If you are not familiar with some of the rivalries that exist in college football, maybe the following story I read a number of years ago about one of those rivalries may help. As the story goes, the legendary coach of Ohio State, Woody Hayes, and some of his assistants were on a recruiting trip in Michigan. While they were nearing the state line as they were returning to Ohio, one of the assistants noticed that they were very low on gasoline. Coach Hayes’s solution to that dilemma was that they would coast as much as they could and push the car if necessary in order to get it across the state line…

A lot of people are stressed. That is true not just in America, but in many cultures around the world. As our level of productivity and technology increase, we often find that we also have to deal with more stressors. For many, that also leads to a lack of sleep (or, at least, a lack of good sleep). A tour company in Hong Kong recently launched a new tour that is meant to provide a solution for that issue. Depending on your type of seat, you can be the equivalent of anywhere from $13-$51 dollars to ride a bus for five hours…to nowhere. After what is described as a “food…

One aspect of re-plumbing a house that may be overlooked is that other parts of the house will also be impacted. Of particular interest in this case is the damage done to sheetrock. When pipes are inside walls, like going up to a bathtub, the wall must be cut to insert the new pipes. And, unfortunately, plumbers don’t do sheetrock repair. Now, some people would just hire a handyman to come fix the sheetrock. But as you all know, I usually err on the side of most difficult, so I decided to fix it myself. My previous success with patching a hole at the end of a hallway (2 boys…

It was the size of a fingernail, but it cost a man thousands of dollars. A Wisconsin farmer had “the one.” He grew a pumpkin that was set to earn him well over $20,000 due to it immense size. At $9 per pound in a largest pumpkin contest, the man was going to take home a lot of money, because his pumpkin weighed in at an astonishing 2520 pounds! However, he took home nothing, because the pumpkin was disqualified. Why? Because on this pumpkin that weighed in at well over a ton, there was a crack the size of a fingernail. That crack was enough to disqualify the man from…

I attended a funeral recently during which I heard the man speaking say something that I don’t remember ever hearing before. What he said may or may not have been original with him, but it was for me. I’d read the passage of scripture about which he made the comment numerous times. I’ve referred to it and commented on it in sermons, classes, etc. I knew the truth of what this man said. I’d just never heard it expressed in the way that he expressed it. The statement was made about the events recorded in Luke 7:11-17. As you may remember, the Lord and His disciples were approaching a city by the name of…

I was recently going through some old material and found some information that I’d like to update and share with you. It has to do with a married couple who became members of the congregation where I was preaching at the time. I am still serving as one of the elders. Some of the specifics are somewhat dated, but, in my opinion there is a principle that is timeless   The material I read reminded me of how thrilled I was at the time that this couple had decided to become a part of our church family. It also reminded me about how thrilled and blessed I felt about the reason for their decision.…