He’s the first grown man I ever saw cry.  To me, he is a living legend.

Art Rorheim is 98 and has traveled to more than 50 countries, met several Presidents and continues to memorize large quantities of Scripture as he approaches the century mark.   

As a boy of nine at Camp Awana, I remember Art telling about his older brother, Roy, who was 13 and dangerously ill.  Spinal meningitis was a rare and new disease in 1928, and young Roy understood the odds.  A new Christian, he pleaded with his parents from his hospital bed on behalf of his younger brother: “Dad, you are a Christian, Mom, you are a Christian, but Art is not a Christian and we have got to win him for the Lord.”

Roy succumbed to his illness, but Art soon trusted in the finished work of Christ.  Recounting this scene, tears formed in Art's eyes.  But I've since watched him cry many times—and always over the same thing: people who don’t know Jesus, people headed for Hell.  

Art Rorheim went on to co-found Awana International, a Bible memorization ministry now active in more than 100 nations. Each week, more than 2 million children and youth, 330,000 volunteers and 260 field staff take part in Awana in 30,000 churches around the world.

Months ago, he lost his wife of more than 70 years, Winnie. Yet Art soldiers on.  He witnesses. Shares gospel tracts. And still memorizes entire books from the Bible!

Though emotion ought never to be manufactured, I’m convinced there’s something highly instructional—and incredibly right—about a heart that weeps for lost people. A heart like Art’s.  Being with him this weekend has forced an inventory of my own heart.  When was the last time I have been so concerned about another’s soul that it made me cry?  I’m ashamed to say it’s been awhile.

What about you?

What do you enjoy reading?  Mysteries....devotionals...Christian biographies?  

When people ask me, I tell them, “Just about everything.”

People fascinated with food are known as foodies.  They'll try just about anything and like most everything.   Well, I'm a bookie—not with bets—but with books.  I'll read just about anything and like almost everything.

I love Dickens and Tolstoy, Arthur Conan Doyle, Louis L'Amour, John Grisham, Clive Cussler and Dorothy Sayers.  In the Christian world, I'm a fan of William Gurnall, J.C. Ryle, Calvin Miller, Tim Keller, Lee Strobel, and—of course—C.S. Lewis. 

These days, I find myself drawn to the Puritans.

They are very much out of favor in our culture.  The very word, “puritanical,” has sadly become twisted to mean nothing more than ridiculously prudish and out of touch. 

But in reading puritan John Owen, I was jolted by his warning, “Be killing sin—or sin will be killing you.”

Through Richard Baxter, I discovered a hundred reasons for thinking daily about heaven—The Saints' Everlasting Rest.

Many Christians know John Bunyan for his Pilgrim's Progress, believed to be the second most printed book of all time, beside the Bible.  Yet in his work, A Few Sighs from Hell, Bunyan 's portrayal of the horror of hell leaves you panting for a swallow of water, and gasping for a breath of cool air.

It’s true the Puritans didn’t get every single point right.  Who has?  Yet they lived boldly, thought deeply and wrote richly. 

Summer is here.  Time to enjoy some good reading.  What better time to discover the Puritans?   Sure their language and writing style can be a challenge at first.  But the view with any satisfying hike or climb usually comes with a challenge.

Given the wealth of their legacy, I say the Puritans are worth reading.  Now more than ever. 

They needed a place to hide.  And fast.

Hearts heaving, horses foaming with sweat, Jesse and his friends dove deep into the cave—along with their loot from the a heist.  For three days a posse hunted these hidden fugitives throughout the cave's many tunnels... unsuccessfully. 

Having just visited Meremac Cavern, in Stanton, Missouri, I now understand how Jesse James and his gang eluded the law.  The place they hid is huge—taller than a 7-story building inside! 

The grand finale (if cave tours have such a thing) is a seating in a vaulted room that features what they call, “The Stage Curtain.”  A video begins to play.  At first, I thought it might be kitschy.  Then came the soundtrack: God Bless America, sung by Celine Dion--and scenes painted themselves on the 70 foot tall walls of mineral deposit.

Imagine my surprise at seeing the text of 2 Chronicles 7:14 blazing brightly,: “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

In the darkness of the cave, I thought of the horror of the recent night club shooting in Orlando, the vitriol masquerading as election year politics, the angst I feel as my country disintegrates .  But above it all, I heard that that sweet simple prayer, “God bless America, my home sweet home.”

Now I get the fact that biblically, we cannot wrap our Christianity in the American flag.  The Almighty is surely under no obligation to restore whatever Christianity might have once defined our Republic. 

And yet....it was hard not to squelch a tear sitting in the blackness of Meremac Cavern—especially as the video ended with Psalms 33:12: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”

A verse like that...in a public place like this?

I was blown away.   And to think it all happened in a cave. 

Now that summer is upon us, it's best we made peace with the insects around us.   Why, you ask?  Because....well...resistance is futile.  I was reminded of this when reading Anne Rooney’s book, You Wouldn’t Want to Live without Insects.  In it, she offers insect insight. 

Across our globe, there are six to ten million species of insects, although scientists have only named about 900,000 of those species. Insects are found everywhere in the world—even in frozen Antarctica!

And boy, are we outnumbered. There are 200 million insects for every person on earth.  About 90% of all life-forms on earth (not including bacteria) are insects. 

Wrap your brain around this: the mass of all the ants in the world is greater than the mass of all the people.  Still not creeped out?  Then process this: In a rain forest, insects weigh more than the all the animals with backbones put together!

Of course you knew that one bat can eat up to 3000 insects a night, right?  A single swarm of locusts can cover 460 square miles, destroying crops and causing famine.  Each locust eats its own weight in food every day.   Cockroaches can live for six weeks without any food—and four weeks without a head!  Wasps can survive 180 times more radiation than humans.

After the explosion in Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant, insects survived better than other animals.  Insects are often the first creatures to move back into a disaster zone. 

Nehemiah 9:6: "You alone are the LORD. You have made the heavens, The heaven of heavens with all their host, The earth and all that is on it.”  To which I add—even insects.

And now you know why I say, it’s better to learn to live with insects than to expect to exist without them. 

For Moody Radio, I’m Jon Gauger, and those are my thoughts.

Now…where’s my fly swatter?!

It’s the largest home in America. Can you name it?  It’s Asheville’s Biltmore estate.

When railroad and shipping magnate George Vanderbilt first visited Asheville in 1888, he fell in love with the place and promptly amassed land to construct his sprawling residence.  Forget acres.  The Biltmore sits on nearly 11 square miles!                    

Any sense of scale was out-scaled in the construction of this home.  To ship in the raw materials and labor, a special railroad spur was created.  Every day for nearly seven years, hundreds of workers plopped themselves on top of timbers, tile and stone bound for the construction site. 

By Christmas Eve, 1895, the home was finally opened.  And what a home!  

Imagine 250 rooms, including 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, three kitchens, a bowling alley, and even an indoor pool.  While you and I speak in terms of square footage, this estate boasts of four acres of floor space.  Truly, Mr. Vanderbilt…built more.

But even as we mounted the stairs, trekked through the halls and gawked at the opulence, I heard the voice of One whose estate will dwarf anything Mr. Vanderbilt ever conceived.

Jesus said, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

And if Jesus is the architect and builder, it’s a safe bet those dwellings will be nothing less than spectacular:

What no eye has seen,

what no ear has heard,

and what no human mind has conceived —

the things God has prepared for those who love him

--1 Corinthians 2:9

Here’s to living forever in the house that Jesus is building!