As you know, yesterday was Mother’s Day. It was an emotional time for me. My heart melts at the thought of my own dear mom, a great woman now gone from earth for nearly 40 years. Though decades have passed since her untimely death when I was just 9 years old, her influence on me remains steady and sure. My mother was a strong but very gentle lady. If I close my eyes, I can still hear her voice and feel the softness of her hand in mine.
National Day of Prayer Reflections
How did you spend your National Day of Prayer?
Yesterday I mentioned that my plans included participating in a service with the staff here at Focus on the Family. We had a wonderfully moving and inspirational time together. Dan Woolley, a Colorado Springs resident and fellow ministry colleague with Compassion International, joined us.
Dan is a survivor of the Haitian earthquake. His story nearly takes my breath away. Dan shared his miraculous testimony of enduring 65 harrowing hours buried in the rubble of the Hotel Montana.
Prayer—For Such a Time as This
Today is the National Day of Prayer, a beautiful and sacred time-honored American tradition. Ironically, a lawsuit threatening its legality and waged by atheists is now making its way to the Supreme Court and bringing more attention to the subject of public prayer than ever before.
But for now, over the course of the next twenty-four hours, there will be thousands of prayer events hosted and conducted throughout our nation. Some will be attended by scores of people and framed by pomp and pageantry; others might consist of two or three co-workers who give up their lunch and gather in a quiet office break room for the simple but profound purpose of praying for this great country.
What if Someone Did Find Noah’s Ark?
As I scanned the headlines last week, there’s one that caught my eye: “Has Noah’s Ark Been Found on Turkish Mountaintop?” According to news reports, a number of evangelical Turkish and Chinese explorers believe they’ve found Noah’s Ark resting 13,000 feet upon Mount Ararat on an eastern Turkish mountain. Although encased in ice and snow, one of the explorers, Yeung Wing-Cheung, said, “It’s not 100% that it is Noah’s Ark, but we think it is 99.9% that this is it.”
Yeung made the startling statement based on several factors.
A Day of Prayer for Judicial Common Sense
The news came as a bit of a shock last week: According to a federal judge in Wisconsin, the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled that a federal endorsement of the day somehow violates the “Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment.
To even the casual observer, Judge Crabbs’s decision was a curious and perplexing one. After all, there have been federally recognized days of prayer in America for as long as there have been stars on the flag.
Tebow Chooses Principles Over Pocketbook
Tim Tebow will know in a couple of days where he’ll be playing professional football. Far more important, though, before he signs his first NFL contract, he already knows what his off-the-field priorities are: principles before pocketbook.
The Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback and former University of Florida standout made that abundantly clear this past weekend while speaking to a Christian college audience about the reaction in some quarters to his appearance in a commercial for Focus on the Family during this year’s Super Bowl.
Heartbreak Across America
By now you’ve probably read or heard the news regarding Russian adoption in America.
“Future adoptions of Russian children by citizens of the United States, which are now suspended, are possible only if an agreement is reached,” said Andrei Nesterenko, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.
On a good day, international adoption is a complicated and high risk affair, not to mention an emotionally exhaustive endeavor for all parties involved. In recent years you’d need a scorecard to keep track of what countries have opened or closed or changed their adoption programs.
A Case for Optimism?
Are you an optimist or a pessimist?
Somebody once said that optimists invented the airplane (Orville and Wilbur Wright) but a pessimist invented the parachute (Louis-Sebastien Lenormand).
Of course, rarely are things so simple and so straightforward, especially when you discover the parachute was actually conceived long before the introduction of the airplane! The “modern” parachute was created to escape from ill-fated hot air balloons. Two people might look at the very same thing but wind up coming to very different conclusions.
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“Why do you look for the living among the dead?
He is not here; He is risen!”
Luke 24:5b-6a
Birds of a Feather – #2
I originally posted this post several years ago. With Easter approaching, I thought it appropriate to repost it today.
Here’s one from the travel file.
During the last twenty years I’ve had the opportunity to visit more than seventy countries. I noticed there’s a rather unusual feature found on the churches in the Baltic States, France, Germany, Hungry, and the Netherlands among other countries in the region.
Upon close inspection, you’ll discover that many churches don’t have a cross at the top of their steeple, spire, or bell tower.
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