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TONY EVANS ON GETTING UN-STUCK
Tony Evans, a popular black preacher from down in Texas, spoke of being on an elevator in a high-rise building. He said he’d never been particularly comfortable on such elevators. There was something about riding up and down in a little box several hundred feet off the ground that has never sat well with him. He worried that something would go wrong.
One day it did. The car he was riding in got stuck in between floors way up in the higher floors. He noted that some of the people in the car became frantic. They began to beat on the door hoping to get someone’s attention. Others began to yell in the hopes that their voices would get someone on the surrounding floors to come to the aid. But nobody heard their noise or their cries.
Then Evans quietly made his way to the front of the car, opened a little door in the wall and pulled out a telephone. Immediately he was connected with someone on the outside. He didn’t need to beat on the wall to get their attention. He didn’t need to speak loudly in the phone to receive their help. He could have whispered and they would have heard him.
Evans said that - in this world, we’re going to get "stuck" in places we aren’t comfortable with. Some people begin to beat against the walls, others cry out in dismay. But the person who trusts in the power of confident prayer knows there’s someone on the other end who hears their call and comes to their aid.
Hebrews 10:19ff tells us that we now can have "boldness" (KJV) to enter into very presence of God because of the blood of Jesus. We can think this way only because Jesus has opened the way for us to approach God’s throne and earnestly ask whatever we desire according to His Will.
A man by the name of Max DePree related the following heart-touching story:
Esther, my wife, and I have a granddaughter named Zoe, the Greek word for life. She was born prematurely and weighed one pound, seven ounces, so small that my wedding ring could slide up her arm to her shoulder. The neonatologist who first examined her told us that she had a 5 to 10 percent chance of living three days. When Esther and I scrubbed up for our first visit and saw Zoe in her isolette in the neonatal intensive care unit, she had two IVs in her navel, one in her foot, a monitor on each side of her chest, and a respirator tube and a feeding tube in her mouth.
To complicate matters, Zoe’s biological father had jumped ship the month before Zoe was born. Realizing this, a wise and caring nurse named Ruth gave me my instructions.
"For the next several months, at least, you’re the surrogate father. I want you to come to the hospital every day to visit Zoe, and when you come, I want you to rub her body and her legs and arms with the tip of your finger. While you’re caressing her, you should tell her over and over how much you love her, because she has to be able to connect your voice to your touch."
God knew that we also needed both his voice and his touch. So he gave us not only the Word but also his Son. And he gave us not only Jesus Christ but also his body, the church. God’s voice and touch say, "I love you."
It’s reported that a preacher in Redrock, Mississippi prayed this sermon: “Oh Lord, give Thy servant this mornin’ the eyes of the eagle and the wisdom of the owl; connect his soul with the gospel telephone in the central skies; ‘luminate his brow with the Sun of heaven; possess his mind with love for the people; turpentine his imagination, grease his lips with ‘possum oil, loosen his tongue with the sledge hammer of Thy power; ‘lectrify his brain with the lightnin’ of the word; put ‘petual motion on his arms; fill him plum full of the dynamite of Thy glory; ‘noint him all over with the kerosene oil of Thy salvation and SET HIM ON FIRE. Amen!”
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRISTMAS TO AMERICANS
The Barna Research Group poll, conducted for the Lutheran Hour Ministries found that:
37% of adults in the national survey (88% of whom identified themselves as Christian) said the birth of Jesus is the most important aspect of Christmas.
More than 75% of evangelical Christians placed Jesus’ birth as of first importance on Christmas.
Only 32% of those who identified themselves as fundamentalists gave that answer.
Only 29% of Catholics placed Jesus’ birth first.
Only 24% of theological liberals said the birth of Christ made Christmas important for them.
44% of the respondents said family time is the most important part of one of the three most sacred days (along with Good Friday and Easter) on the calendar.
26% of respondents ages 18 to 34 said the birth of Jesus was the most important aspect of Christmas.
39% among respondents 65 and older said the same thing.
Only 3% said presents or parties were the most important part of Christmas. The same percentage that said the best thing about Christmas was getting a paid holiday.
"I guess it demonstrates what preachers have been wringing their hands over for some time: Christ has been evacuated from Christmas," said the Rev. William Willimon, a theologian and Duke University chaplain. "It’s good to know where we are. Christmas has been a co-opted holiday."
"Americans are more likely to correctly recall the significance of April 15 than they are to connect Christmas with the birth of ...
James Montgomery Boice tells of Lawrence of Arabia visiting Paris after World War I with some Arab friends. He showed them around Paris, but what fascinated them most was the faucet in their hotel room. They spent hours turning it on and off; they thought it was wonderful. All they had to do was turn the handle, and they could get all the water they wanted. When time came to leave, Lawrence found them in the bathroom trying to detach the faucet. They explained, "It is very dry in Arabia. What we need are faucets. If we have them, we will have all the water we want." Lawrence had to explain that the effectiveness of the faucets lay in their connection to the pipeline.
Friend there is a pipeline of power. It is available through prayer. Are you connected?
Erle Stanley Gardner tells about his early days as a writer of Western stories:
“When a writer is writing at three cents a word, he is painfully conscious of the number of words. In fact, when I was typing my own stories. I had an adding machine device connected to the space bar of my typewriter, so that every time I hit the space bar it registered a figure on my word counter.
“Without my realizing it, my heroes developed a habit of missing the first five shots, only to connect with the last bullet in the gun. At one time an editor took me to task for this. How did it happen that my characters, who were chain lightning with a gun, were so inaccurate with the first five shots?” I told the editor frankly ‘At three cents a word, every time I say bang in the story I get three cents. If you think I’m going to have a gun battle over while my hero has got 15 cents’ worth of unexploded ammunition in the cylinder of his gun, you’re mistaken.’”
—The Atlantic Monthly
Byron Deel, grew up with an alcoholic and abusive father. Byron had two brothers and three sisters, a large family, but his dad spent the family income on alcohol, and he drank and ranted and raved and hit them. When Byron was twelve, his father walked away from the family, and did absolutely nothing to support them. There were no child care payments. No alimony. No cards at birthdays. No gifts at Christmas. Nothing but hardship and abandonment.
Six years later, he showed up again, two weeks after Byron had graduated from high school. It was an awkward meeting. He stayed about half an hour. And then he left again, and this time there was no contact for sixteen years. Byron confided to a friend, "My attitude toward my dad was everything that it shouldn’t have been for a Christian. He had robbed mi of a happy childhood. He had failed me at every point. He had abused me. I hesitate to say I hated him, but perhaps hatred isn’t too strong a word. There was a bitterness there that was almost a loathing. Whenever anyone asked me about my dad, I’d shut them off pretty fast. As I grew older, I put it all out of my mind, and there was just a blank spot there. I didn’t think about it. I could go for years without once thinking about my father."
Then out of the blue Byron’s aunt called him and said, "Your father is in Bristol, VA, very sick and close to death. It would mean something to him if he could see one of his children. He has cirrhosis of the liver." None of the other children wanted to see him, and Byron lived the closest to Bristol. So he got in his car and drove up there. He said, "I had a ton of thoughts. Not a lot of strong feelings, just a sense that someone should do this. I didn’t want to, but it seemed like I should."
He walked into the ICU and there was a seventy one year old man, connected to monitors, tubes inserted into his body, surrounded by medical equipment. Byron hadn’t seen him for sixteen years, but he recognized the man. And something strange happened. As Byron saw his dad lying there helplessly, dying, strung about with wires and tubes and monitors and machines, all the years of hatred and anger melted away. He walked over and stood by the bedside. The man opened his eyes, saw Byron, and began to cry. Byron said. "I wept, too. It was almost as though I could see going through his mind waves of regret for the wasted years." Byron spent that day and the next with his dad, and he was surprised th find that he had a lot of feeling for the man. "The burden that I had been carrying around for years, without realizing it, was gone. We were able to talk, and I was able to share the gospel with him."
Byron’s father survived that stay in the hospital, and was able to return home briefly. During that time, Byron had a second visit , taking his wife and daughters with him. And during that visit, he grew convinced that his dad had trusted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
Later the call came that his father had died. But Byron was no longer bitter or estranged. The compassion of Jesus Christ had taken hold, and instead of seeing himself as an abused victim full of hatred and cold of heart, he saw something else. He saw his dad through the Lord’s eyes, as a needy man who just needed Jesus Christ.
*Nelson’ Complete Book of Stories,Illustrations, and Quotes. Robert J. Morgan
THE ENERGY OF PRAISE
A study was done by psychologist Dr. Henry H. Goddard, on energy levels in children.
He used an instrument he called the "ergograph." How he ever got some children to stand still long enough to connect them to the machine is a mystery. But he did, and his findings are fascinating.
He found that when tired children are given a word of praise or encouragement, the ergograph shows an immediate upward surge of new energy. When the children are criticized and discouraged, the ergograph shows their physical energy take a sudden nose-dive.
Those results could be probably be duplicated i...
Rolland Bouchard
I used to have a principle named Mr. Duchovich. He was a monster of a man. Not in Character, but in stature. When in trouble in Jr. High school, the students feared for their lives. I remember one day having another student at the school bet me that I couldn’t kick a clock that was 7.5 feet off of the ground and sticking out of the wall. Being the intelligent kid that I was I took the challenge, jumped and kicked with all of my might. I connected, and pieces of the clock, unintentionally, went flying through the air. One face landed in the doorway of Mr. Anderson’s Math class, and he immediately came to the door to see what all the commotion was about. My first inclination was to run, but realizing that there was no escape from this one I decided to stick it out. When Mr. Anderson reached for the office intercom, my second inclination was to run, but again common sense, what little there was of it, restrained me. Not moments later, Mr. Duchovich immerged from the far end of the hall. It felt like forever was passing by, and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, like it wanted to get out and run away. Then my third inclination was to run, but it was too late, I was busted. I watched as Mr. D lurched his way down the hallway, within moments he was standing over me. Let me take this moment to describe him to you. He was close to 7 feet tall, and you could have fit 4 of me (a little jr. High Student) into a pair of His pants. He had deep brown eyes, and dark black curly hair. His hands were the size of my head. When I say that he was standing over me, it was no word of a lie. I could see the hair in his nostrils as I strained to look up at him. He assessed the situation with his eyes, saw the face of the clock on the ground, then he reached down, and I almost had a mild coronary, but then he passed me, and picked up the clock by the face with one hand, like he was palming a basketball. I must have been white as a ghost, and he put the face of the clock back on. Without saying a word, but merely peering right through me, He had accomplished his punishment. He turned around, thanked Mr. Anderson, then chuckled an amused chuckle and disappeared down the hall. My life was spared, I didn’t know what to say. The monster of a man that I feared with all of my being was really a gentle giant. I had a new respect for Him, I stood in awe of him, I feared him.
I scratched a Car!!!
I was about 17 at the time. I finally was able to drive a car. I took my mom to work in a car that a friend had lent her for the day. It was a stick shift. After dropping off my mom my small cousin jumps to the front seat while eating chips.
The driveway to the house we lived in was a slope so I decide to hit the gas and try to make it up on 3rd, Big mistake. The car stalls on us and once it shut off, thanks to gravity, we start going down the slope backwards! My lack of experience was evident as I didn’t think of the emergency break. The main breaks hardened and I wasn’t able to stop the car.
With a main highway on my left and two connecting roads right behind me everything turned to slow motion. My cousin was still eating his chips, I was pale as snow and in my head a million and one things crossed my mind. Thankfully a wall managed to step in. It scratched the right side of the car pinning us to a complete stop. Frightened and thankful that no car had showed up to do the job, I turned to check on my cousin, and with his eyes nearly popping out of it’s sockets, he was still eating chips, at a much more rapid pace of course, he was ok.
I turned on the car, drove up the slope, parked the car and left for work frightened and worried like never before. I spent the whole day scared, worried, thinking constantly of the mess I had made. Finally, the time came to face my fear, telling my mother.
As I walked up that slope once again, from far I was able to see the car and the scratch. At the same time my mother comes out of the house. She looks at me, not with anger, but with compassion.
Having lived longer she wisely said these words: "It’s ok son, that’s what money is for. We’ll get it fixed!" That’s it!
You know, God has a better perspective as well. Our worst struggles are, in his view, nothing worse that a reparable scratch on a car. Isn’t it good to know that with Him, everything works for the good of those who love Him?
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