Our Daily Bread

“Stop! There’s a good pair of shoes! Slow down, you just passed a hammer! Look at that jacket in the ditch!” As the car was speeding down the highway at 70 miles an hour, these were the exclamations of a hitchhiker to the driver who had just picked him up. After several hours of similar comments, the driver reached two conclusions:

I was watching two sisters prepare Thanksgiving dinner. They had made their special stuffing, spooned it into the turkey, and were preparing to pop it into the oven. They got out the aluminum foil and were ready to cover the meat to help hold in the juices.

While in the military I learned to hate waiting. We were commanded to hurry out of the barracks and line up. There we would stand and wait, wait, wait for our next orders. When getting vaccinations, we would stand in line and just wait.

I was concerned about my neighbor’s spiritual health because he had been in such poor physical health. So one day I asked him, “Are you ready to meet God? If something were to happen to you, are you ready?”

The name of David F. Kies is listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. A small diamond is etched beside it to indicate that he died in battle. But it is a mistake, for Kies is very much alive. He’s living in Wisconsin with his wife and five children.

In the late 1940s, a young mother was stricken with polio and became an invalid. She astounded people by the way she accepted her affliction and ran her household from her bed. Her brother-in-law said to me, “I have heard a lot of talk about ‘supernatural grace,’ but I never knew what it was until I saw it shining through her.”

In October 1991, a firestorm destroyed 2,500 homes in the vicinity of Oakland, California. When the devastated owners returned and sifted through the black debris, they found that all their possessions had been reduced to soot. But one man and his daughter discovered a tiny porcelain rabbit. They marveled that so fragile an object had survived intact. Other victims of that catastrophe also found pottery and porcelain items that had somehow defied the all-consuming firestorm.

In November 2001, many people around the world rejoiced when eight prisoners were released after 3 tension-filled months of being detained in Afghanistan. They had been charged with “preaching Christianity,” which at the time was a crime punishable by death.

Astronaut Jack Lousma described how earth looks from space. He wrote: “With the naked eye we could see freeways, airports, and cities . . . , white clouds and the snow on the mountains. We could see the green-and-brown patchwork of the farmers’ fields and the beautifully painted deserts. . . . When we were over Chicago, we could see most of Hudson Bay . . . , Washington, DC, and Baltimore. We could see two-thirds of the way down the Mississippi River and out to Denver.”

I’ll always remember the day when as a child I found two coins on the school playground. I brought them home, thinking they wouldn’t be missed. But Mother made me take them to my teacher. “They belong to someone else,” Mother told me. Since then, God has often reminded me of this early lesson in honesty.

Bible scholars have difficulty identifying the “badger” mentioned in Proverbs 30. Many believe it is the same animal as the Syrian hyrax. If this is so, then God is calling our attention to an unusual little creature.

Revelation. To some people, it’s more than just the name of the last book of the Bible. To some self-promoting preachers, revelation is something God personally gives to them. In most cases, however, what they say God has given them contradicts His teachings in the Bible.

An 89-year-old man who enjoys creating new words to describe old problems calls a person who finds fault with everything an againstovist. “Whatever you suggest,” he says, “that person is against it, and will find something wrong with everything you do.”

In the early years after I began working with others in fulltime Christian ministry, sometimes there was no money for our salaries. But looking back, I see that I have lacked nothing.

Most of us can think of someone—perhaps a relative or a friend—who is known for a particular perfume she wears. Even without seeing her, we know when she’s nearby. Wordlessly, her fragrance welcomes us into her company.

While driving through a small town in Pennsylvania, I saw these words on a church sign: Pray for a good harvest, but keep on hoeing.

God hates slanderers. They are scoundrels and villains with hidden hatred in their hearts and deceit in their mouths.

At the end of every year, I set aside some time to review the previous 12 months and record God’s faithfulness to me and my family. I may leaf through a calendar, my appointment book, or prayer diary to jog my memory. Then, on a piece of paper labeled “God’s Faithfulness” I’ll write everything that comes to mind as evidence of God’s love and care. It’s a wonderful way to look back at the year and look forward to a fresh beginning.

What a great day it is when a couple discovers they’re going to be parents! It’s even more exciting for those who have been unable to have children. Such was the case for Manoah and his wife, the parents-to-be of Samson.

On the last day of spring training in 1979, baseball player Steve Kemp of the Detroit Tigers was hit in the head with a pitched ball and taken to the hospital. But on opening day of the regular season he stepped up to the plate with confidence. Taking fastballs from a veteran pitcher, he smacked a single. The next time at bat he hit a home run.

Envy may be defined as “resentment at the success or happiness of others.” Many cultures regard envy lightly. A home remodeling company in Washington, DC, ran an ad that actually appealed to this vice. It used such phrases as “living room lust” and “kitchen envy.” It went on to state that you could become the envy of your neighborhood while enhancing the value of your home.

Sin saps us of our God-given strength. We become spiritually weak and decrepit, but often we imagine that we’re just as hardy as ever.

When she heard that her best friend’s baby died, Andra didn’t know what to do. Should she call her friend right away or wait a few days? What should she say? She asked her mother, Mary Farr, a children’s hospital chaplain, for advice. “Phone her now,” her mother said. “Tell her you love her and that you’ll call back later.” Andra followed that advice, and it meant a great deal to her friend.

Like many young children, I had a favorite book of nursery rhymes. I particularly remember Humpty Dumpty, a big, egg-shaped creature with a painted face and skinny arms and legs, perched happily on a wall. Then he fell and broke into countless pieces. As a child, I felt the hopelessness of the situation whenever I read that they “couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.”

Honesty must be woven into the fabric of our character if we are to have an effective testimony for Christ. Even the secular world recognizes the importance of integrity.

Our culture elevates certain people to the category of “star” because of their ability in sports, music, acting, or some other talent. The stars who are often appreciated and loved the most, though, are those who accept their popularity graciously and maintain humility despite their greatness. They are humble stars.

Comedian W. C. Fields (1880-1946) could make audiences roar with laughter, yet he himself was chronically unhappy. Religion apparently played no part in his life. But it’s been said that as he faced the possibility of dying, he started to devote time to reading the Bible. When he was asked about his new interest in Scripture, Fields, always the comedian, replied, “I’m looking for loopholes, my friend. Looking for loopholes.”

Pastor and author F. B. Meyer once confided to a friend that he felt welcome in any home in England except his own. His loveless marriage was a source of deep heartache. Yet Meyer believed that he, by his aching soul, was being prepared to give love and strength to others, and especially to his wife at the end of her days. He wrote these words to her:

The long dry summer season in Lebanon and Israel usually ends in October with welcome rains that are often accompanied by strong winds, lightning, and thunder.

Two friends were talking about a movie that one of them had seen recently. As he began to describe the film, he characterized it like this: “You wouldn’t want to take your pastor to watch it with you.”

Each fall we are visited by flocks of migrating geese that stop off at a meadow near our home. For several weeks those birds fly in long, wavy V-formations over our house, honking as they go. But then, as winter approaches, they are off again on their long flight south.