Sermon Illustration

There is an old legend about three men and their sacks. Each man had two sacks, one tied in front of his neck and the other tied on his back. When the first man was asked what was in his sacks, he said, "In the sack on my back are all the good things friends and family have done. That way they're hidden from view. In the front sack are all the bad things that have happened to me. Every now and then I stop, open the front sack, take the things out, examine them, and think about them." Because he stopped so much to concentrate on all the bad stuff, he really didn't make much progress in life. The second man was asked about his sacks. He replied, "In the front sack are all the good things I've done. I like to see them, so quite often I take them out to show them off to people. The sack in the back? I keep all my mistakes in there and carry them all the time. Sure they're heavy. They slow me down, but you know, for some reason I can't put them down.&quo

A woman was working one night in a Honeybaked Ham store. The store was equipped with security cameras, and she was watching the small, black-and-white monitors when she saw a woman come in the store, walk down the handicapped ramp, and go between two shelves. To the clerk's amazement, this woman grabbed a ham off the shelf and stuffed it up her dress. With the ham wedged between her thighs, the woman waddled toward the door. The clerk was stunned and wondered what she should do. Should she yell out? Follow the woman? Just then, the ham dropped out from between the woman's legs. It hit the metal handicapped ramp with a loud bang, and then rolled and clanged to the bottom. The thief didn't miss a beat. She quickly turned her head and yelled out, "Who threw that ham at me? Who threw that ham at me?" Then she ran out of the store.

I was sitting, torn by grief. Someone came and talked to me of God's dealings, of why it happened, of hope beyond the grave. He talked constantly, he said things I knew were true. I was unmoved, except to wish he'd go away. He finally did. Another came and sat beside me. He didn't talk. He didn't ask leading questions. He just sat beside me for an hour and more, listened when I said something, answered briefly, prayed simply, left. I was moved. I was comforted. I hated to see him go.

Long-time Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight was recently fired for apparently violating a zero-tolerance policy placed on him several months ago. Knight's volatile temper has made for a stormy coaching career, bringing repeated accusations of verbally and physically abusing players. As I followed the media report of this sad story, a thought struck me: I'm sure glad God doesn't place a zero-tolerance policy on us! His amazing grace allows us to start over at any time.

The parents of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was murdered in Wyoming in 1998, rejoiced over the guilty verdict reached by a Laramie jury in November 1999. The judge told a packed courtroom that the jury's verdict "showed true courage" and sent a message that violence is not the solution to differing views on sexual orientation. Courtroom observers were not prepared for what Dennis and Judy Shepard did next. After waiting 13 months for a guilty verdict for their son's killers, Matthew Shepard's parents asked the judge to spare the lives of Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson by giving them life sentences rather than the death penalty. According to attorney Cal Rerucha, who prosecuted the case, "They (the Shepards) could look into the eyes of the man who took their son and give him mercy."

Lou Johnson, a 1965 World Series hero for the Los Angeles Dodgers, tried for 30 years to recover the championship ring he lost to drug dealers in 1971. Drug and alcohol abuse cost him everything from that magical season, including his uniform, glove, and the bat he used to hit the winning home run in the deciding game. When Dodger president, Bob Graziano, learned that Johnson's World Series ring was about to be auctioned on the Internet, he immediately wrote a check for $3,457 and bought the ring before any bids were posted. He did for Johnson what the former Dodger outfielder had been unable to do for himself. Johnson, 66, who has been drug free for years and a Dodger community relations employee, wept when given the gold ring. He said, "It felt like a piece of me had been reborn." Countless Christians can testify to a spiritual rebirth as a result of the price that Jesus paid on the cross in their place. He did for them what they could not do for themselves.

Several years ago an eastern paper reported this story: One evening a woman was driving home when she noticed a huge truck behind her that was driving uncomfortably close. She stepped on the gas to gain some distance from the truck, but when she sped up, the truck did too. The faster she drove, the faster the truck did. Now scared, she exited the freeway. But the truck stayed with her. The woman then turned up a main street, hoping to lose her pursuer in traffic. But the truck ran a red light and continued the chase. Reaching the point of panic, the woman whipped her car into a service station and bolted out of her auto screaming for help. The truck driver sprang from his truck and ran toward her car. Yanking the back door open, the driver pulled out a man hidden in the back seat. The woman was running from the wrong person. From his high vantage point, the truck driver had spotted a would be rapist in the woman's car. The chase was not his effort to harm her but to save he

In October 1993, police sharpshooters in Rochester, New York, surrounded a car. In the back seat of the car was a man with a rifle. The police attempted to negotiate with the man. No answer. The police watched and waited. No movement. Finally the police discovered the truth: The armed man in the back seat was a mannequin. When the authorities tracked down the owner of the car, he told them he keeps the mannequin in his car for protection. "You've got to do this," he said. "With the car-jackings, it helps if it looks like you've got a passenger." These are dangerous times. Whom do you rely on for protection? A mannequin or the Mighty One?

Rubel Shelly tells this story: Jason Tuskes was a 17-year-old high school honor student. He was close to his mother, his wheelchair-bound father, and his younger brother. Jason was an expert swimmer who loved to scuba dive. He left home on a Tuesday morning to explore a spring and underwater cave near his home in west central Florida. His plan was to be home in time to celebrate his mother's birthday by going out to dinner with his family that night. Jason became lost in the cave. Then, in his panic, he apparently got wedged into a narrow passageway. When he realized he was trapped, he shed his yellow metal air tank and unsheathed his diver's knife. With the tank as a tablet and the knife as a pen, he wrote one last message to his family: I LOVE YOU MOM, DAD, AND CHRISTIN. Then he ran out of air and drowned. A dying message-something communicated in the last few seconds of life-is something we can't ignore. God's final words to us are etched on a Roman cross. Th

In The Whisper Test, Mary Ann Bird writes: I grew up knowing I was different, and I hated it. I was born with a cleft palate, and when I started school, my classmates made it clear to me how I looked to others: a little girl with a misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth, and garbled speech. When schoolmates asked, "What happened to your lip?" I'd tell them I'd fallen and cut it on a piece of glass. Somehow, it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. I was convinced that no one outside my family could love me. There was, however, a teacher in the second grade that we all adored-Mrs. Leonard by name. She was short, round, happy-a sparkling lady. Annually we had a hearing test.... Mrs. Leonard gave the test to everyone in the class, and finally it was my turn. I knew from past years that as we stood against the door and covered one ear, the teacher sitting at her desk would whisper something, and we would have

Leave it to a children's book to help us see how big our universe is. In a book entitled Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is? Robert Wells takes us from a size we can grasp to one we can't. The largest animal on earth is the blue whale. Just the flippers on its tail are bigger than most animals on earth. But a blue whale isn't anywhere near as big as a mountain. If you put one hundred blue whales in a huge jar, you could put millions of whale jars inside a hollowed-out Mount Everest. But Mount Everest isn't anywhere near as big as the earth. If you stacked one hundred Mount Everests on top of one another, it would be just a whisker on the face of the earth. And the earth isn't anywhere near as big as the sun. You could fit one million earths inside of the sun. But the sun, which is a medium-size star, isn't anywhere near as big as a red supergiant star called Antares. Fifty million of our suns could fit inside of Antares. But Antares isn't

In 1975 a child named Raymond Dunn, Jr., was born in New York State. The Associated Press reports that at his birth, a skull fracture and oxygen deprivation caused severe retardation. As Raymond grew, the family discovered further impairments. His twisted body suffered up to twenty seizures per day. He was blind, mute, and immobile. He had severe allergies that limited him to only one food: A meat-based formula made by Gerber Foods. In 1985, Gerber stopped making the formula that Raymond lived on. Carol Dunn scoured the country to buy what stores had in stock, accumulating cases and cases, but in 1990 her supply ran out. In desperation, she appealed to Gerber for help. Without this particular food, Raymond would starve to death. The employees of the company listened. In an unprecedented action, volunteers donated hundreds of hours to bring out old equipment, set up production lines, obtain special approval from the USDA, and produce the formula—all for one special boy. In January

The Barcelona Olympics of 1992 provided one of track and field's most incredible moments. Britain's Derek Redmond had dreamed all his life of winning a gold medal in the 400-meter race, and his dream was in sight as the gun sounded in the semifinals at Barcelona. He was running the race of his life and could see the finish line as he rounded the turn into the backstretch. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain go up the back of his leg. He fell face first onto the track with a torn right hamstring. Sports Illustrated recorded the dramatic events: As the medical attendants were approaching, Redmond fought to his feet. "It was animal instinct,"' he would say later. He set out hopping, in a crazed attempt to finish the race. When he reached the stretch, a large man in a T-shirt came out of the stands, hurled aside a security guard and ran to Redmond, embracing him. It was Jim Redmond, Derek's father. "You don't have to do this," he told his weeping son

A teenage boy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, had cancer and was in the hospital for several weeks to undergo radiation treatments and chemotherapy. During that time, he lost all of his hair. On the way home from the hospital, he was worried-not about the cancer, but about the embarrassment of going back to school with a baldhead. He had already decided not to wear a wig or a hat. When he arrived home, he walked in the front door and turned on the lights. To his surprise, about fifty of his friends jumped up and shouted, "Welcome home!"' The boy looked around the room and could hardly believe his eyes-all fifty of his friends had shaved their heads! Wouldn't we all like to have caring friends who were so sensitive and committed to us that they would sacrifice their hair for us if that's what it took to make us feel affirmed, included, and loved? Friends like that are hard to find in today's world. When we become Christians, we are adopted into an extended famil

On Monday, December 8, 1997, tragedy struck Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky. According to Roy Maynard in World magazine, a small group of students, who conducted a daily prayer meeting in a hallway near the administrative offices, finished their morning prayers and were about to head off to classes. Shortly after the final amen, it is alleged that a freshman named Michael, whom the prayer group leader had befriended earlier in the year, opened fire on the students with a .22-caliber automatic. The group's leader, Ben Strong, called out, "Mike, what are you doing?" and walked toward him. After firing ten rounds, Michael finally dropped his gun. Ben Strong walked up and put his arms around the gunman, urging him to calm down. Three students were killed in the shooting spree, and five were wounded, including one paralyzed. In the aftermath of the tragedy, pastors and youth ministers were called in to counsel the students. According to one counselor, "The th

Chris Carrier of Coral Gables, Florida, was abducted when he was 10 years old. His kidnapper, angry with the boy's family, burned him with cigarettes, stabbed him numerous times with an ice pick, then shot him in the head and left him to die in the Everglades. Remarkably, the boy survived, though he lost sight in one eye. No one was ever arrested. Recently, a man confessed to the crime. Carrier, now a youth minister, went to see him. He found David McAllister, a 77-year-old ex-convict, frail and blind, living in a North Miami Beach nursing home. Carrier began visiting often, reading to McAllister from the Bible and praying with him. His ministry opened the door for McAllister to make a profession of faith. No arrest is forthcoming; after twenty-two years, the statute of limitations on the crime is long past. In Christian Reader (Jan/Feb 98), Carrier says, "While many people can't understand how I could forgive David McAllister, from my point of view I couldn't no

John D. Rockefeller built the great Standard Oil Empire. Not surprisingly, Rockefeller was a man who demanded high performance from his company executives. One day, one of those executives made a two million-dollar mistake. Word of the man's enormous error quickly spread throughout the executive offices, and the other men began to make themselves scarce. Afraid of Rockefeller's reaction, they didn’t even want to cross his path. One man didn't have any choice, however, since he had an appointment with the boss. So he straightened his shoulders and tightened his belt and walked into Rockefeller's office. As he approached the oil monarch's desk, Rockefeller looked up from the piece of paper on which he was writing. "I guess you've heard about the two million dollar mistake our friend made," he said abruptly. "Yes," the executive said, expecting Rockefeller to explode. "Well, I've been sitting here listing all of our friend&#

Leonardo da Vinci painted the fresco "The Last Supper" in a church in Milan. Two very interesting stories are associated with this painting. At the time that Leonardo da Vinci painted "The Last Supper," he had an enemy who was a fellow painter. da Vinci had had a bitter argument with this man and despised him. When da Vinci painted the face of Judas Iscariot at the table with Jesus, he used the face of his enemy so that it would be present for ages as the man who betrayed Jesus. He took delight while painting this picture in knowing that others would actually notice the face of his enemy on Judas. As he worked on the faces of the other disciples, he often tried to paint the face of Jesus, but couldn't make any progress. da Vinci felt frustrated and confused. In time he realized what was wrong. His hatred for the other painter was holding him back from finishing the face of Jesus. Only after making peace with his fellow painter and repainting the face of Juda

In Reader's Digest, a contributor told of an Aunt Ruby and Uncle Arnie who had adopted a baby boy after five years of trying unsuccessfully to conceive. To their surprise, a short time after the adoption, Aunt Ruby discovered she was pregnant, and she later gave birth to a boy. One day when the two boys were eight and nine years old, the teller of the story was visiting Aunt Ruby, and a woman in the neighborhood came to visit. Observing the children at play, the woman asked, "Which boy is yours, Ruby?" "Both of them," Aunt Ruby replied. The caller persisted. "But I mean, which one is adopted?" Aunt Ruby did not hesitate. In her finest hour, she looked straight at her guest and replied, "I've forgotten." When we are adopted as God's children, we quickly come to cherish our heavenly Father's forgetfulness. For he chooses to forget our sins, to forget our wayward past, and to give us the full rights of sons or daughters.

A cartoon in the New Yorker magazine showed an exasperated father saying to his prodigal son, "This is the fourth time we've killed the fatted calf." God does that over and over in our lifetime.

A successful Irish boxer was converted and became a preacher. He happened to be in a new town setting up his evangelistic tent when a couple of tough thugs noticed what he was doing. Knowing nothing of his background, they made a few insulting remarks. The Irishman merely turned and looked at them. Pressing his luck, one of the bullies took a swing and struck a glancing blow on one side of the ex-boxer's face. He shook it off and said nothing as he turned the other cheek. The fellow took another glancing blow on the other side. At that point the preacher swiftly took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and announced, "The Lord gave me not further instructions." Whop!

Joy Davidman in Smoke on the Mountain, writes: Once there was a little old man. His hands trembled; when he ate he clattered the silverware distressingly, missed his mouth with the spoon as often as not, and dribbled a bit of his food on the tablecloth. Now he lived with his married son, having nowhere else to live, and his son's wife didn't like the arrangement. "I can't have this," she said. "It interferes with my right to happiness." So she and her husband took the old man gently but firmly by the arm and led him to the corner of the kitchen. There they set him on a stool and gave him his food in an earthenware bowl. From then on he always ate in the corner, blinking at the table with wistful eyes. One day his hands trembled rather more than usual, and the earthenware bowl fell and broke. "If you are a pig," said the daughter-in-law, "you must eat out of a trough." So they made him a little wooden trough, and he got his mea

Cliff Barrows, song leader of the Billy Graham Crusade ministry, tells a story about his children when they were younger. They had done something he had forbidden them to do. They were told if they did the same thing again they would have to be disciplined. When he returned from work and found that they hadn't minded, his heart went out to them. "I just couldn't discipline them," he said. Any loving father can understand Cliff's dilemma. Most of us have been in the same position. He said, "Bobby and Bettie Ruth were very small. I called them into my room, took off my belt and then my shirt, with a bare back I knelt down at the bed. I made them both strap me with the belt ten times each. You should have heard the crying. From them, I mean. The crying was from them. They didn't want to do it. But I told them the penalty had to be paid and so through their sobs and tears they did what I told them." "I smile when I remember the incident," h

Have you ever wondered whether a giant asteroid might hit our planet, like the one that may have wiped out the dinosaurs on earth? The planet Jupiter "is our first line of defense" says Allan Boss, an astrophysicist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "It is something like 99.9 percent efficient at throwing dangerous space junk, asteroids, and meteorites back out to interstellar space." How does that happen? Jupiter is 318 times heavier than earth. Because of its mass, Jupiter creates a huge gravitational field that acts as a giant cosmic vacuum cleaner, drawing the "junk" that floats into the gravitational field toward it and away from other planets. Jupiter displayed its protective power six years ago when a monster comet broke into fragments and bombarded the planet Jupiter with more destructive power than all the atomic bombs on earth. Not all space particles get deflected by Jupiter, but living in Jupiter's gravitational field minim

The African impala can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance of greater than 30 feet. Yet these magnificent creatures can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3-foot wall. The animals will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall. Faith is the ability to trust what we cannot see, and with faith we are freed from the flimsy enclosures of life that only fear allows to entrap us.

We're not quite sure who it was, but someone spent a significant chunk to promote messages from God. On behalf of an anonymous client, The Smith Agency in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, launched the advertising campaign in September 1998. "This individual simply appeared in our office one day last spring and hired us on the spot," said Andrew Smith, the agency's president. "However, our agreement prohibits us from releasing his name. I will say he is quite well known." More than a dozen different messages, all signed by God, appeared on area billboards and buses. Among the messages: Let's Meet at My House Sunday Before the Game.--God C'mon Over and Bring the Kids.--God What Part of "Thou Shalt Not ..." Didn't You Understand?--God We Need to Talk.--God Keep Using My Name in Vain And I'll Make Rush Hour Longer.--God Loved the Wedding, Invite Me to the Marriage.--God That "Love Thy Neighbor" Thing, I Meant It.--Go

On his night job at Taco Bell, 17-year-old Nicholas Zenns was taking orders at the drive-up window. He heard a woman scream, turned, and saw very pregnant Devorah Anderson standing in front of him. The high-school student pulled off his headset, called the paramedics, and tried to make the woman comfortable. But the baby wouldn't wait. "The baby's head just popped out into my hands," Nicholas said. Paramedics finally arrived and took baby and parents to the hospital. Nicholas cleaned up, "sterilized my hands about a thousand times," and finished his shift. Nicholas says this event changed his perspective. "Things have been pretty bad in my life lately, and then I got to do this. I'm really glad." In the same way, nothing makes life more meaningful than leading someone to new birth in Christ.

The Times-Reporter of New Philadelphia, Ohio, reported in September 1985 a celebration at a New Orleans municipal pool. The party around the pool was held to celebrate the first summer in memory without a drowning at any New Orleans city pool. In honor of the occasion, two hundred people gathered, including one hundred certified lifeguards. As the party was breaking up and the four lifeguards on duty began to clear the pool, they found a fully dressed body in the deep end. They tried to revive Jerome Moody, thirty-one, but it was too late. He had drowned surrounded by lifeguards celebrating their successful season. I wonder how many visitors and strangers are among us drowning in loneliness, hurt, and doubt, while we, who could help them, don't realize it. We Christians have reason to celebrate, but our mission, as the old hymn says, is to "rescue the perishing." And often they are right next to us.

Survivor Eva Hart remembers the night, April 15, 1912, on which the Titanic plunged 12,000 feet to the Atlantic floor, some two hours and forty minutes after an iceberg tore a 300-foot gash in the starboard side: "I saw all the horror of its sinking, and I heard, even more dreadful, the cries of drowning people." Although twenty life-boats and rafts were launched-too few and only partly filled-most of the passengers ended up struggling in the icy seas while those in the boats waited a safe distance away. Lifeboat No. 14 did row back to the scene after the unsinkable ship slipped from sight at 2:20 A.m. Alone, it chased cries in the darkness, seeking and saving a precious few. Incredibly, no other boat joined it. Some were already overloaded, but in virtually every other boat, those already saved rowed their half-filled boats aimlessly in the night, listening to the cries of the lost. Each feared a crush of unknown swimmers would cling to their craft, eventually swamping i

A friend of ours was walking down a deserted Mexican beach at sunset. As he walked along, he began to see another man in the distance. As he grew nearer, he noticed that the local native kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the water. Time and again he kept hurling things out into the ocean. As our friend approached even closer, he noticed that the man was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and, one at a time, he was throwing them back into the water. Our friend was puzzled. He approached the man and said, "Good evening, friend. I was wondering what you are doing." "I'm throwing these starfish back into the ocean. You see, it's low tide right now and all of these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don't throw them back into the sea, they'll die up here from lack of oxygen." "I understand," my friend replied, "but there must be thousands of starfish on this beach.

"One Puerto Rican lady, after getting saved in church, came to me with an urgent request. She didn't speak a word of English, so she told me through an interpreter, 'I want to do something for God, please.' " 'I don't know what you can do,' I answered. " 'Please, let me do something,' she said in Spanish. " 'Okay. I'll put you on a bus. Ride a different bus every week and just love the kids.' "So every week she rode a different bus--we have fifty of them--and loved the children. She would find the worst-looking kid on the bus, put him on her lap, and whisper over and over the only words she had learned in English: 'I love you. Jesus loves you.' "After several months, she became attached to one little boy in particular. 'I don't want to change buses anymore. I want to stay on this one bus,' she said. "The boy didn't speak. He came to Sunday school every week with his sister

A teacher in New York decided to honor each of her seniors in high school by telling them the difference they each made. Using a process developed by Helice Bridges of Del Mar, California, she called each student to the front of the class, one at a time. First she told them how the student made a difference to her and the class. Then she presented each of them with a blue ribbon imprinted with gold letters which read, "Who I Am Makes a Difference.' Afterwards the teacher decided to do a class project to see what kind of impact recognition would have on a community. She gave each of the students three more ribbons and instructed them to go out and spread this acknowledgment ceremony. Then they were to follow up on the results, see who honored whom and report back to the class in about a week. One of the boys in the class went to a junior executive in a nearby company and honored him for helping him with his career planning. He gave him a blue ribbon and put it on his shirt.

Eric "The Swimmer" Moussambani of Equatorial Guinea was an unlikely hero of the Sydney Olympic Games. The 22-year-old African had only learned to swim last January, had only practiced in a 20 meter pool without lane markers, and had never raced more than 50 meters. By special invitation of the International Olympic Committee, under a special program that permits poorer countries to participate even though their athletes don't meet customary standards, he had been entered in the 100 meter men's freestyle. When the other two swimmers in his heat were disqualified because of false starts, Moussambani was forced to swim alone. Eric Moussambani was, to use the words of an Associated Press story about his race, "charmingly inept." He never put his head under the water's surface and flailed wildly to stay afloat. With ten meters left to the wall, he virtually came to a stop. Some spectators thought he might drown! Even though his time was over a minute slower

esse Owens seemed sure to win the long jump at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, Germany. Just the year before, he had set three world records in one day. He was the record holder for the running broad jump with 26 feet 8 1/4 inches—a record that would stand for 25 years. As he walked to the long jump pit, however, Owens saw a tall, blue-eyed, blond German taking practice jumps in the 26 foot range. Owens was nervous. He was aware of the tension created with his presence. He knew the Nazi's desire was to prove Aryan "superiority," especially over the blacks. The pressure was overwhelming, and on his first jump Owens inadvertently leaped from several inches beyond the takeoff board. Rattled, he fouled on the second attempt, too. He was only one foul away from being eliminated. At this point, the tall German approached Owens and introduced himself as Luz Long. Then an amazing event took place. The black son of a sharecropper and the white model of Nazi manhood chatted

According to the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune, in the span of one-year tragedy struck twice in one family. In 1994 Ali Pierce, the fourteen-year-old daughter of John and Anna Pierce of Massachusetts, was diagnosed with liver cancer. She fought the disease bravely for two years, but in November 1996 she passed away. Her parents of course were grief-stricken. To deal with his loss, the father sought a constructive way to help others. He started running and set the goal of entering the 1998 Boston Marathon. He intended to take pledges for his run in support of the cancer center where his daughter had died. On October 11, 1997, Pierce entered a half marathon of thirteen miles in Hollis, New Hampshire. It was the longest race he had ever run. He was fifty-one years old, and so before the race he had a medical exam and was given a clean bill of health. He almost finished the race. Just ten feet short of the finish line, wearing a baseball cap that said, "In Memory of Ali

The Pillsbury Dough Boy. Cute. Cuddly. And wanted for attempted murder. Well, not exactly ... A woman in Arkansas was sitting in her car in a parking lot last year when she heard a loud bang and then felt a sharp pain in the back of her head. She was holding her hands behind her head when someone walked by and asked, "Are you OK?" The woman answered, "I've been shot in the head, and I'm holding my brains in." Well, it wasn't her brains. It was dough. A Pillsbury biscuit canister had exploded in the back seat, apparently from the heat, making a loud explosion and shooting the dough into the back of the woman's head.

When divers combed the wreckage of the Kursk (the destroyed Russian nuclear submarine on which 118 sailors perished), they found a letter written by Lt. Dmitri Kolesnikov. The handwritten note was addressed to his wife, Olga. It was penned after the explosion that sealed the sub's doom on August 12, 2000, in the Barents Sea and confirmed speculation that all the crew had not died instantly. A few hours after the submarine plunged to the bottom of the sea, Kolesnikov wrote, "All the crew from the sixth, seventh, and eighth compartments went over to the ninth. There are 23 people here. . . . None of us can get to the surface." The note included a deeply personal expression of affection to his beloved Olga, who admitted that her husband had a premonition of death when he bade her goodbye before sailing out to the Barents Sea. Eerily, the last lines of the letter indicated that death was closing in. The auxiliary power had failed. Kolesnikov wrote unevenly in the pitch dark

In March 1997 police came to a Rancho Santa Fe, California, mansion and found the corpses of thirty-nine people who had said yes to the wrong thing. They were members of the Heaven's Gate cult, impressionable people who had left homes, friends, and families all across America to follow cult leader Marshall Applewhite. The police found their bodies clothed in black and shrouded in purple. They had committed mass suicide, believing that their souls would leave their bodies and join up with a spaceship that they hoped was trailing behind a comet passing near earth. In the aftermath of the suicides, journalists talked with individuals who had at one time been proselytized by the cult and had seriously considered joining. Writers Jeff Zeleny and Susan Kuczka reported in the Chicago Tribune that a young man named Donald had heard about the cult while he was at the University of Wisconsin. His roommate became a believer. Donald put the cult out of his mind until a few months later when he

According to Peter Kendall in the Chicago Tribune, Ruben Brown, age sixty-one, was known on the south and west sides of Chicago, as the friendly neighborhood cockroach exterminator with "the Mississippi stuff." The Mississippi stuff was a pesticide Brown had bought hundreds of gallons of in the South, and it really did the trick on roaches. Brown went from door to door with his hand sprayer, and his business grew as satisfied customers recommended the remarkably effective exterminator to others. In the process, however, Brown is alleged to have single-handedly created an environmental catastrophe. The can-do pesticide-methyl parathion-is outlawed by the EPA for use in homes. Southern farmers use it on boll weevils in their cotton fields, and within days the pesticide chemically breaks down into harmless elements. Not so in the home. There the pesticide persists as a toxic chemical that can harm the human neurological system with effects similar to lead poisoning. The EPA wa

Forty-two-year-old David Saunders waited on the driveway of his Hanover, Michigan, home for his 4-year-old daughter, Danielle, to get off her school bus. A pickup truck was stopped behind the bus. Saunders crossed the street to meet Danielle at the bus and then the two crossed the street together and stood in the Saunders' driveway. Suddenly he noticed that a car behind the bus was traveling too fast to stop safely before entering the crossing zone. The car swerved to avoid the pickup and went into the Saunders' driveway. Heading directly for them both, Saunders grabbed Danielle by the arm and flung her away from himself and into their front yard. He was then struck by the car. Saunders was pronounced dead at the scene. Danielle was treated for minor injuries at a nearby hospital and soon released. The 16-year-old driver and a 15-year-old passenger were not injured. Sheriff's Captain Tony Philipps said, "It was a heroic act by a father to save his child. He did eve

If you travel up I-395 through Washington, D.C., and cross over the Potomac, you will likely cross the Arland D. Williams, Jr., Memorial Bridge. Who was Arland D. Williams, Jr.? On January 13, 1982, he gave hope to five individuals at the cost of his own life. On that cold January day, Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the icy Potomac. Ice on the wings prevented the plane from a successful take-off. Almost all of the passengers perished. Five different times, a helicopter dropped a rope to save Williams. Five times, Williams passed the rope to other passengers in worse shape than he was. When the rope was extended to Williams the sixth time, he could not take hold, and succumbed to the frigid waters. His heroism was not rash. Aware that his own strength was fading, he deliberately handed hope to someone else over the space of several minutes. Jesus did not make a rash decision to give his life for ours. That Jesus would be an atoning sacrifice for us was his destiny from eternit

Early in 1993 British police accused two ten-year-old boys of the brutal murder of two-year-old James Bulger. The two boys pleaded innocence. The young defendants responded to police questioning with noticeable inconsistency. The climax came when the parents of one of the boys assured him that they would always love him. Confronted with irrefutable evidence linking him with the crime and the assurance of his parents' love, the boy confessed in a soft voice, "I killed James." The miracle of God's love is that he knows how evil we are, yet he loves us. We can confess our worst sins to him, confident that his love will not diminish.

When New York's Citicorp tower was completed in 1977, it was the seventh tallest building in the world. Many structural engineers hailed the tower for its technical elegance and singular grace. The tower was notable for its sleek aluminum sides and provocative slash-topped design. The structural engineer who designed the steel superstructure was William J. LeMessurier, who not long after the building was completed was elected into the National Academy of Engineering, which is the highest honor his profession bestows. But according to Joe Morgenstern in New Yorker magazine, one year after the building opened, LeMessurier came to a frightening realization. The Citicorp tower was flawed. Without LeMessurier's approval, during construction the joints in the steel superstructure had been bolted, which is a common and acceptable practice but does not make for as strong a joint as welding does. What made that a critical problem, though, was that in LeMessurier's calculations he ha

Peggy Noonan, speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, relates a story about Frances Green, an eighty-three-year old woman who lived by herself on Social Security in a town just outside San Francisco. She had little money, but for eight years she'd been sending one dollar a year to the Republican National Convention. Then one day Frances got an RNC fund-raising letter in the mail, a beautiful piece on thick, cream-colored paper with black-and-gold lettering. It invited the recipient to come to the White House to meet President Ronald Reagan. She never noticed the little RSVP card that suggested a positive reply needed to be accompanied by a generous donation. She thought she'd been invited because they appreciated her dollar-a-year support. Frances scraped up every cent she had and took a four-day train ride across America. Unable to afford a sleeper, she slept sitting up in coach. Finally she arrived at the White House gate: a little elderly woman with white hair, white powder all

The phone rang in a high society Boston home. On the other end of the line was a son who had just returned from Viet Nam and was calling from California. His folks were the cocktail-circuit, party kind--drinking, wife swapping, gambling, all the other things that go with it. The boy said to his mother, "I just called to tell you that I wanted to bring a buddy home with me." His mother said, "Sure, bring him along for a few days." "But, mother, there is something you need to know about this boy. One leg is gone, one arm's gone, one eye's gone, and his face is quite disfigured. Is it all right if I bring him home?" His mother said, "Bring him home for a few days." The son said, "You didn't understand me, mother. I want to bring him home to live with us." The mother began to make all kinds of excuses about embarrassment and what people would think…and the phone clicked. A few hours later the police called from California to

A Greek class was given an assignment to study the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37. These young theologians were to do an in-depth analysis of the biblical text, observing and commenting on all the major terms and syntactical factors worth mentioning. Each student was to write his own translation after having done the work on his commentary. As is true in most language classes, a couple or three of the students cared more about the practical implications of the assignment than its intellectual stimulation. The morning the work was to be turned in, these three teamed up and carried out a plan to prove their point. One volunteered to play the part of an alleged victim. They tore his shirt and trousers, rubbed mud, catsup, and other realistic-looking ingredients across his "wounds," marked up his eyes and face so he hardly resembled himself, then placed him along the path that led from the dormitory to the Greek classroom. While the other two hid and watched, he g

On April 6, 2000, Ricky and Toni Sexton were taken hostage inside their Wytheville, Virginia, home by a fugitive couple on a crime spree. Toni had taken her poodle outside when Dennis Lewis, 37, and Angela Tanner, 20, roared into her driveway, pointed pistols at her, and yelled at her to get back inside the house. Inside the house, the Sextons turned their hostage experience into an opportunity to demonstrate Christian love. The Sextons listened to their captors' troubles, fed them, showed them gospel videos, read to them from the Bible, and prayed and cried with them. During negotiations with the police, Ricky Sexton refused his own release when Lewis and Tanner suggested that they might end the standoff by committing suicide. The standoff had an unusual ending. Before surrendering to the police, Angela Tanner left $135 and a note for the Sextons that read: "Thank you for your hospitality. We really appreciate it. I hope he gets better. Wish all luck & love. Please ac

Jeff Leeland had just accepted a teaching position at Kamiakin Junior High in Seattle, Washington. The family had endured months of Dad's driving to and from work before the family could relocate from their previous home. As winter struggled toward spring in 1992, Jeff and Kristi heard the devastating news: "Your baby boy has cancer. Michael needs a bone marrow transplant." The good news was that Michael's six-year-old sister, Amy, was a perfect match for the transplant. But Jeff's insurance company wouldn't pay for it. A tiny clause in the contract coldly stated that Jeff had to be on the job for at least a year before they would cover a transplant. He had only been teaching in the new job for six months. By March, Michael's need for a transplant became urgent. If he couldn't receive the new marrow soon, his illness would progress quickly, and he would die. The Leelands needed to raise an impossible sum of $200,000 by May. Fellow teacher Joe Ken

A computer virus on the loose is a computer user's worst nightmare. A virus can destroy everything in a computer's memory. According to S&S Software International and writer James Coates, here is how a computer virus works. A computer virus is software, or a piece of programming code, whose purpose is to replicate.... Many viruses enter the computer via a floppy disk or are downloaded from another source. ... Once the computer is infected, the virus checks each time a program is opened to see if the program is clean. If it is, the virus copies itself onto the program. Because viruses need time to spread undetected, most will not affect the proper functioning of the computer right away. But eventually their destructive power is felt as files are erased or corrupted. Just as a computer virus spreads through the files of a computer, so sin can spread in the church.

A fourteenth-century Italian stained-glass artist was summoned to design and create a huge portrait for the window of a cathedral in Chartres, France, a place well known for its stained-glass work. He laid all of the pieces he was going to use out on the floor of the cathedral. They were beautiful to behold; most of them were large and colorful. Some of the colors from that time cannot even be reproduced today. Among these awesome pieces of glass was a small, clear piece about as big as your fingernail. As the stained-glass portrait was assembled, that little piece remained on the floor. Only the big colorful pieces of glass were used. On the day of the window’s completion, the tiny piece of clear glass was still lying on the ground. The entire city gathered to witness the unveiling of the brilliant and beautiful stained-glass portrait. The artist stood in front of the crowd, made his speech, and dramatically pulled down the cloth cover. The crowd gasped at the beauty of the colorful

David Huxley owns a world record in an unusual category: he pulls jetliners. On October 15, 1997, for example, he broke his own record at Mascot Airport in Sydney, Australia. He strapped around his upper torso a harness that was attached to a steel cable some fifteen yards long. The other end of the steel cable was attached to the front-wheel strut of a 747 jetliner that weighed 187 tons. With his tennis shoes firmly planted on the runway, Huxley leaned forward, pulled with all his might, and remarkably was able to get the jetliner rolling down the runway. In fact, he pulled the 747 one hundred yards in one minute and twenty-one seconds. A superhuman feat indeed. The church resembles that 747 jetliner. The strength of a few extraordinary humans can pull the institution of the church for very short distances. Or we can pray until God starts up powerful engines that enable His church to fly thousands of miles on the wings of Christ. The church needs God's strength and help to gro

In Christian Reader Jim Corley tells of a conversation he had with a friend named Alex who attended his church. Alex was struggling over his many failures to live the Christian life the way he knew he should. One day they met at the car dealership where Alex worked. Corley writes: That day in his office Alex got straight to the point. "Jim, I feel like a hypocrite every time I go to church because I fail to live for Christ so often." "Alex, what do you call this part of the dealership? " I asked, nodding to the area outside his cubicle. "You mean the showroom?" I smiled. "Yes. And what's behind the showroom, past the parts counter? "The service department," Alex said confidently. "What if I told you I didn't want to bring my car to the service department because it was running rough?" "That would be crazy! That's the whole point of service departments-to fix cars that aren't running right."

One Sunday morning, Pastor McGhee noticed that little Alex was staring up at the large plaque that hung in the foyer of the church. The 7-year-old had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the pastor walked up, stood beside the boy, and said quietly, "Good morning, Alex." "Good morning, Pastor," replied the boy, focused on the plaque. "Pastor McGhee, what is this?" Alex asked. "Well, son, these are all the people who have died in the service," replied the pastor. Soberly they stood together, staring at the large plaque. Little Alex's voice barely broke the silence when he asked quietly, "Which one, the 9:00 or the 10:30 service?" Supporting One Another After an accident in which she lost her arm, a girl named Jamie refused to go to school or church for an entire year. Finally the young teen thought she could face her peers. In preparation, her mother called her Sunday school teacher and asked that he not call atte

Once upon a time a little candle stood in a room filled with other candles, most of them much larger and much more beautiful than she was. Some were ornate and some were rather simple, like herself. Some were white, some were blue, some were pink, some were green. She had no idea why she was there, and the other candles made her feel rather small and insignificant. When the sun went down and the room began to get dark, she noticed a large man walking toward her with a ball of fire on a stick. She suddenly realized that the man was going to set her on fire. "No, no!" she cried, "Aaaaagghhh! Don’t burn me, please!" But she knew that she could not be heard and prepared for the pain that would surely follow. To her surprise, the room filled with light. She wondered where it came from since the man had extinguished his fire stick. To her delight, she realized that the light came from herself. Then the man struck another fire stick and, one by one, lit the other can

Joe was a drunk who was miraculously converted at a Bowery mission. Prior to his conversion, he had gained the reputation of being a dirty wino for whom there was no hope, only a miserable existence in the ghetto. But following his conversion to a new life with God, everything changed. Joe became the most caring person that anyone associated with the mission had ever known. Joe spent his days and nights hanging out at the mission, doing whatever needed to be done. There was never anything that he was asked to do that he considered beneath him. Whether it was cleaning up the vomit left by some violently sick alcoholic or scrubbing toilets after careless men left the men's room filthy, Joe did what was asked with a smile on his face and a seeming gratitude for the chance to help. He could be counted on to feed feeble men who wandered off the street and into the mission, and to undress and tuck into bed men who were too out of it to take care of themselves. One evening, when the direc

On September 19, 1997, a drivers-ed teacher from Durham, North Carolina, gave a lesson he would like to forget. According to the Associated Press, police said the teacher, age thirty-six, had one student driver at the wheel and another in the car when another car cut them off. At that the teacher apparently went into road rage. It is alleged that he ordered the student driver to pursue the other car. When the other car pulled over, the drivers-ed teacher got out of his car and punched the other driver in the face, giving him a bloody nose. The bloodied driver then pulled away. Amazingly, that wasn't enough for the angry teacher. He again ordered the student to pursue the other car. Eventually the police pulled over the drivers-ed car for speeding, and the motorist with the bloody nose circled back to report to the police what had happened. The drivers-ed teacher was arrested and charged with simple assault, punishable by up to sixty days in jail. He was released on $400 bail. Lat

In his book Lessons from a Father to His Sons, Senator John Ashcroft writes: Until 1997 Michael Jordan, indisputably the leading player in the NBA for over a decade, was never the highest paid player. When asked why he did not do what so many other players do ... hold out on their contracts until they get more money ... Michael replied, "I have always honored my word. I went for security. I had six-year contracts, and I always honored them. People said I was underpaid, but when I signed on the dotted line, I gave my word." Three years later, after several highly visible players reneged on their contracts, a reporter asked Michael once again about being underpaid, and he explained that if his kids saw their dad breaking a promise, how could he continue training them to keep their word? By not asking for a contract renegotiation, Michael Jordan spoke volumes to his children. He told them, "You stand by your word, even when that might go against you." His silence bec

At the 1993 annual meeting of The American Heart Association, 300,000 doctors, nurses, and researchers met in Atlanta to discuss, among other things, the importance a low fat diet plays in keeping our hearts healthy. Yet during meal times, they consumed fat-filled fast foods such as bacon cheeseburgers and fries at about the same rate as people from other conventions. When one cardiologist was asked whether or not his partaking in high fat meals set a bad example, he replied, "Not me, because I took my name tag off."

Phil Donahue, the former television talk show host, had something of a reputation for giving clergy a hard time, and he has said the reason he's that way is that he has little respect for them. Most clergy will do anything for some media attention, he says. In his autobiography, however, he tells about an encounter with a minister who was different. It happened while Donahue was a young television reporter in Ohio, and one day he was sent to West Virginia in the bitter cold winter to cover a mine disaster. He went by himself in a battered little car, carrying a minicam to film the story. It was so cold when he got there, however, the camera wouldn't work. So he put it inside his coat to warm it up enough to run. In the meantime, the families of the trapped miners were gathered around. They were just simple mining people--women, old men, and children. Several of the trapped men were fathers. Then the local minister arrived. He was rough-hewn, and he didn't speak well at

Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, recently offered WGN Chicago Radio sports-talk host David Kaplan $50,000 to change his name legally to "Dallas Maverick." When Kaplan politely declined, Cuban sweetened the offer. Cuban would pay Kaplan $100,000 and donate $100,000 to Kaplan's favorite charity if he took the name for one year. After some soul searching, and being bombarded by e-mails from listeners who said he was crazy to turn down the money, Kaplan held firm and told Cuban no. Kaplan explained: "I'd be saying I'd do anything for money, and that bothers me. My name is my birthright. I'd like to preserve my integrity and credibility." "Christian" is the birthright of every follower of Jesus Christ. We have a responsibility to live every day in a way that brings honor to that name.

Author Larry Burkett writes: [An] antique dealer [named] Roy bought what he thought might be Jefferson's desk, which disappeared during the Civil War. But concluding it was simply a good reproduction, he included it in his auction. On auction day, a woman came in, loved the desk, and promised to pick it up and pay next day. Before the auction, bidder Tom examined the desk. "Did you get a good price for that desk you have a hold on, Roy?" "Just what I had in it - at least I will tomorrow." "I'll give you twice what you paid right now!" "You're crazy, Tom. That's not an original, just a good copy." "No, Roy. Only the insides of the drawers have been replaced. The chestnut is 18th century; the craftsmanship is definitely original." When the woman arrived next morning, Roy explained what he'd learned. "Then you won't sell it?" the woman asked dejectedly. "Yes, I will," Roy replied. &qu

Over a hundred years ago, in a Scottish seaside inn, a group of fishermen were relaxing after a long day at sea. As a serving maid was walking past the fishermen's table with a pot of tea, one of the men made a sweeping gesture to describe the size of the fish he claimed to have caught. His hand collided with the teapot and sent it crashing against the whitewashed wall, where its contents left an irregular brown splotch. Standing nearby, the innkeeper surveyed the damage. "That stain will never come out," he said in dismay. "The whole wall will have to be repainted." "Perhaps not." All eyes turned to the stranger who had just spoken. "What do you mean?" asked the innkeeper. "Let me work with the stain," said the stranger, standing up from his table in the corner. "If my work meets your approval, you won't need to repaint the wall." The stranger picked up a box and went to the wall. Opening the box, he withdrew pencil

Author and pastor Max Lucado said that giving up beer helped him get closer to God. Lucado said, "I come from a family of alcoholism. If there's anything about this DNA stuff, I've got it." For more than 20 years, drinking wasn't a major issue for Lucado. But a couple of years ago, it nearly became one. Lucado recalled, "I lowered my guard a bit. One beer with a barbecue won't hurt. Then another time with Mexican food. Then a time or two with no food at all." One afternoon on his way to speak at a men's retreat he began to plot: "Where could I buy a beer and not be seen by anyone I know?" He drove to an out-of-the-way convenience store, parked, and waited till all the patrons left. He entered, bought a beer, held it close to his side, and hurried to his car. "I felt a sense of conviction," Lucado remembers, "because the night before I'd had a long talk with my oldest daughter about not covering things up." Luca

Once, a thoughtless pilot got into an ill-equipped single-engine plane and took off. He didn't know much about how to handle the instruments--he just flew. The plane had no lights but he was flying up to a little country airstrip where he would land, he thought, before sunset. Unfortunately, he had strong winds against him and he didn't make it in time. The sun had already settled behind the western mountains and a haze was over the landing strip. Nearing the airstrip, he came down lower but he could not make out the boundaries of the runway. Panic seized him as he sensed he didn't have much fuel left. The runway was not equipped with lights, and he had no way of getting in touch with anyone. He began to circle. He realized one of those circling moments would be his last. He would crash to his death. Down on the ground, a man was sitting on his porch and his sensitive ears were bothered by the drone of the engine as he kept hearing the plane going around and around and arou

The climactic event at Detroit's Cobo Hall exhibition of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus was the high-wire act of the Wallenda family, or the Flying Wallendas, as they were known. They were among the greatest tightwire walkers in all of circus history. One of their acts was walking the tightrope in the formation of a fourlevel pyramid. Four or five men formed the first level, two or three men made up the second level, two more were on the third, and finally a little girl topped the pyramid. Maintaining this four-level pyramid, they would make their way across the tightrope from one side of the arena to the other. It was incredible and unprecedented. They did it night after night, month after month around the world. One particular evening, as the show came to its conclusion, the four-level pyramid was about to start. The audience tensed in anticipation, sitting in total silence in the dark arena. The spotlights picked the Wallendas out of the air as they started moving

Mr. Alter's fifth-grade class at Lake Elementary School in Oceanside, California, included fourteen boys who had no hair. Only one, however, had no choice in the matter. Ian O'Gorman, undergoing chemotherapy for lymphoma, faced the prospect of having his hair fall out in clumps. So he had his head shaved. But then 13 of his classmates shaved their heads, so Ian wouldn't feel out of place. "If everybody has his head shaved, sometimes people don't know who's who," said 11-year-old Scott Sebelius in an Associated Press story (March 1994). "They don't know who has cancer, and who just shaved their head." Ten-year-old Kyle Hanslik started it all. He talked to some other boys, and before long they all trekked to the barber shop. "The last thing he would want is to not fit in," said Kyle. "We just wanted to make him feel better." Ian's father, Shawn, choked back tears as he talked about what the boys had done. He said simpl

I've seen a picture of the pilgrims at the first American Thanksgiving. Do you know half of their number died the first year they were here? They had a hard time, and it was a cold winter. Dangers lurked everywhere, but those pilgrims didn't think of the death of their loved ones and the dangers and the cold weather. They didn't let that obscure the blessings of God. They went together, and they thanked the Lord for the blessings they had received. Sometimes we need to put down our assets alongside our losses. Everyone of us is more blessed than we are hurt.

I remember reading a story not long ago about the "elevated" in Chicago--a train that when it comes into the downtown, it's on a high track. A young man was riding that train day after day as a commuter. And as the train slowed up for the station where he got off, he could look through an open curtain into a room of a building and see a woman lying in a bed. She was there day after day, for a long time, obviously quite ill. He began to get interested in her since he saw her every day. Finally he determined to find out her name. He discovered her address, and he wrote her a card, assuring her that he was praying for her recovery. He signed it: "The young man on the elevated." A few weeks later, he pulled into the station, and he looked through that window and the bed was empty. Instead there was a great huge sign: GOD BLESS YOU, MY FRIEND ON THE ELEVATED!

Dear Ab In January 1997, according to Moira Hodgson in the New York Times, Sam Sebastiani Jr., a member of one of California's most prominent winemaking families, died from eating poisonous mushrooms that he had gathered near his home in Santa Rosa, California. "The mushroom Mr. Sabastiani is thought to have eaten," writes Hodgson, "was an Amanita Phalloides, also known as the death-cap mushroom. It is the cause of 95 percent of lethal mushroom poisoning worldwide and is fatal more than 35 percent of the time; toxins in its cap destroy the victim's liver by rupturing the cells. "Experts…are warning inexperienced mushroom enthusiasts to leave the picking to trained mycologists, who will not be fooled by poisonous varieties that closely resemble their nonpoisonous cousins." Roseaane Soloway, a poison-control-center administrator, says, "A level of presumed expertise is not enough to save your life." "One of the most sinister aspects

Dear Abby: A young man from a famous family was about to graduate from high school. It was the custom in that affluent neighborhood for the parents to give the graduate an automobile. Bill and his father had spent months looking at cars, and the week before graduation they found the perfect car. Bill was certain that the car would be his on graduation night. Imagine his disappointment when, on the eve of his graduation, Bill's father handed him a gift-wrapped Bible! Bill was so angry, he threw the Bible down and stormed out of the house. He and his father never saw each other again. It was the news of his father's death that brought Bill home again. As he sat one night, going through his father's possessions that he was to inherit, he came across the Bible his father had given him. He brushed away the dust and opened it to find a cashier's check, dated the day of his graduation, in the exact amount of the car they had chosen together.

The Bible can change not only a life but an entire lifestyle. Most of us have heard the story of the Mutiny on the Bounty, but few of us have heard how the Bible played a very vital part in that historical event. The Bounty was a British ship which set sail from England in 1787, bound for the South Seas. The idea was that those on board would spend some time among the islands, transplanting fruit-bearing and food-bearing trees, and doing other things to make some of the islands more habitable. After ten months of voyage, the Bounty arrived safely at its destination, and for six months the officers and the crew gave themselves to the duties placed upon them by their government. When the special task was completed, however, and the order came to embark again, the sailors rebelled. They had formed strong attachments for the native girls, and the climate and the ease of the South Sea island life was much to their liking. The result was mutiny on the Bounty, and the sailors placed Captain B

A little girl got home from Sunday school, where she had been taught the verse: "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven." She asked her mother, when she repeated the verse, what it meant. Her mom said, "Well, it means that when you are good and kind and thoughtful and obedient, you are letting Christ's light shine in your life before all who know you." The very next Sunday in Sunday school, the little girl got in a bit of a fracas with another student and created somewhat of an uproar--to such an extent that the Sunday school teacher had to go and find her mother to get her settled down a bit in the class. Her mother was concerned when she got to the classroom and said, "Sweetie, don't you remember about letting your light shine for the Lord before men?" The girl blurted out, "Mom, I have blowed myself out." Many of us have done just that. In our relationship

On February 24, 2001, a one-year old Canadian girl named Erika somehow wandered out of her mother's bed and house and spent the entire night in the Edmonton winter. When her mother, Leyla Nordby, found her, Erika appeared to be totally frozen. Her legs were stiff, her body frozen, and all signs of life appeared to be gone. Erika was treated at Edmonton's Stollery Children's Health Center, and God helped doctors and rescue workers bring her back to life. To the amazement of all, there appeared to be no sign of brain damage, and doctors gave Erika a clear prognosis�she would soon be able to hop and skip and play like other girls her age. Some of us have wandered away from our Father's house, and it has brought us near the point of death. Our hearts have hardened, and our spiritual bodies look as lifeless as the little girl in the snow. But our Father noticed we were missing and is searching for us. He can take our lifeless spirits and restore us to health. Let the