shut up, I am busy I am working Cape Race." The Californian operator felt rejected and shut down his radio and went to bed.