Illustrations

On December 22, 1899, the evangelist D. L. Moody lay dying. His first job had been as a shoe clerk in Boston, gathering eighteen ragged boys off the street to organize a Sunday school class. In two years the class had grown to fifteen hundred. In his lifetime Moody was to take two continents in his hands and shake them for God. As he died, he left this epitaph written on the flyleaf of his Bible, “If God be your partner, make your plans large.”

Source: Peloubet's Select Notes on the International Lessons, Adolphus Frederick Schauffler

An old preacher was met one of his deacons, whose face wore a very resolute expression.

“I came early to meet you,” he said. “I have something on my conscience to say to you. Pastor, there must be something radically wrong in your preaching and work; there has been only one person added to the church in a whole year, and he is only a boy.”

In February of 2008, James Fantroy was convicted of stealing over $20,000 of government grants while he served as a City Council member in Dallas, Texas. Because Fantroy had kidney cancer and used a wheelchair, U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade told him he could choose between serving a month in prison or publicly apologizing for his actions. Fantroy chose to serve a prison sentence rather than apologize.

“Titles really don’t matter. Freedom comes when we let them go, even if it means we have to eat a bit of humble pie.”—Dan Brokke

“When we lay down our lives in humility and forgiveness for someone else, we are following Jesus’ lead.”—Dan Brokke

“Coming together is a beginning; staying together is progress; working together is success.”—Henry Ford

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”—M. A. Radmacher

When Dr. Richard Halverson was the U.S. Senate chaplain, he spoke before a group of evangelicals who had expressed their anger about Congress’ inactivity on the subject of school prayer. They were irritated that congress had not acted with a strong initiative to restore prayer in schools. To these who were seeking greater initiative from the government, Dr. Halverson asked, “How many of you have prayed with your children this month, outside of church?” Nobody raised their hand. Spiritual initiative starts in the home, not on Capitol Hill.

Lenny realized how much things had changed since he was a kid when his teenage son asked him for help with some homework. He momentarily felt honored to be included and said he would be glad to help. His son then said, “Good, I need your credit card for the research-paper web site.”

Source: In Other Words

A college freshman was giving her friend a tour of the college she attended. She pointed out the various recreational sights in the area and the numerous places for eating out. When they returned to the dorm, the freshman reminded her visiting friend that they needed to be quiet because her roommates were studying. Before they entered the room she whispered to her friend, “All they do is study. Honestly, I don’t even know why they came to college.”

Source: Unknown

In our sleep-deprived culture it appears many people question the value of rest. Some even cut back on their sleep to carve out time for exercise. For what it’s worth, you burn around 70 calories per hour simply sleeping. That means a good 8 hour night of sleep approximates a 5 mile jog.—Saturday Evening Post, September/October 2000

The amount of sleep required by the average person is about an hour more!

David Merrell conducted an experiment in which he timed seventy-two mice running through a maze. He divided the mice into three groups and let each mouse run through the maze (establishing an average time of ten minutes). He then left one group alone, played classical music to one group, and played hard rock music to the other group.

The Titanic’s captain did not believe the ship was sinking until water was ankle deep in the mail room. At that point he realized that the unsinkable ship was sinking. Ships that could have helped rescue the people on board were not asked to help early enough and did not arrive in time.

Many believe they will get saved at the eleventh hour. What they do not realize is, it may come so fast they do not know it is the eleventh hour.

Source: Leadership Magazine, Volume X, Number 3