Ecclesiastes 12:10

   Tsutomu Yamaguchi was on a business trip to Hiroshima when the atomic bomb hit the city. Somehow, he survived; 146,000 people didn’t.   Though injured, he escaped the destruction and walked his way home…. to Nagasaki. Three days later he was back to work, where his coworker is berated him as crazy when he said that one bomb had destroyed a whole city. At that very moment the second atomic bomb hit.    He once again survived the blast.   He survived not one but two atomic detonations! He survived not only the horrific blast but the deadly aftereffect of the radiation.  Cancer would eventually claim his life, but not for sixty-four more years. He would live to the age of ninety-three.   Some may look at Yamaguchi and think that he was one of the unluckiest people in the world.   Or is he the luckiest?   As we think about what we are thankful for we often think of the blessings. The good things we experience. But sometimes ar...

  My wife often will ask me “Are you upset”? I will reply, “No.” Then she will exclaim, “Then tell your face.” Sometimes my facial expressions don’t always match my mind.  As it says in Ecclesiastes 7:3, For when a face is sad a heart may be happy .   Yet there should be some reaction to the things we feel inside. A repercussion to the thoughts in our head.  When we show what we say in a meaningful way. Things that shine forth like a smile on our face that tell the world around us what is going on in our hearts.   How about our thankfulness?   Sure we might throw the standard, “thank you” around, though oftentimes it is done in formality rather than sincerity. But I am talking about actions that show our gratitude.  In a season where we talk about thankfulness, do we show it? When offer thanksgiving to God, does it seem like we mean it?   Sadly, many don’t look a Christians and see a thankful people. Consider our worship. People often ap...

  This time of year we think about ‘counting our many blessings’. It's easy to look at all of our stuff all our friends and family, our homes, our jobs and understand the need to be grateful.   Yet do we realize that our greatest blessing might just be what we don’t have? If we are free from disease. If we are not at war. When we don’t suffer physical persecution for our faith. When we don’t have fear of our government. When we don’t have toxins in our water or poisons in our food.   When we don’t have crimes overrunning our streets. When we don’t have want for food or supplies.   We have it so good because we don’t have so much that others do. And for that we should be thankful.     Thankful and generous. One can’t truly be grateful for what he has if he is not willing to share that with those that do not.     If we count what we have and all the things we are not burdened with, it would be asinine not to realize tha...

    A week or so ago I was driving down the road chewing on the plastic lid to a soda bottle (don't ask me why, I have no good reason), when I was jarred after I hit a bad spot in the road causing the cap to go a little farther down my throat than I was expecting.  I coughed it out quickly but it caused me to realize how stupid of a thing it was to be chewing on a bottle cap.  Had I been a bit unluckier I could have died either from the choking hazard or the accident that would have surely resulted as I was trying to dislodge it.  Wouldn't that be a strange obituary? I could imagine my family trying to explain it to folks how I had died.  As I reflected on this bit of my own foolishness, it got me to thinking how many times a day, I could have almost died.    So for the next week, I did just that. Any time a car pulled out in front of me (or I pulled out in front of someone), anytime I went down some stairs, or unplugged some...