“Flatter me, and I may not believe you.
Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you.
Encourage me, and I will not forget you.”—William Arthur Ward
One of the best-loved hymns of the faith, “It Is Well with My Soul,”
was written by Horatio Spafford. Mr. Spafford, a wealthy businessman in
Chicago, lost much of his real estate holdings in the Great Chicago Fire. After
the fire, he sent his wife and four daughters on a ship to Europe, intending to
join them later, for a time of rest as well as to assist Moody and Sankey with a revival in Great Britain. But the voyage was struck by disaster, and Spafford
received a cable from his wife with the painful message, “Saved alone.”
George Truett was a tremendously effective pastor for decades in
Texas. His heart was broken when he accidentally killed his best friend while
they were on a hunting trip. His daughter said that she never heard him laugh
after that day. Truett had a radio program, and each day when it came to a
close he would say, “Be good to everybody, because everybody is having a tough
time.” Because he knew personally what a heavy burden people could be carrying,
he encouraged compassion toward them.
Ten days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, residents of North Platte,
Nebraska heard a rumor that soldiers from their town, part of the Nebraska
National Guard Company D, would be coming through on a troop train on their way
to the West Coast. About five hundred people showed up at the train depot with
food, gifts, letters, and love to give the boys.
As a young boy he worked in a factory, but had an
intense desire to be a singer. When he turned ten years old, he took his first voice
lesson which procured a less than encouraging remark from his teacher, “You
can’t sing. You haven’t any voice at all. Your voice sounds like a wind in the
shutters.”
His mother, however, believed that he could learn to
sing. She was very poor, but she hugged him and said, “My boy, I’m going to
make every sacrifice to pay for your voice lessons.”
A young boy, on an errand for his mother, had just bought
a dozen eggs. Walking out of the store, he tripped and dropped the sack. All
the eggs broke, and the sidewalk was a mess. The boy tried not to cry.
A few people gathered to see if he was okay and to tell
him how sorry they were. In the midst of the words of pity, one man handed the
boy a quarter.
Then he turned to the group and said, “I care twenty-five cents
worth. How much do the rest of you care?”
On May 24, 1965, a 13½ foot boat
slipped quietly out of the marina at Falmouth, Massachusetts. It would be the
smallest craft ever to make the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to England. The
Tinkerbelle was piloted by Robert
Manry, a copy editor for the Cleveland
Plain Dealer, who felt that 10 years at the desk was enough boredom for a
while. So he took a leave of absence to fulfill his secret dream.
Mamie Adams always went to the same post office in
her town because the postal employees there were friendly. She went there to
buy stamps just before Christmas one year and the lines were particularly long.
Someone pointed out that there was no need to wait in line because there was a
stamp machine in the lobby. “I know,” said Mamie, ‘but the machine won’t ask me
about my arthritis.”
Forty thousand fans were on hand in
the Oakland stadium when Rickey Henderson tied Lou Brock’s career stolen base
record. According to USA Today, Lou,
who had left baseball in 1979, had followed Henderson’s career and was excited
about his success. Realizing that Rickey would set a new record, Brock said, “I’ll
be there. Do you think I’m going to miss it now? Rickey did in 12 years what
took me 19. He’s amazing.”
When the great painter Benjamin West was a young boy he decided
to draw a picture of his sister. He got out bottles of ink and succeeded in making a mess. When his
mother got home she said, “What a beautiful picture,” and kissed him. Later in
life he said, “That kiss made me a painter.”
One morning Marion Gilbert opened her door and
was surprised to see a small dog she had never seen before with her paper in its
mouth. Delighted with his “delivery service,” she gave him some treats. The
next morning she was horrified to see the same dog sitting in front of her
door, wagging his tail, surrounded by eight newspapers. She spent the rest of
that morning returning the papers to their owners.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a prisoner in a Soviet prison in
Siberia. He became so weak and discouraged that he wished he would die. The
guards would beat and usually kill anyone that stopped working. He decided to stop
working so that the guards would kill him. As soon as he did so, another
Christian drew a cross where Alexander could see it.
Alexander
said that he was encouraged by remembering that God gives hope and courage. He decided
to continue working because of a Christian who cared too much to let him give
up.
James Cash Penney (who started J. C. Penney stores) made some unwise commitments and
became very depressed. He worried so much that he developed shingles. He went
to see his doctor who admitted him to the hospital, but his condition became
worse. One night he was prescribed a sedative that quickly wore off, and he
awoke believing that he would die that night. He wrote letters to his family
and fell asleep.
Early
African converts to Christianity were earnest and regular in private devotions.
Each one reportedly had a separate spot in the thicket where he would pour out
his heart to God. Over time the paths to these places became well worn. As a
result, if one of these believers began to neglect prayer, it was soon apparent
to the others. They would kindly remind the negligent
one, “Brother, the grass grows on your path.”
Source: Today in the Word
Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College
I heard once of a man who dreamed
that he was swept into Heaven, and oh, he was so delighted to think that he had
at last got there. All at once one came and said: “Come, I want to show you something.”
He took him to the battlements, and he said, “Look down yonder; what do you see?”
“I see a very dark world.”
“Look and see if you know it.”
“Why, yes,” he said, “that is the
world I have come from.”
“What do you see?”
“Men are blindfolded there; many of
them are going over a precipice.”
A little girl whose baby brother had just died
asked her mother where Baby had gone. “To be with Jesus,” replied the mother. A
few days later, talking to a friend, the mother said, “I am so grieved to have
lost my baby.” The little girl heard her, and remembering what her mother had
told her, looked up into her face and asked, “Mother, is a thing lost when you
know where it is?”
“No, of course not.”
“Well, then how can Baby be lost when he has gone to be
with Jesus?”
