Category Archives: Trials

Lessons Learned From Places I Didn’t Want To Be

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14944424600_98d90c88db_kAfter years of diligent research, I’ve finally discovered the two hardest things in the world. Are you ready for it?

1. Getting out of a warm bed when it’s cold outside.

2. Getting out of a warm tub of water after a long tiring day. (“Just let me sleep here.”)

 I’d like to continue my research but I think I will need a government grant to finance my activities. Think there is any hope of that?

You know, some places you just want to be, and when you get there you want to stay there. The problem with those places is inertia. I’m usually going nowhere when I’m where I want to be. (That’s profound isn’t it? )

I absorb some of life’s most powerful lessons, though, from places I don’t want to be.

I learn a lot about myself there. Can I be transparent with you? My reactions don’t always remind me of the Lord Jesus’ way of doing things. I think an adult learns to react correctly, even when he’s not happy, but still …  it burns. The battle rages inside if not outside.  Continue reading →

Suffering for Jesus ? From “Ouch!” To Victory

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82nd Airborne-New York, 1946

Suffering for Jesus ? From “Ouch!” To Victory

Phillip Hogan told the story of a rookie airman from the Midwest on one of his first missions”the famous bombing run led by Jimmy Doolittle and immortalized by  the film, “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” from the Second World War.

Our friend manned one of the machine gun turrets on the B-25B Mitchell bomber and his job was to fend off the wasp-like fighter planes which rose to defend their city against attack.

When flack began to shake the bomber the young man panicked and broke radio silence with a message to the pilot: “Captain, they’re shooting at us!”

The grim-faced pilot had bigger problems and he commanded, “Shut up and fire! This is war!”

From our safe little haven seventy years later we smile, but I’ve got a question for you. Have you ever panicked and grabbed the microphone to send God a message? “Lord, they are shooting at me!”

Ah yes, it’s war! Some of you reading this are hearing the explosion of spiritual flak all around you. You catching slaps upside your head because of the Lord Jesus. Continue reading →

Three Keys To Making Your Desert Flower

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Wouldn’t it feel good to burrow into those covers and let the world go on without us?

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Have you ever noticed how powerful bed covers are?

When you’re four years old and shivering in your bed as ghosts fly around the ceiling in the darkness above you, all you have to do is pull the covers over your head and bring your knees up under your chin in a fetal position. Then you know you’re safe.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but adults often want to do the same thing. For instance, your mother-in-law made a critical remark in front of your husband and kids for the thirty-fourth quadrillion time. You know that if you gave her a left jab to the chin followed by a huge right haymaker, that would give you a tremendous amount of satisfaction–for about thirty seconds.

But then your world would really get complicated.

So, you dream instead of those covers over your head and a long sleep with knees under the chin, after which you would awaken and all the bad would have drained out of the world. Continue reading →

When Grandpa “Accidentally” Blasted Off On Space Mountain

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Can you imagine candidates for the Navy Seals or the Army Delta Force in training, feet propped up watching war movies on television, drinking milkshakes and eating potato chips?

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 Last summer my grandson, Josiah, and I visited Disneyland near Paris. I’m not much of a ride-rider,  but I decided to force myself to go on the ones I didn’t usually like”especially the roller coasters”so he wouldn’t have to do them alone.

When you’ve got grandchildren you find yourself trying things you didn’t think you’d do again. So, if you’d been a bird posed in a Disneyland tree you would have seen me doing a 360-degree loop on the Indiana Jones roller coaster.

And other than the crick in my neck afterwards, I kind of enjoyed it. That’s how I found myself later in the day, fortified by newfound courage, in front of the Space Mountain ride with Josiah. Continue reading →

Who Wants the Desert?

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desert-story-293654-mMoses leaned back against the date palm tree where he sat in the shade on the backside of the desert. He spat a sunflower shell from the batch he was eating and scowled as he reflected on his life.

Nearby, a bony billy goat pulled at a lump of scrawny grass as the blazing sun dropped lower on the horizon. Since Moses had no one else to talk to the goat doubled as his psychiatrist.

“People! You goats don’t know anything about orneriness. We’ve developed it to an art.” His scowl deepened as he repeated his story for the thousandth time to the uninterested goat. Continue reading →