Have you ever had a book reach out and grab you?
 
It happened to me recently in the library at Moody Bible Institute. Walking past shelves of missionary volumes, I was unable to resist their siren call.  I made the mistake of slowing down long enough to pick up a few of the wonderful books reaching out to me.   The covers were mesmerizing: 
 

• Amid Artic Snows--A Story of Gospel Pioneers in Iceland

• The Martyrs of Blantyre

• James Harrington--The Merchant’s Son Who was Martyred for Africa

• In Leper land—A Record of my 7,000 Miles among Indian lepers

 
Many of the books included subtitles speaking of longevity in the field: “My thirty years in the jungle” or “Forty years of desert ministry.”
 
The longer I spent pondering these volumes of valor, the more a question nagged at me.  Are we as fully committed and fully engaged in the missionary movement today as were the Martyrs of Blantyre or The Merchant’s Son Who was Martyred for Africa?
 
It seems like in America, more and more people do a “short term missionary project”…yet fewer consider full time missionary service.  I know a number of missionaries who went to the field for a few years and called it quits. 
 
Sure, God might well call someone to a career change.  Still, I wonder.  Has missions lost its mojo?  Is our zeal for the Great Commission…less than great?
 
I’m all for “short term missions”…but not at the expense of long term missions.
Let’s resist the urge to say, “I’ve been to Africa.  I did my missions thing.” Why not, instead, ask God if His adventure for your life might well be somewhere “over there” rather than here?
 
If the fields were “white unto harvest” in Jesus’ day, surely they are no less ready for harvest in ours!

“Honestly, I'd pretty much given up,” said my friend, Jack, boring a hole through me with his intense look. 

“You can't mean that,” I countered.

“I do.  We'd been trying and trying to get together with Bud and his wife for months.”  (Bud is Jack's unsaved friend, whom Jack has been praying for more than 30 years.  Yet Bud still hasn't received Christ).  Jack went on.

“We've called them, invited them to dinner repeatedly (our treat of course).  But it's somehow never been 'the right time.'”

“Well maybe it wasn't,” I agreed.

“Maybe.  But as my wife pointed out, it's a two-way street.  Bud could just as easily call us, if he was interested.”  Jack had me there.  He went on.

“That's why I finally prayed and said to God, 'Look, maybe this chapter in our lives is over.  Maybe this thing with Bud is done.  That's okay.  I won't force this.  I just ask that you have someone else around Bud and his wife who knows Jesus and is really caring for Bud, praying for him.”  Jack's pause indicated he wanted me to ask him what happened next.

“So what happened next?”

“Well, my son and I were at Home Depot shortly after that prayer, looking for lumber.  Inside of 30 seconds, you'll never guess who snuck up behind us?”

“Bud?” I asked.

“Exactly!”  Jack had this big ol' smile on his face.  “He gave us all kinds of advice for our building project—advice we frankly needed. He even told us the specific hardware we needed to get...walked us over to the aisle where we could find it.  Then he was gone—stocking up on materials for his own job.”

“So how'd that make you feel?”

“Incredible.  Like...I was seeing the hand of God...as if the Almighty was suggesting that maybe this thing with Bud was not 'over.'  I wonder if God has another chapter He wants to write.  Not trying to go too crazy with this, of course.  But the timing is just too weird to dismiss as coincidence.”

Hearing all this makes me believe there really is a place for bold praying.  Like Jack's.   Maybe I'm praying “too small.”

You?

You've seen funnel clouds.

You've seen tornadoes.

But imagine a path of destruction more than 20 miles long.

Such a tornado touched down recently in north central Illinois, not far from where my wife and I often visit on weekends.   Cruising through this rural area is no longer a peaceful drive.  A restaurant we've eaten at was leveled by the storm.  So were dozens of homes and farms.   We managed to get up close to some of the wreckage and I snapped some pictures--a soul-darkening experience.

The photos don't begin to do justice to the violence: mangled farm implements, trucks tossed onto their backs... scraps of insulation, chunks of wood, metal fragments jammed at obtuse angles into the ground.  The odd assortment of upright fragments made front yards appear like cemeteries to the dead and dismembered homes all around. 

In a scene recalling the planting of the American flag on Iwo Jima, I saw one worker atop a knocked over grain silo, seemingly determined to get the thing set up right. Most shocking of all were the eerily clean cement slabs where houses had stood— driveways now leading to nowhere. 

There was one (literal) bright spot in all of this destruction: Samaritan's Purse, Franklin Graham's relief organization.  The orange tee-shirts of the volunteer workers were impossible to miss.  The workers cleared trees, hauled wheelbarrows and moved mountains of debris.

By contrast, I didn't happen to see any volunteers from the American Civil Liberties Union or Americans United for Separation of Church and State.  No, the people digging through the mud were followers of Jesus, serving as His hands and feet.  A reminder that rescue is never far from the heart of Christ.

Psalm 147:3, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

Kindness sometimes wears red suspenders.

My son, Tim, and I had just flown from Chicago to Kansas and our GPS was struggling to locate the house of the guest we were trying to visit.

With a population of 858, McLouth is not exactly a major metropolis.  Still, we were stymied.  We were also hungry, had time to burn before our meeting, and decided to get something to eat before tackling the final GPS challenge.

Traveler, be warned.  Dining choices in McLouth are scarce.  We ended up munching on pork sandwiches from the local Casey's gas station.  In the comfort of our Toyota Yaris, we observed a gentleman seated in a tan Chevy minivan.  He wore black sweat pants, a purple shirt and blazing red suspenders.

“S'penders” went in and out of the Casey's gas station several times, each trip clutching a new lottery game card.   Apparently, he would scratch off the (losing) numbers and then go back and buy another card. Resting on the front of his dashboard was a large white Texan hat. Curious fellow, this S'penders.   

It was now time to show up at my friend's home, but the numbers on the houses we were seeing didn't appear to sequence with the address which I knew to be our destination. 

I had to ask somebody--hopefully a local.  But who?  That's when S'penders expressed interest. I gave him the street address, which didn't ring a bell. So he asked in a stereotypical-good-guy-cowboy voice, “What's the name of the feller yir lookin' for?”  We told him.

“He's just up the street—first house next to the big field.”

And it was so.

It's easy for us clean-shaven, clean-livin' Christian folk to write off characters like our friend, “S'penders.”  But kindness comes in all shapes and sizes.  And sometimes, it wears suspenders.

“Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness humility, gentleness and patience.”   --Colossians 3:12

He’s the funniest guy you never heard of: Stan Freberg, the sultan of satire, the wizard of one-liners.

In a sketch from Freberg’s History of the United States comedy album, George Washington trods through winter snows to the home of seamstress Betsy Ross, who is making the nation’s first flag.  As Washington tromps inside, Betsy yells out, “Hey, hey—ever hear of wipin’ your feet?  You’re gettin’ snow all over my early American rug!”  Their contentious flag meeting ends with Betsy asking General Washington, “Do you want me to put it on a hangar?”  To which he replies nonchalantly, “No, I’ll just run it up the flag pole and see if anybody salutes.

Stan Freberg did cartoon voice-overs for Warner Brothers and Walt Disney.  He hosted the Emmy-winning early-'50s puppet show, Time for Beany.  Among his fans was Albert Einstein.  The genius once supposedly interrupted a high-level conference announcing, "You will have to excuse me, gentlemen. It is time for Beany."

Freberg was a major force in the advertising world, with clients like Jeno's Pizza, Reynolds Wrap, and Great American Soups.  He spent a record-setting one million dollars on a single commercial back in 1970.  When George Lucas sought advice on the voice for his Star Wars character C-3PO, he turned to Stan Freberg.

Being a Freberg fan—and full of chutzpah— I called him up and spoke with him on the phone.  Twice.  One occasion was just after his first wife, Donna, died in 2000.  Pensive, he shared with me that he was raised the son of a Baptist minister.  Which led me to ask him if he was certain he was going to heaven—and why.

He proceeded to quote John 3:16 from the King James Version: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

Stan Freberg won many awards, voiced many characters, made many records—and died last week. Now, only one thing about his life really matters: He knew Jesus as His Savior.  Do you?