Our Daily Bread

What’s the world’s happiest nation? A Time magazine article reports that pollsters have tried to find a definitive answer to that question—but without success.

Our family loves to listen to Christian music and attend concerts. There’s always a tape of one of our favorite artists in the car tape player. We’ve had our kids in singing groups since the first one was 3 and now she’s in college on a music scholarship.

An elderly woman told me that she loves Jesus, prays regularly, reads the Bible daily, and confesses her sins every evening. But she’s afraid to die. She’s not sure God will accept her. She also said that she was so eager to earn God’s favor that she gave a large sum of money to her church without her husband’s knowledge. She knew this was wrong, but she said, “I did it for my salvation.”

It’s often difficult to understand why people give in to certain temptations. From our vantage point, their problem should be easy to handle.

Animals sometimes seem to have more sense than people. Because of their alertness to natural phenomena, they have at times helped us to avoid disaster.

After the 1991 military coup in Haiti, the international community imposed an embargo on the tiny Caribbean nation. Life for many Haitians became a daily struggle for survival.

People often speak of donkeys in belittling terms. You may have heard the expression, “I’m just someone who has to do all the donkey work.” Or “So-and-so is as stubborn as a mule” (a mule is half donkey).

A Grand Rapids woman was excited to have a visit from an old college roommate who lived in another part of the country. As she listened to her friend’s story, though, she was touched by the problems her guest faced as a single mom struggling to keep things together.

Eric was stunned by the certified letter he had received. He had been fired! His record with the company was good, and the reasons given for his dismissal were without substance.

The tempter knows his craft. After all, he has been practicing it since the world began. He tries to get us to forfeit God’s blessing by urging us to ignore God’s laws or by slyly getting us to add to them. He knows we can fall into a ditch on either side of the road.