“I can beat it!”
“I wonder if it’s loaded. I’ll look down the barrel and see.”
“Look at this wire hanging down into the street! I’ll throw it to one side.”
“I wonder how much electricity these wires carry. I’ll touch this one and see.”
“I wonder whether this rope will hold my weight!”
“Listen! That’s the train whistle. Step on the gas, and we’ll beat it across.”
“That firecracker must have gone out. I’ll light it again.”
“Watch me skate past the ‘danger’ sign. I’ll bet I can touch it.”
A young girl, unaccustomed to traveling, was taking a train ride through the country, and it happened that in the course of the day her train was obliged to cross two branches of a river and several wide streams. The water seen in advance always awakened doubts and fears in the child. She did not understand how it could safely be crossed. As they drew near the river, however, a bridge appeared, and furnished a way over. Two or three times the experience was repeated, and finally the child leaned back with a long breath of relief and confidence.
One day John Wesley was walking with a troubled man who expressed his doubt as to the goodness of God. He said, “I do not know what I shall do with all this worry and trouble.”
At the same moment Wesley saw a cow looking over a stone wall. “Do you know,” asked Wesley, “why that cow is looking over the wall?”
“No,” said the man who was worried.
Wesley said, “The cow is looking over the wall because she cannot see through it. That is what you must do with your wall of trouble—look over it and avoid it.”
When J. Wilbur Chapman was in London, he had an opportunity to meet General Booth, who at that time was past eighty years of age. Dr. Chapman listened reverently as the old general spoke of the trials and the conflicts and the victories. Then the American evangelist asked the general if he would disclose his secret for success.
Two boys were playing in the snow one day; when one said to the other, “Let us see who can make the straightest path in the snow.” His companion readily accepted the proposition, and they started.
A young man called his mother and excitedly announced that he had just met the woman of his dreams.
His mother said, “Why don’t you send her flowers and invite her to your apartment for a home-cooked meal?”
The day after the big date, his mother called to see how things had gone.
“Mom, the evening was a complete disaster,” he replied. “It was horrible!”
“Why, didn’t she come over?” his mother asked.
“Yes, she came over. But she refused to cook!”
A cartoon pictured a little boy kneeling in prayer. Obviously disgruntled with the results of his prayers, he was saying, “Aunt Harriet hasn’t gotten married, Uncle Hubert hasn’t any work, and Daddy’s hair is still falling out… I’m getting tired of praying for this family without getting any results.”
When D. L. Moody visited New Haven in 1878, R. A. Torrey was a student in the University there. He said, “The ripest scholar in the University at the time, if not the ripest in America, was President Wolsey, Ex-President of Yale University. One night a young man went up to hear Mr. Moody preach and President Wolsey sat on the platform, and when they sang the old Gospel hymns, President Wolsey, himself a gray-haired scholar, joined in singing the hymns with all his heart.
“The Constitution was never meant to prevent people from praying; its declared purpose was to protect their freedom to pray.”—Ronald Reagan
“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.”—John Adams
“[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”—John Adams
The pufferfish looks about as threatening as a pet goldfish but it carries deadly toxins that can kill a person after just a few bites of puffer sashimi. Every year several people in Japan die from eating this unique fish delicacy and many others get sick. The danger is so great that Japanese chefs must receive years of training to learn the intricate skills of removing the lethal toxin before they can be certified to serve puffer. Flirting with sin is not only foolish, it can be fatal.