Our Daily Bread

Studies conducted by the National Geographic Society provide some fascinating insights into the behavior of chimpanzees. Observers noted how the leadership of a chimp community changed because of a dramatic bluff used by one of the lowliest members of the colony.

All those years of training in good grammar couldn’t stand up to a few hours of being with a friend who mangles the language. That was my observation recently as I overheard my second-grade son Steven talking with one of his friends.

An 86-year-old retired insurance broker says that after much careful thought he has concluded that “there is no personal God and no life after death.” He says there’s no evidence to support these beliefs. But he’s wrong. Scholars have shown that the New Testament books are authentic documents and that Christ’s resurrection is a historical fact.

I once heard of a Christian seminar titled, “How To Live A Stress-Free Life.” Such an unrealistic hope promptly made me stressful! Yet, we all long for relief.

A young man who had entered a monastery wrote to his father and told him how wonderful it was to be there. Every morning at 2 o’clock the men would arise to chant ancient sacred songs.

From early history, man has dreamed of flight. With the invention of the hot-air balloon, he first soared aloft in 1783.

A man attended a meeting where the guest lecturer was extremely long-winded. When the listener could stand it no longer, he got up and slipped out a side door. In the corridor he met a friend who asked, “Has he finished yet?” “Yes,” the man replied, “he’s been through for a long time, but he’s not aware of it! He simply won’t stop!”

When King Solomon wanted to construct a temple for the Lord, he was overwhelmed by the knowledge that he could never make one that would be fully adequate. In awe he exclaimed, “Who is able to build Him a temple, since heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him?” (2 Chr. 2:6).

What does the word Yankee mean to you? Robert W. Mayer, in a Wall Street Journal article, writes, “To people in other parts of the world it simply means someone from the United States; to people in the United States it means someone from north of the Mason-Dixon Line; to us Northerners it means someone from New England; to New Englanders it means someone from Vermont; to Vermonters it means someone from the Green Mountains.”

Nellie Pickard loves to tell people about Jesus Christ. She does it so often that she’s written a series of books describing how she witnesses in everyday situations. In Just Say It! she tells about her phone call to a health-food store. She had noticed that bee pollen was on sale, so she asked the manager about the benefits of using it. “You’ll live forever,” he replied.