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I Am Happy Knowing

    The single biggest thing the London Underground did to improve satisfaction among its customers was not to make the trains cleaner or faster or run quicker. It was the introduction of display signs that would tell you the amount of time till the train would arrive.   People were happier waiting nine minutes for a train knowing when it was coming, rather than waiting four minutes in uncertainty. They wanted to know. Knowledge made the uncomfortable more tolerable.   I think we need to understand that when we deal with others. Our tendency is not to tell people things we think will upset them. We gloss over, avoid the subject, and leave folks in the dark.  Rather than help it makes the issue worse.  Sometimes it is not intentional. We just fail to communicate things to others and then wonder why they are frustrated and upset.  Sometimes “ Speaking Truth to One Another ” is making sure we are speaking! Our lack of communication might be saying things we don’t intend and certai
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There Are Many Professors Who Are Not Possessors

  In Matthew 7:21 Jesus makes an important statement: " Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.”  Just because you call Jesus  Lord doesn’t mean you are part of his kingdom. You may profess Him but that does not mean you part of his possession.   Consider the next verses as well: " Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?'    "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.'  Notice these are not insincere professors. They are ones who are not actively doing things in his name. We can’t dismiss them as non-commits, or liars. They are doing things that would seemingly make you think they are fully engrossed in the cause.  But he does not claim them because he does not know t

Who Is In Charge Now

  It seems every election we go through is billed “as the most important ever” and “will change the future of the world as we know it”.  But if you look throughout history, you will see leaders come and go, powers rise and fall, and what we think of as important, stable, and unchangeable really isn’t.   In Daniel 4 we read of a leader that was warned about his hubris. Though he was on top of the world, it did not mean he was going to stay there. Warned in a vision, he was told to realize, “ That the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, And bestows it on whom He wishes And sets over it the lowliest of men."(vs19).   It might need to be a lesson we need to learn as well.  As much as we think we know who will or won’t be in charge in the coming years, we need to consider that the one that places all those in power is in Heaven. As Nebuchadnezzar concludes about God, “ All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the ho

An Experience Over Facts

  Towards the end of the nineteenth century, men of learning argued whether or not some diseases were caused by the microscopically small creatures known as “bacteria.” The champion of the bacteriologists was Robert Koch, and that of the skeptics was Max Joseph von Pettenkofer.   To prove his point, Koch sent Petternkofer a tube that swarmed with virulent microbes that were said to be the cause of cholera.  Pettenkofer—to the great alarm of microbe hunters—swallowed the entire contents of the tube. Then he said, “Now let us see if I get cholera!”  Now there were supposedly enough cholera germs in this tube to infect a regiment but Max Joseph never got sick. Thus, he proved forever the mistaken notion that bacteria could cause infection.     Expect he was completely wrong. The failure of the Pettenkofer to come down with cholera remains to this day an enigma, maybe the vial was not tainted as thought, maybe he just got lucky but one thing is for sure he was not right.  Just becaus

A Nice Letter but a Bad Guy

 In 1937, a natural gas leak at the local school in New London, Texas caused a massive explosion that killed upward of 295 students and teachers, the deadliest school disaster in US history. As you can imagine people were heartbroken for the community. Condolences and sympathy poured in from all over including foreign nations. Once such letter read: “For the terrible New London catastrophe costing so many young lives, I convey to Your Excellency my sincere condolence as well as that of the German people”. – Adolf Hitler  It is because of this tragedy that natural gas now smells. In its natural state, it is odorless as well as colorless so the pungent smell is added so a leak can be sensed. Some things may seem harmless but can be very, very dangerous.  If you were only to read Hitler’s letter you might think him a decent sort of guy. Yet the reality was very different. Jesus warned us about those who cloak themselves as innocent yet in reality as on the attack (Matthew 7:15). T

Blessed By Repentance

    I do not know if anyone likes to be wrong. Now some are better at it than others but for many of us admitting we are wrong is like swallowing a handful of gravel. It going to take some time and effort and we probably won’t get it all. We might have to do it but we don’t have to like it.   But maybe we should.   In Acts 3, Peter is preaching yet another gospel sermon. After a miracle of healing, he is telling the crowd about the plan of God fulfilled in Jesus and the evil that had been done to him. Peter tells them that even though they “ had acted in ignorance ” (17), they still needed to “ repent and turn to God” (19). He warned them failure to heed the message would end in destruction (23). Yet consider what he proclaims in the last verse of the chapter: " For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways ."   How were they blessed here? By God sending Jesus. How had that blessed them? By turn

Win Does Them In

    In the 1920s, everyone wanted to play Salem Trade School.   They were a lay-up on your schedule having not one a game for several years. Back in that day, the schools did not organize play but the teams were clubs unto themselves responsible for their activities. Each team would find other schools to play and split the ticket sales, which went to pay for equipment and travel. Since the Salem Trade school would always play at your field, thus giving you the higher share, and were not very good, they were a popular pick.   There was a reason they never played a home game, however. There was no Salem Trade School. The players were not students. It was a ruse cooked up by a man named Harold Burges to make money. He got some adults to pose as students and told them to keep it respectable but to let the other team win. The way the scheme was discovered is they accidentally scored late and the other team couldn’t thus giving them their first win. Reporters eager to write about the sad s