The key to failure is to try to please everybody. Pulitzer Prize winner Herbert Bayard Swope said it like this: “I can’t tell you the formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everyone.” Jesus was anything but a people-pleaser. Case in point: Jesus healed many people, but…
There is a simple reason many of us don’t reach our goal of recovery – we quit too soon. Thomas Edison was right: “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Scaling Mount Recovery will be the hardest climb of your life. There…
A pastor discovered a small box in the back of his closet, containing three rotten eggs and 100 $1 bills. He asked his wife about the box, and she admitted that she hid it there for the last 20 years. She reluctantly explained the contents. “I placed one egg in the box every time you…
On this day in history – July 22, 1933 – Wiley Post became the first man to fly solo around the world in his plywood monocoque aircraft, the Winnie Mae. It took seven days, 19 hours, which was 21 hours less than his previous record which he had set in 1931 with a navigator, Harold…
Two politicians had locked themselves out of their car, with important papers inside. They needed those papers for a meeting, which was to start in a few minutes. One said, “Let’s open the door lock with a coat hanger.” The other replied, “We can’t do that; it will look like we are breaking into someone’s…
One of my favorite singing groups was The Carpenters, whose easy listening style filled the air waves at a time when heavy rock ‘n roll was taking over the world of music. Their signature song sat atop the charts for seven straight weeks in 1970. Karen and Richard Carpenter are still singing it in my…
Charles Fuller was born to a furniture merchant in 1888. Until the age of 35, he was a fruit packer. That all changed in 1917, when he stepped into the Church of the Open Door in Los Angeles to hear the preaching of Paul Rader. That night, Fuller committed his life to Christ. He and…
For those living in America, today is Independence Day, which marks the birth of the nation. When I celebrate today, two thoughts come to mind. “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). “What the people want is very simple – they want an America as good as its promise” (Barbara Jordan). We have daily readers…
A man loved to play golf. But one Saturday, he returned home from a game with a friend much earlier than expected. His wife asked him why his game ended so soon. The man answered, “Would you want to play with someone who whines about every shot, complains constantly about the course, and makes obnoxious…
“Be instant in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2). Those were Paul’s words to his closest disciple, in the final chapter of his final letter. He was telling young Timothy to do the right thing, whether he felt like it or not. Oswald Chambers wrote, “If we do only what we feel inclined…