Pastoral Resources

Toad baked some cookies. “These cookies smell very good,” said Toad. He ate one. “And they taste even better,” he said. Toad ran to Frog’s house. “Frog, Frog,” cried Toad, “taste these cookies that I have made.”

Frog ate one of the cookies, “These are the best cookies I have ever eaten!” said Frog.

Frog and Toad ate many cookies, one after another. “You know, Toad,” said Frog, with his mouth full, “I think we should stop eating. We will soon be sick.”

“You are right,” said Toad. “Let us eat one last cookie, and then we will stop.” Frog and Toad ate one last cookie. There were many cookies left in the bowl.

Frog,” said Toad, “let us eat one very last cookie, and then we will stop.” Frog and Toad ate one very last cookie. “We must stop eating!” cried Toad as he ate another.

“Yes,” said Frog, reaching for a cookie, “we need willpower.”

“What is willpower?” asked Toad.

“Willpower is trying hard not to do something you really want to do,” said Frog.

“You mean like trying hard not to eat all these cookies?” asked Toad.

“Right,” said Frog.

Frog put the cookies in a box. “There,” he said. “Now we will not eat any more cookies.”

“But we can open the box,” said Toad.

“That is true,” said Frog.

Frog tied some string around the box. “There,” he said. “Now we will not eat any more cookies.”

“But we can cut the string and open the box.” said Toad.

That is true,” said Frog.

Frog got a ladder. He put the box up on a high shelf. “There,” said Frog. “Now we will not eat any more cookies.”

“But we can climb the ladder and take the box down from the shelf and cut the string and open the box,” said Toad.

“That is true,” said Frog.

Frog climbed the ladder and took the box down from the shelf. He cut the string and opened the box.

Frog took the box outside. He shouted in a loud voice.

“Hey, birds, here are cookies!” Birds came from everywhere. They picked up all the cookies in their beaks and flew away.

“Now we have no more cookies to eat,” said Toad sadly.

“Not even one.”

“Yes,” said Frog, “but we have lots and lots of willpower.”

“You may keep it all, Frog,” said Toad. “I am going home now to bake a cake.”

England’s Prince Philip was toasted at a banquet once with two lines from John Dryden:

A man so various that he seem’d to be

Not one, but all mankind’s epitome.

The prince liked the lines so much he looked up the rest of the poem:

Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong;

Was everything by starts, and nothing long:

But, in the course of one revolving moon,

Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.

Two friends were having lunch at a cafe in New York’s Grand Central Terminal. They noticed a man sitting alone at an adjoining table. When the waitress approached him, they overheard her ask, “Are you waiting to be joined by a tall, thin woman with long, blond hair?”

He answered, “In the larger scheme of life, yes. But today I’m meeting my wife.”

It has been suggested that the mark on many church people today is not that they are "chosen" but that they are "frozen."

It has been suggested that the mark on many church people today is not that they are "chosen" but that they are "frozen."

For refuge fly;

The storm of justice falls,

And death is nigh-

As I checked in for an outpatient test at a local hospital last week, the admissions lady...inquired, “What is your religious preference?” I was tempted...to repeat what Jonah said...”I am a Hebrew, ma’am. And I fear the Lord, the God of Heaven....” But that would surely have got me sent to psychiatry rather than X-ray. So I desisted.

In ancient times, they asked “Who is your God?” A generation ago, they asked your religion. Today your creed is a preference....

According to Chesterton, tolerance is the virtue of people who do not believe in anything....When it is believed that on your religion hangs the fate of your immortal soul, the Inquisition follows easily; when it is believed that religion is a breezy consumer preference, religious tolerance flourishes....After all, we don’t persecute people for their taste in cars. Why for their taste in gods?

Oddly, though, in our thoroughly secularized culture, there is one form of religious intolerance that does survive...the disdain bordering on contempt...[for] those for whom religion is not a preference but a conviction....

Every manner of political argument is ruled legitimate in our democratic discourse. But invoke the Bible as grounding for your politics, and the First Amendment police will charge you with breaching the sacred wall separating church and state...Call on Timothy Leary or Chairman Mao, fine. Call on St. Paul, and all hell breaks loose....

Associates of [Hickman] Ewing [Whitewater prosecutor who has been called a “religious fanatic” by some] defend him thus: “His open Christian faith...is left at the prosecutorial door.” An interesting form of exoneration. Ewing is fit to carry out his judicial duties after all. Why? Because he allows none of his Christian faith to corrupt his working life.

Charles Krauthammer, “Will it be coffee, tea or He? Religion was once a conviction. Now it is a taste”

Today’s young women are more likely to become depressed than their mothers were and at a younger age. Reasons: (1) increased economic pressure to contribute to family income; (2) changing role in society; (3) inability to meet their own expectations; (4) a sense of having lost control.

I did not come this far-nor to this place-alone, but in the presence and power of my God.

The circumstances of this moment are not greater than my God. He knows them better than I do, yet He permits them. And He will overcome them-within me if I will allow Him. Mine is not to fret as though He does not know, or care, or cannot overcome. Mine is to walk on knowing that He is here.

I am His by His creation, and His new birth. I am His to do with as He chooses-to bless or to use up, to serve or to simply endure. The day belongs to my Lord, and it is the only day I have to serve and glorify Him. And so I shall give all that I have and am that for this one day He shall be honored.

1. Crucified together (Gal. 2:20)

2. Dead together (Col 2:20)

3. Buried together (Rom 6:4)

4. Made alive together (Eph 2:5)

5. Raised together (Col 3:1)

6. Suffers together (Rom 8:17)

7. Glorified together (Rom 8:17)

A clergyman once remarked to Sir John Barbirolli how he wished he could fill his church building the way Sir John and the Halle Orchestra filled every seat of a large concert hall. The conductor replied, "You could, if you had a hundred members who worked together as well as the members of this orchestra."

The white cuffs of the violinists stood out against a black background and made a bold horizontal line across the left side of the stage. As they played, those white cuffs remained an almost perfectly straight line which often moved up and down very quickly. It was a splendid demonstration of how the members of a great orchestra will not only play the right notes, but will play them together.

A great church is somewhat like a great orchestra. The members will not only make the right moves, but will make them together. They must learn to decide upon a task and execute it with perfect harmony. A musician who always wants to play his favorite piece (which may be exceptionally beautiful) and refuses to play-or else plays very halfheartedly or slowly-when another composition is chosen, not only will not help the cause but will be a detriment to the whole orchestra and may destroy its appeal. And a church member who is out of step with others, and who approaches his tasks carelessly or reluctantly, may generate more sour music than the sweet notes all the rest can draw out.

In 1915, A Russian Armenian was reading his Bible when he was beheaded. I saw the Bible—large, thick, and well used. Inside was a reddish stain that permeated most of the book. The stain was the blood of this man, one of more than a million casualties of a religious and ethnic holocaust. About 70 years later a large shipment of bibles entered Romania from the West, and Ceausescu’s (dictator of Romania) lieutenants confiscated them, shredded them, and turned them into pulp. Then they had the pulp reconstituted into toilet paper and sold to the West.

The great architect Frank Lloyd Wright was given the challenge of building the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, one of the most earthquake-prone cities in the world. Wright’s investigation showed that a solid foundation could be “floated” on a sixty-foot layer of soft mud underlying the hotel, which would provide a shock-absorbing but solid support for the immense building.

Shortly after the hotel was completed it withstood the worst earthquake in fifty-two years, while lesser buildings fell in ruins around it.

As Dorothy Sayers observed, “In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair … the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.”

As Dorothy Sayers observed, “In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair. The sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.”

“It doesn’t matter what religion you have as long as you have one” is apt to mean really “I couldn’t care less whether you have one or not.”

If it means what it says, the question arises about a religion which demands, say, that first-born children be fed to the crocodiles to ensure a good harvest. Somewhere lines have to be drawn. Sometimes it’s not so easy to draw them.

Buddhism says, “Those who love a hundred have a hundred woes. Those who love ten have ten woes. Those who love one have one woe. Those who love none have no woe.” Christianity says, “He who does not love remains in death.” (I John 3:14) The trouble is that each speaks a different kind of truth. If you choose for one as the truer and more profound of the two, then you choose against the other, granting it only a kind of proximate validity. Thus toleration must be limited in the interests of honesty.

It is sometimes argued that in our society the young should not be taught about Christianity. They should be taught about all religions. That is like saying they should be taught comparative linguistics before they have mastered English grammar.

It is sometimes argued that no religion of any kind should be taught in schools. The name of God should not be mentioned, prayers should not be prayed, religious holidays should not be observed—all of this to avoid in any way indoctrinating the young. This is itself, of course, the most powerful kind of indoctrination because it is the most subtle and for that reason the hardest for the young or anybody else to defend themselves against. Given no reason to believe that the issue of God has any importance at all, or even exists as an issue, how can anybody make an intelligent decision either for God or against him?

My favorite caricature about Abraham Lincoln shows two tired Kentucky pioneers with their skinny dogs. They meet on a bleak February morning. One asked, "What is new out here, neighbor?" The other replied, "Nuthin at all... nuthin' at all, 'cept for a new baby boy down to Tom Lincoln's. Nuthin' ever happens out here."

In the light of history we know that God was causing great things to happen on that cold February morning-things of which the despondent pioneers were not aware.

In the dark moments of discouragement, we, too, have felt like that pioneer: "Nuthin' ever happens out here." Then we realize that God is still working out His purpose in life. The fault lies in our own lack of awareness. We may miss what God is doing all around us. Could we but develop an awareness, our lives would be filled with light and joy. God's love envelops us, but we must respond to that love if we are to experience its real meaning.

Sacred to the memory of Elisha Philbrook and his wife Saran.

Beneath these stones do lie,

Back to back, my wife and I!

When the last trumpet the air shall fill

If she gets up, I’ll just lie still.

“Here lies Lester Moore; Four slugs from a .44, no Les, no more.” From Tombstone Arizona

“Sacred to the memory of Jared Bates who died August the 6th 1800. His widow, ages 24, lives at 7 Elm Street, has every qualification for a good wife, and yearns to be comforted.” From Lincoln, Maine

“Underneath this pile of stones lies all that’s left of Sally Jones. Her name was Briggs, it was not Jones, But Jones was used to rhyme with stones.” From Skaneateles, N.Y.

“Here lies Jane Smith, wife of Thomas Smith, marble cutter. This monument was erected by her husband as a tribute to her memory and a specimen of his work. Monuments of the same style 350 dollars.” From Springdale, Ohio

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda describes his battle with bad habits:

I took a pack of cigarettes from my pocket, stared at it and said, “Who’s stronger, you or me?” The answer was me. I stopped smoking. Then I took a vodka martini and said to it, “Who’s stronger, you or me?” Again the answer was me. I quit drinking. Then I went on a diet. I looked at a big plate of linguine with clam sauce and said, “Who’s stronger, you or me?” And a little clam looked up at me and answered, “I am.” I can’t beat linguine.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow

creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.

Out, Out, brief candle

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

and then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury

SIGNIFYING NOTHING.

90% of the friction of daily life is caused by the wrong tone of voice.

Once a young man came to that great philosopher Socrates to be instructed in oratory. The moment the young man was introduced he began to talk, and there was an incessant stream for some time. When Socrates could get in a word, he said, "Young man, I will have to charge you a double fee." "A double fee, why is that?" The old sage replied, "I will have to teach you two lessons. First, how to hold your tongue, and then how to use it." What an art for all of us to learn, especially for Christians.

Ezio Pinza’s (singer at the Metropolitan Opera) favorite was, “Three gray geese in the green grass grazing; gray were the geese, and green was the grazing.”

Actor Laurence Olivier often warms up with this one before going onstage: “Betty Botter bought a bit of butter, ‘But,” she said, ‘this butter’s bitter. If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter. But a bit of better butter will make my batter better.’ So Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter, and it made her batter better.”

Boris Karloff lisped, and the letter “s” was his problem. Among the twisters he used were: “She sells seashells by the seashore”; “Sister Susie’s sewing shirts for soldiers”; “Slippery sleds slide smoothly down the sluiceway” ; “A snifter of snuff is enough snuff for a sniff for a snuff sniffer.” A twister used by some radio and television announcers before they perform is: “The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us.”

The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.

Nine out of 10 people can’t say this twice in rapid succession: “Sinful Caesar sipped his snifter, seized his knees and sneezed.” - Frederick John in Insight

There are two aspects in the manifestation of tongues: first, the sign of tongues in Acts 2, 10, 19 (and probably in ch. 8); second, the gift of tongues in the early apostolic church. The gift under the second aspect evidently was not permanent (1 Cor. 13:9-13), nor given to every believer. It required the concomitant gift of interpretation (1 Cor. 12:10; 14:1-40). This sign gift with interpretation was meant to instruct the church before the completed NT Scriptures were given.

Under the first aspect tongues were a means by which the Holy Spirit witnessed to Israel on the day of Pentecost (2:4-13). They were a sign of the truth that Jesus was the Messiah and an indication of the new age of the Spirit.

The Jews were again challenged by the Samaritans’ receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14-17), and, although this is not specifically mentioned, they may have been given the evidence that the despised Samaritans had actually received the same gift as the Jews, by the sign of their supernatural utterances (cf. 11:17).

This is the use of tongues in the introduction of the gift of the Holy Spirit to Gentiles (Acts 10:44-47). Nothing could have been more convincing to skeptical, unbelieving Peter and his Jewish colleagues than the fact that Cornelius and the other Gentiles spoke in supernatural languages just as the Jews at Pentecost.

The disciples of John the Baptist who received the Holy Spirit and spoke in languages they had never learned (Acts 19:6-10) were a similar witness to the strong Jewish community at Ephesus. For the disciples of John the Baptist, whom the Jews generally accepted as a God-sent prophet, to be blessed by the Holy Spirit after being baptized in the name of the rejected Messiah, was of the deepest significance. ‘But some of them [the Jews] became obstinate; they refused to believe’ as Isaiah (Is. 28:11-12) had predicted (1 Cor. 14:22).

In 1858 the Illinois legislature—using an obscure statute—sent Stephen A. Douglas to the U.S. Senate instead of Abraham Lincoln, although Lincoln had won the popular vote. When a sympathetic friend asked Lincoln how he felt, he said, “Like the boy who stubbed his toe: I am too big to cry and too badly hurt to laugh.”

Too busy to read the Bible, too busy to wait and pray

Too busy to speak out kindly to someone by the way!

To busy to care and struggle, to think of the life to come

Too busy building mansions, to plan for the heavenly home.

Too busy to help a brother who faces the winter blast.

Too busy to share his burden, when self in the balance is cast.

Too busy for all that is holy on earth beneath the sky;

Too busy to serve the Master, but not too busy to die.

Evangelist Paul Rader had many a talk with a banker in New York. The banker would reply that he was too busy for religion. Time passed and the banker, seriously overworked, was sent to a sanatorium for complete rest. One day God spoke to Paul Rader; the message was clear: “Go and speak to…” Rader obeyed, catching a train and going with all speed to the sumptuous sanatorium.

Arriving at the facility, Rader saw the banker standing in the doorway. “Oh, Rader,” said the banker, “I am so glad to see you.” “I received your telegram,” said Rader. “That’s impossible,” said the banker. “I wrote a telegram begging you to come, but I tore it up. I didn’t sent it.” “That may be,” said Rader, “but your message came by way of Heaven.”

Paul Rader found his friend under deep conviction of sin and he pointed him to Christ as a perfect Saviour. That man accepted Christ and his heart was filled with joy. “Rader,” he said, “did you ever see the sky so blue or the grass so green?” Rader replied, “Sometimes we sing” ‘Heaven above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green; Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen.’“ Suddenly the banker leaned against Paul Rader and fell into his arms, dead.

A stern old saint used to bemoan the wickedness of the world which to her was going from bad to worse. She seemed to be obsessed with the idea that, except for herself and her own circle of friends, no one else was saved. She stood so close to the mirror of life that she and her immediate surroundings dominated the view. Had she only stepped back or to one side, she would have had a much better perspective of life as a whole. Another Christian saw in the mirror all the wonderful manifestations of the working of God, news of which seemed to be reaching her from every quarter-from the slums, from the mission field, from all the darkened corners of the earth where light was dawning. How poor life seems to be when it is only a shadowy background to the all-absorbing form of self. How glorious when we step out of the picture and let the larger landscape sweep into view.

Lord Kenneth Clark, internationally known for his television series Civilization, lived and died without faith in Jesus Christ. He admitted in his autobiography that while visiting a beautiful church he had what he believed to be an overwhelming religious experience. “My whole being,” Clark wrote, “was irradiated by a kind of heavenly joy far more intense than anything I had know before.” But the “gloom of grace,” as he described it, created a problem. If he allowed himself to be influenced by it, he knew he would have to change, his family might think he had lost his mind, and maybe that intense joy would prove to be an illusion. So he concluded, “I was too deeply embedded in the world to change course.”

C. S. Lewis gave us the following insight:

Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

To get employees to work on time, a Michigan company provides 45 parking spaces for 50 cars.

Dale Carnegie tells of a visit to Yellowstone Park in earlier days when tourists could watch the rangers feed the grizzly bears. One night the ranger brought garbage to attract the huge creatures, which, it is said, can whip any animal in the West except perhaps the buffalo and the Kodiak bear. But Carnegie noticed that while eating, the bears would growl and send other little animals scurrying, but they would allow one little creature to eat with them-the skunk! Though it was obvious that the grizzlies resented the skunk for its brazen impudence and would have loved to have their revenge, they didn't. And you can guess why. The cost of getting even was just too high!

The most dreadful torment of the lost, in fact that which constitutes their state of torment, will be this coming to themselves, when too late for repentance.

“Too long, too far, and too low.” Those words have stuck with me ever since I read them in a story about Manfred von Richthofen (“The Red Baron”).

The day was April 21, 1918. Richthofen led his flight of triplanes to search for British observation aircraft. An engagement ensued between a flight of Sopwith Camels led by Canadian Royal Air Force pilot Capt. Arthur Roy Brown. Brown’s friend Lt. Wilfred May was a rookie on his first offensive patrol. May had been ordered to keep out of combat, but couldn’t resist. He jammed his guns and, defenseless, headed away from the battle. Richthoten spotted the lone plane and chose it for kill number 81. Brown observed the scene below him and dove to help his fellow airman, knowing that May was no match for Richthofen. Read what happens next, “It was then, with Brown closing from behind, that Richthofen, usually a meticulous and disciplined fighter pilot, made a mistake and broke one of his own rules by following May too long, too far, and too low into enemy territory. Two miles behind the Allied lines, as Brown caught up with Richthofen and fired, the chase passed over the machine-gun nests of Australian Field Artillery.” The debate continues over who fired the fatal shot that passed through Richthofen’s torso. Ultimately it doesn’t matter— whether hit from the air or the ground, The Red Baron was mortally wounded.

Richthofen was good. Probably over-confident. But he “broke one of his own rules.” Maybe in his mind he was just stretching the rule a bit. Or he was distracted by something that appeared too good to be true. Whatever the case, he compromised his own standards, which led to his demise. For the Red Baron, the temptation of number 81 was too much.

The temptation always exists in ministry to focus on the wrong things, forget where you are, and stretch, or compromise, our own rules. It is easy to be distracted by “the numbers” or something else. There are always new gimmicks that will try to lure us away from our first love. You are a target of the enemy. Don’t lose your primary focus. Keep the main thing the main thing. “Fix your thoughts on Jesus” (Heb. 3:1, NIV).

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

An elderly woman was being conducted through a great cathedral in Europe. The guide spoke of its beauty of design, calling attention to the statues and paintings. The woman was unimpressed. At the conclusion of the tour she asked the guide, "How many souls have been saved here this year? How many people have drawn near to God here?" "My dear lady," said the embarrassed guide, "this is a cathedral, not a chapel." That's the trouble. Unfortunately we have too many cathedrals and too few chapels where the warmth of the Spirit of God is felt, conducive to a spiritual life that enhances our knowledge of God.

British prime minister Herbert Asquith once spent a weekend at the Waddesdon estate of the 19th-century Rothschild family. One day, as Asquith was being waited on at tea time by the butler, the following conversation ensued: “Tea, coffee, or a peach from off the wall, sir?”

“Tea, please,” answered Asquith.

“China, India, or Ceylon, sir?” asked the butler.

“China, please.”

“Lemon, milk, or cream, sir?”

“Milk, please,” replied Asquith.

“Jersey, Hereford, or Shorthorn, sir?” asked the butler.

A Russian, a Cuban, an American businessman and an American lawyer were on a train traveling across Europe. The Russian took out a large bottle of vodka, poured each of his companions a drink and then hurled the semi-full bottle out the window. “Why did you do that?” asked the American businessman. “Vodka is plentiful in my country,” said the Russian. “In fact, we have more than we will ever use.”

A little later, the Cuban passed around fine Havana cigars. He took a couple of puffs of his and then tossed it out the window. “I thought the Cuban economy was suffering,” the businessman said. “Yet you threw that perfectly good cigar away.” “Cigars,” the Cuban replied, “are a dime a dozen in Cuba. We have more of them than we know what to do with.”

The American businessman sat in silence for a moment. Then he got up, grabbed the lawyer and threw him out the window.

One family has opened its heart and its home to a number of Cambodian refugees, taking them right in with their natural sons and daughters and sharing all they have. It makes a crowded house, yet these orphans from a distant land are happy.

But there are many other orphans around these days. Some homes have become "orphanages," not because the father is dead, but because he is too busy pursuing his own dreams and providing physical and material needs. This group of "spiritual" orphans is growing by leaps and bounds.

No one wants children to grow up and follow a bad example. There is no greater tragedy than to lose the respect of one's own children. It will haunt one in a lonely old age. Good fathers are wanted-and needed.

I once asked my daughter Jennifer what she thought were the biggest problems fathers have with kids. She said, “Dads have too many “tomorrows.” You know, “I’ll play with you tomorrow, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She was right. Dad, be there now for your children, building quality and quantity benchmarks of trust. Don’t wait until tomorrow—or you’ll end up wasting too many todays.

Riches can be a handicap. A wealthy woman told her doctor she was frustrated by a restless desire for more and more things. He replied, "These are the usual symptoms of too much ease in the home and too little gratitude in the heart."

Police stopped a teen-age girl in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, after complaints that a car had been seen going around her neighborhood in reverse for some time. The girl told police that her parents had let her use the car, but she had put too much mileage on it. “I was just trying to unwind some of it,” she said.

A very practical man was known to confess: "I have too much religion or too little; I must either give up what I have or get more. I have too much religion to let me enjoy a worldly life, and too much worldliness to let me enjoy religion." He solved the dilemma triumphantly by a wholehearted acceptance of Christ as his living Lord. He put an end to divided loyalty and doubtful obedience.

Of course, like the wary schoolboy who scoffs at ghosts yet whistles while passing a graveyard, some atheists would seem to protest too much. The publications of an organization called Freedom from Religion Foundation, Inc. include THE BORN-AGAIN SKEPTIC’S GUIDE TO THE BIBLE; THE PILLARS OF RELIGION: IGNORANCE, INADEQUACY, INDOCTRINATION; WHY I AM AN ATHEIST; and its bestseller, ATHEISM, THE CASE AGAINST GOD, promoted as “an excellent manual for beginners.”

Unfortunately, that is not very often how it works. The accusatory rhetoric at the United Nations is not all that different in tone from the way Christians argue with each other. Here is an example from the seventeenth century, when the Puritans and the Quakers were engaged in angry debates: The great Puritan preacher Richard Baxter wrote a pamphlet in which he lumped the Quakers with “drunkards, swearers, whoremongers, and sensual wretches” and other “miserable creatures.” And then—just in case he had not yet insulted them enough—he insisted that Quakers are no better than “Papists.”

The Quaker leader James Naylor announced that he was compelled “by the Spirit of Jesus Christ” to respond to these harsh accusations. He proceeded to characterize his Puritan opponent as a “Serpent,” a “Liar,” and “Child of the Devil,” a “Cursed Hypocrite,” and a “Dumb Dog.” This is strong stuff. What makes it especially sad is that the angry talk often makes it difficult to get to the real issues. The debate between the Puritans and the Quakers was actually a rather interesting and helpful one. Both parties engaged in some serious biblical exposition; if the heavy rhetoric were removed, the discussion could easily appear to have been a friendly argument between Christians who had some important things to talk about. But I doubt that either group heard the helpful things the other side was saying. Too much angry rhetoric was in the air.

In the summer of 1986, two ships collided in the Black Sea off the coast of Russia. Hundreds of passengers died as they were hurled into the icy waters below. News of the disaster was further darkened when an investigation revealed the cause of the accident. It wasn’t a technology problem like radar malfunction—or even thick fog. The cause was human stubbornness. Each captain was aware of the other ship’s presence nearby. Both could have steered clear, but according to news reports, neither captain wanted to give way to the other. Each was too proud to yield first. By the time they came to their senses, it was too late.

A man went to his psychiatrist and he said, “Sometimes I think I’m a teepee and sometimes I think I’m a wigwam.” The psychiatrist said, “Your problem is you’re two tents.”

“The road is too rough,” I said,

“Dear Lord, there are stones that hurt me so.”

And He said, “Dear child, I understand,

I walked it long ago.”

“But there’s a cool green path,” I said;

“Let me walk there for a time.”

“No child,” He gently answered me,

“The green path does not climb.”

“My burden,” I said, “Is far too great,

How can I bear it so?”

“My child,” He said, “I remember the weight;

I carried My cross, you know.”

But I said, “I wish there were friends with me

Who would make my way their own.”

“Oh, yes,” He said, “Gethsemane

Was hard to bear alone.”

And so I climb the stony path,

Content at last to know

That where my Master had not gone,

I would not need to go.

And strangely then I found new friends,

The burden grew less sore;

And I remember—long ago

He went that way before.

Olga J. Weiss

Noting that a business acquaintance who seemed to have only average abilities had moved up rapidly in his company to become a vice president, I asked him his secret to success. He told me that it was quite simple.

“Not long after I started my first job, I got the name of an excellent executive recruiter. I gave my boss’s name to the recruiter, who lured him away from our firm, and I assumed his vacated position. I’ve been doing the same thing with every boss since then,” he said.

When the pilgrims settled in the United States, they brought their tools from Europe and learned to grow corn from the Indians. Their technology was limited. They dug a hole in the ground, planted an ear of corn, and added fish for fertilizer. By working hard with his hoe, a colonist could grow the equivalent of four bushels of corn a year, or about one bushel for each month in the growing season. By the time of the Civil War, farmers used mules and developed plows and other tools enabling a man to grow the equivalent of a bushel of corn a week or 16 bushels of corn a year. But today, with advanced technology, petrochemical fertilizer, soil analysis, and four-wheel drive tractors, a farmer can grow the equivalent of a bushel of corn for each 10 minutes of the growing season. American farmers grow more corn than the other farmers of the world because of better technology and better tools. The miracle of life in the seed has not changed; farmers can do nothing to change what God has ordered in the growth cycle. But tools and technology can improve the harvest.

Russian Czar Peter the Great was fascinated with the study and practice of medicine. So when one of the Czar’s valets asked the monarch to pull his wife’s tooth, Peter grabbed his dental instruments and followed the valet to his apartment. There Peter pulled the woman’s tooth, ignoring her cries of protest.

Only several days later did Peter learn that the woman had never had a toothache at all. The painful extraction was her husband’s revenge for a domestic quarrel. Talk about “tooth for tooth”!

�Percentage of families experiencing stress

1. Money for food, clothing and energy:� 45%
2. Purchase of a car, or other major item:� 43%
3. Taking out a loan:� 31%
4. Children�s education:� 29%
5. Problems with family income:� 26%
6. Medical/dental expenses:� 23%
7. Purchase or construction of a home:� 16%
8. Bad investments:� 16%
9. Overuse of credit cards:� 15%
10. Starting a business:� 10%

Percentage of families experiencing stress

1. Money for food, clothing and energy

45%

2. Purchase of a car, or other major item

43%

3. Taking out a loan

31%

4. Children’s education

29%

5. Problems with family income

26%

6. Medical/dental expenses

23%

7. Purchase or construction of a home

16%

8. Bad investments

16%

9. Overuse of credit cards

15%

10. Starting a business

10%

1. House chores/yard work:

47

1. Holiday gift shopping:

43

2. Making doctor/dentist appointments:

35

3. Calling relatives:

31

4. Changing oil in the car:

29

In a Japanese seashore village over a hundred years ago, an earthquake startled the villagers one autumn evening. But, being accustomed to earthquakes, they soon went back to their activities. Above the village on a high plain, an old farmer was watching from his house. He looked at the sea, and the water appeared dark and acted strangely, moving against the wind, running away from the land. The old man knew what it meant. His one thought was to warn the people in the village. He called to his grandson, “Bring me a torch! Make haste!” In the fields behind him lay his great crop of rice. Piled in stacks ready for the market, it was worth a fortune. The old man hurried out with his torch. In a moment the dry stalks were blazing. Then the big bell pealed from the temple below: Fire! Back from the beach, away from the strange sea, up the steep side of the cliff, came the people of the village. They were coming to try to save the crops of their rich neighbor. “He’s mad!” they said.

As they reached the plain, the old man shouted back at the top of his voice, “Look!” At the edge of the horizon they saw a long, lean, dim line—a line that thickened as they gazed. That line was the sea, rising like a high wall and coming more swiftly than a kite flies. Then came a shock, heavier than thunder. The great swell struck the shore with a weight that sent a shudder through the hills and tore their homes to matchsticks. It drew back, roaring. Then it struck again, and again, and yet again. Once more it struck and ebbed; then it returned to its place. On the plain now word was spoken. Then the voice of the old man was heard, saying gently, “That is why I set fire to the rice.” He stood among them almost as poor as the poorest, for his wealth was gone—but he had saved 400 lives by the sacrifice.

This headline appeared in the Grand Rapids Press: “Convict Tells of a Torture that Time Can’t Change.” The article described a newspaper reporter’s interview with a man who had been convicted of killing his wife. Here’s how the writer described the scene: “He leans forward from his chair. For a moment he says nothing. Finally he comments, matter-of-factly, ‘I’ll never be the same. I have no illusions about that. I still have to live with it.’”

Since he was being considered for parole, the prisoner was asked by the reporter if he deserved to be let out. He responded by saying, “Out? I lost a wife, and I can’t replace her. It’ll always be on my mind, because no matter what, I still bear the final responsibility. There’s no amount of time I could do that would change anything. I could do 100 years or 1,000 years; how do you set a number for something like that?”

The great Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini was legendary for his fits of rage. The librarian of one of Toscanini’s orchestras was particularly vexed by the maestro’s habit of throwing valuable musical scores at the musicians when angry. Watching closely, the librarian observed that Toscanini’s first act when enraged was to take his baton in both hands and try to break it. If the baton snapped, Toscanini usually calmed down and rehearsal continued. If the baton did not break, he began hurling scores.

The librarian’s solution? He made sure the conductor had a generous supply of flimsy batons on hand for rehearsal!

When a drum major tossed his baton in Ventura, California, it hit two 4000-volt power lines, blacking out a ten-block area and putting a radio station off the air. The baton melted.

One day as a mother was scraping and peeling vegetables for a salad, her daughter came to ask her permission to go to an amusement center that had a bad reputation. On the defensive, the daughter admitted it was a questionable place, but "all the other girls were going."

As the teenage daughter pleaded to go, she suddenly saw her mother pick up a handful of discarded vegetable peelings and toss them into the salad. Startled, she cried, "Mother, you are putting garbage into the salad." "Yes," her mother replied, "I know'but I thought that if you did not mind garbage in your mind and heart, you certainly would not mind a little garbage in your stomach.

Thoughtfully, the girl removed the offending material from the salad, and with a brief, "Thank You" to her mother she went to tell her friends that she would not be going with them.

If you have spiritual indigestion and a poor testimony, maybe it is because you have tossed too much garbage in the salad.

Walter Knight told of an old Scottish woman who went from home to home across the countryside selling thread, buttons, and shoestrings. When she came to an unmarked crossroad, she would toss a stick into the air and go in the direction the stick pointed when it landed.

One day, however, she was seen tossing the stick up several times. “Why do you toss the stick more than once?” someone asked. “Because,” replied the woman, “it keeps pointing to the left, and I want to take the road on the right.” She then dutifully kept throwing the stick into the air until it pointed the way she wanted to go!

The difference in a contribution and total commitment is usually the difference in failure and success.

A chicken and a hog were walking past a church building one day when they noticed the Sunday morning sermon posted on the outside bulletin board, "Helping the Poor." They walked a ways when the chicken suddenly came across with a suggestion. "Say, Brother Hog, why don't we give all the poor people a nice breakfast of ham and eggs?" The hog thought a moment and replied, "That's all right for you to say because for you it is only a contribution, but for me, it's total commitment!"

Jesus succeeded in His mission because He was totally committed to the task before Him. He was willing to give up everything, even His life, for the cause He believed in. No one really succeeds in life until he reaches the point that he is willing to lay down his life. Jesus said, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." Disraeli said, "Nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfillment!"

One day, while my son Zac and I were out in the country, climbing around in some cliffs, I heard a voice from above me yell, “Hey Dad! Catch me!” I turned around to see Zac joyfully jumping off a rock straight at me. He had jumped and then yelled “Hey Dad!” I became an instant circus act, catching him. We both fell to the ground. For a moment after I caught him I could hardly talk. When I found my voice again I gasped in exasperation: “Zac! Can you give me one good reason why you did that???”

He responded with remarkable calmness: “Sure...because you’re my Dad.” His whole assurance was based in the fact that his father was trustworthy. He could live life to the hilt because I could be trusted. Isn’t this even more true for a Christian?

As someone else has said, “She won’t listen to her conscience. She doesn’t want to take advice from a total stranger.”

Consider Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who wrote in 1762 the classic treatise on freedom, The Social Contract, with its familiar opening line: “Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”

But the liberty Rousseau envisioned wasn’t freedom from state tyranny; it was freedom from personal obligations. In his mind, the threat of tyranny came from smaller social groupings—family, church, workplace, and the like. We can escape the claims made by these groups, Rousseau said, by transferring complete loyalty to the state.

In his words, each citizen can become “perfectly independent of all his fellow citizens” through becoming “excessively dependent on the republic.”

This idea smacks so obviously of totalitarianism that one wonders by what twisted path of logic Rousseau came up with it. Why did he paint the state as the great liberator?

Historian Paul Johnson, in his book Intellectuals, offers an intriguing hypothesis. At the time Rousseau was writing The Social Contract, Johnson explains, he was struggling with a great personal dilemma.

An inveterate bohemian, Rousseau had drifted from job to job, from mistress to mistress. Eventually, he began living with a simple servant girt named Therese. When Therese presented him with a baby, Rousseau was, in his own words, “Thrown into the greatest embarrassment.” His burning desire was to be received into Parisian high society, and an illegitimate child was an awkward encumbrance.

Friends whispered that unwanted offspring were customarily sent to a “foundling asylum.” A few days later, a tiny, blanketed bundle was left on the steps of the local orphanage. Four more children were born to Therese and Jean-Jacques; each one ended up on the orphanage steps. Records show that most of the babies in the institution died; a few who survived became beggars. Rousseau knew that, and several of his books and letters reveal vigorous attempts to justify his action.

At first he was defensive, saying he could not work in a house “filled with domestic cares and the noise of children.” Later his stance became self-righteous. He insisted he was only following the teachings of Plato: hadn’t Plato said the state is better equipped than parents to raise good citizens?

Later, when Rousseau turned to political theory, these ideas seem to reappear in the form of general policy recommendations. For example, he said responsibility for educating children should be taken away from parents and given to the state. And his ideal state is one where impersonal institutions liberate citizens from all personal obligations.

Now, here was a man who himself had turned to a state institution for relief from personal obligations. Was his own experience transmuted into political theory? Is there a connection between the man and the political theorist?

It is risky business to try to read personal motives. But we do know that to the end of his life Rousseau struggled with guilt. In his last book, he grieved that he had lacked, in the words of historian Will Durant, “the simple courage to bring up a family.”

I must have a whole Christ for my salvation;

I must have a whole Bible for my staff;

I must have a whole church for my fellowship;

I must have a whole world for my parish.-Augustine

Let’s admit it: all of us have twinges of insecurity about ourselves. But it is possible to grow toward being a totally secure man, says Larry Titus, president of the Men Reaching Men ministry in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.

According to Larry, a totally secure man:

Does not need to tear down others to build up himself.

Considers inner convictions more the mark of a man than outer toughness.

Finds talented people an inspiration, not a threat.

Knows how to take the garbage he was dealt in life and recycle it into energy.

Forgives people who may never have the courage to apologize.

Lives his private life as if it were public.

Considers people more important than projects and plans.

What is all this touching in church? It used to be a person could come to church and sit in the pew and not be bothered by all this friendliness and certainly not by touching.

I used to come to church and leave untouched. Now I have to be nervous about what is expected of me. I have to worry about responding to the person sitting next to me.

Oh, I wish it could be the way it used to be; I could just ask the person next to me, "How are you?" And the person could answer, "Oh, just fine." And we would both go home...strangers who have known each other for 20 years.

But now the minister asks us to look at each other. I am worried about that hurt look I saw in that woman's eyes.

Now I am upset because the lady next to me cried and then apologized and said it was because I was so kind and that she needed a friend right now. Now I have to get involved. Now I have to suffer when this community suffers. Now I have to be more than a person coming to observe a service.

That man last week told me I had never known how much I had touched his life. All I did was smile and tell him I understood what it was to be lonely.

Lord, I am not big enough to touch and be touched. The stretching scares me. What if I disappoint somebody? What if I am too pushy? What if I cling too much? What if somebody ignores me?

O Lord, be here beside me. You touch me, Lord, so that I can touch and be touched. So that I can care and be cared for. So that I can share my life with all those others that belong to you. All this touching in church, Lord, it is changing me!

In his men’s seminar, David Simmons, a former cornerback for the Dallas Cowboys, tells about his childhood home. His father, a military man, was extremely demanding, rarely saying a kind word, always pushing him with harsh criticism to do better. The father had decided that he would never permit his son to feel any satisfaction from his accomplishments, reminding him there were always new goals ahead. When Dave was a little boy, his dad gave him a bicycle, unassembled, with the command that he put it together. After Dave struggled to the point of tears with the difficult instructions and many parts, his father said, “I knew you couldn’t do it.” Then he assembled it for him.

When Dave played football in high school, his father was unrelenting in his criticisms. In the backyard of his home, after every game, his dad would go over every play and point out Dave’s errors. “Most boys got butterflies in the stomach before the game; I got them afterwards. Facing my father was more stressful than facing any opposing team.” By the time he entered college, Dave hated his father and his harsh discipline. He chose to play football at the University of Georgia because its campus was further from home than any school that offered him a scholarship.

After college, he became the second round draft pick of the St. Louis cardinal’s professional football club. Joe Namath (who later signed with the New York Jets), was the club’s first round pick that year. “Excited, “I telephoned my father to tell him the good news. He said, ‘How does it feel to be second?’”

Despite the hateful feelings he had for his father, Dave began to build a bridge to his dad. Christ had come into his life during college years, and it was God’s love that made him turn to his father. During visits home he stimulated conversation with him and listened with interest to what his father had to say. He learned for the first time what his grandfather had been like—a tough lumberjack known for his quick temper. Once he destroyed a pickup truck with a sledgehammer because it wouldn’t start, and he often beat his son. This new awareness affected Dave dramatically. “Knowing about my father’s upbringing not only made me more sympathetic for him, but it helped me see that, under the circumstances, he might have done much worse. By the time he died, I can honestly say we were friends.”

Myron Rush identifies tough issues facing every Christian leader in The New Leader. We are wise to ponder them slowly.

You must be willing to stand alone.

You must be willing to go against public opinion in order to promote what you believe.

You must be willing to risk failure.

You must become master of your emotions.

You must strive to remain above reproach.

You must be willing to make decisions others don’t want to make.

You must be willing to say no at times, even when you’d like to say yes.

You must sometimes be willing to sacrifice personal interests for the good of the group.

You must never be content with the average; you must always strive for the best.

People must be more important to you than possessions.

You will have to work harder to keep your life in balance than people do who are not leaders.

When times are tough and things just aren’t going your way, there’s nothing like a hug. Someone putting an arm around you and telling you, “Hey, everything’s going to be all right. You’re okay.”

And there’s nobody better at that than your mom. Just ask Nick Anderson. The Orlando Magic guard missed four free throws in the waning seconds of his team’s NBA Finals game against Houston and the team went on to lose a game it otherwise might have won. Later Houston guard Clyde Drexler blew past Anderson for a lay-up late in overtime. Nick Anderson had a very bad game.

Understandably, when he got home Anderson was down in the dumps. “My mom put her arm around me,” Anderson later said, “and told me, ‘You’ve got nothing to put your head down about. You’ve pulled your team through many other times.”

Every conscientious parent recognizes how difficult it is to exercise his God-given authority over his children. The delicate balance of being tough yet tender is not easy to maintain. Many parents intensify a rebellious spirit by being dictatorial and harsh. Others yield when their authority is tested. When a strong-willed child resists, the pressure to give in for the sake of peace and harmony can become overpowering.

I am reminded of the mother who wanted to have the last word but couldn’t handle the hassle that resulted whenever she said no to her young son. After an especially trying day, she finally flung up her hands and shouted, “All right, Billy, do whatever you want! Now let me see you disobey THAT!”

When solid timber is needed, we pass by the things grown in the hot house. We seek the oak grown on the storm swept hills. The great in God's Kingdom have been taught by the hills and vales of temptation. Yielding creates littleness, overcoming creates greatness.

Two men who lived in a small village got into a terrible dispute that they could not resolve. So they decided to talk to the town sage.

The first man went to the sage’s home and told his version of what happened. When he finished, the sage said, “You’re absolutely right.”

The next night, the second man called on the sage and told his side of the story. The sage responded, “You’re absolutely right.”

Afterward, the sage’s wife scolded her husband. “Those men told you two different stories and you told them they were absolutely right. That’s impossible—they can’t both be absolutely right.”

The sage turned to his wife and said, “You’re absolutely right.”

Why do toy makers watch the divorce rate? When it rises, so do toy sales. According to the analyzers, four parents and eight grandparents tend to compete for children’s affections, so buy toys.

Why do toymakers watch the divorce rate?

When it rises, so do toy sales. According to the analyzers, four parents and eight grandparents tend to compete for children’s affections, so buy toys.