Our Daily Bread

Jennifer had just heard a disturbing report about an increase in cases of depression among women. The report cited a related upswing in alcoholism and an increased reliance on prescription drugs.

What’s the good news today? I ask that question sometimes of people I know. If the person is a Christian, he might smilingly reply, “The same as it was yesterday. God loves us.” And both he and I rejoice that it will be the same tomorrow.

People from different cultures mourn the death of a loved one in various ways. In some places, it is customary to hire people to wail in sorrow at the wake. In others, the death of a family member leads to elaborate rituals of mourning.

Unattractive and foisted on a husband who did not want her, Leah pined for a kind of love she never received. Her heartache is revealed in the names she gave her sons.

When our family lived in Florida, I would often awaken in the morning to the cheerful sounds of a mockingbird outside my window. The first time I heard him, I was thrilled by the beauty of his melody. But soon my ears became accustomed to his songs and I began taking his sunrise concerts for granted. In time I was no longer “hearing” him. This was my own fault. Mr. Mockingbird was still there singing every morning, but I was no longer listening.

Fear is not always rational. After the September 2001 terrorist attacks using commercial airliners, it was of little consolation to know that statistically we are still at greater risk while climbing a ladder at home than flying in an airplane.

Augustus H. Strong (1836-1921) was a highly respected pastor and seminary president. Many years after his death, I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with his son. He told me about the time he was baptized by his father in a church in Rochester, New York. Walking home with his father after that mountaintop experience, he had exclaimed, “Father, I’m so glad I was baptized. It made me feel so good.” His dignified father, looking down at his son, sternly replied, “Feeling or no feeling, it was your duty.”

I enjoy buying or receiving a fresh bouquet of cut flowers. After admiring and smelling them, I waste no time getting them into water. Even though fresh and beautiful when I get them, their days are numbered. Because they’ve been severed from their life-source, they will soon wither and die. I know that one day I will have to throw them away.

Followers of Christ see His crucifixion as the greatest wrong in all of history. Yet they decorate church buildings with the cross, wear it as jewelry, and sing about it. Why would anyone cherish such a terrible symbol of suffering and shame?

In the early 1970s, political cartoonist Wayne Stayskal illustrated an age-old problem. In the first of three pictures, a father and his son are watching a violent television show together. From the tube blares the words: “Bang! Bang! Kill! Stab! Boom! Zap! Rat-a-tat-tat! Murder!”