Weekly Devotional
Enjoy a weekly devotional! These will update each week, but you can see what you've missed up to the past four weeks!!
"Happy Mother's Day" Means More
"Happy Mother's Day" means more
Than have a happy day.
Within those words lie lots of things
We never get to say.
It means I love you first of all,
Then thanks for all you do.
It means you mean a lot to me,
And that I honor you.
But most of all, I guess it means
That I am thinking of
Your happiness on this, your day,
With pleasure and with love.
What Did You Hear?
A Native American and his friend were in the city. It was during lunch hour and the streets were filled with people. Cars, sirens, and the sounds of the city were almost deafening. Suddenly, the Native American said, "I hear a cricket."
His friend said, "What? You couldn't possibly hear a cricket in all of this noise!"
"No, I'm sure of it," the Native American said, "I heard a cricket."
"That's crazy," said the friend.
The Native American listened carefully for a moment, and then walked across the street to a big cement planter. He looked into the bushes, and sure enough, he located a small cricket. His friend was utterly amazed.
"That's incredible," said his friend. "You must have super-human ears!"
"No," said the Native American. "It all depends on what you're listening for."
"But that can't be!" said the friend. "I could never hear a cricket in this noise."
"Yes, it's true," came the reply. "It depends on what is really important to you. Here, let me show you." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a few coins, and discreetly them on the sidewalk. And then, with the noise of the crowded street still blaring in their ears, they noticed every head within twenty feet turn and look to see if the money that tinkled on the pavement was theirs.
"See what I mean?" asked the Native American. "It all depends on what's important to you."
As Jesus tells the Pharisees in the Gospel, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but give to God what is God's." What’s important to you?
Listen to the Mustn'ts
By Shel Silverstein
Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me--
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.
Hearing
Two old acquaintances, which hadn't seen each other for years, were walking down the street together, renewing old times.
"Just a minute," said one, "I think I hear something," and turning a loose paving stone over, he liberated a cricket which was chirping merrily away.
"Why, that's astounding. Of all the people on the street at this hour, hurrying from work, you alone hear the cricket above all the traffic noises."
"My friend," said the first. "I learned a long time ago that people hear in life only what they want to hear. Now, the noise of traffic has neither increased nor decreased in the past few moments, but watch." And as he finished speaking he let a silver half dollar fall from his pocket to the sidewalk. Everyone within an amazingly large hearing distance stopped and looked around.
Titanic Concerns: What Our Fascination With a Sinking Ship Tells Us
Stan Guthrie, Author
Interest in the RMS Titanic at the centenary of its infamous demise is as massive as the unnamed iceberg that sank the British passenger liner in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912, killing more than 1,500 of the 2,200 people aboard. More than 1,300 people have paid $9,000 apiece to sail on the MS Balmoral to the site of the disaster, where a ceremony of remembrance will be held. A tribute for descendants of those killed was held at Berth 44 at Southampton docks, where the 882-foot, nine-inch ship in the White Star line departed for New York. James Cameron’s lush but historically inaccurate 1997 film has been re-released in 3D and IMAX. A television mini-series, books, magazine articles, and T-shirts (available for $24.95 each), are also keeping the Titanic’s memory alive.
Why the enduring fascination? In a list of the world’s worst maritime disasters, Titanic’s sinking, while horrible indeed, only ranks No. 7 in terms of lives lost. The December 20, 1987, collision of the passenger ferry Dona Paz with the tanker Vector killed more than 4,300 people in the Philippines. The second-worst disaster, the sinking of the SS Kiangya on China’s Huangpu River, cost between 2,750 and 3,920 lives. (By contrast, the sinking of the MS Costa Concordia cruise ship this past January led to 30 known deaths.)
A number of factors probably account for our insatiable curiosity. First, like all fallen descendants of Adam and Eve, we are simply drawn to a train wreck — or, in this case, a ship wreck. Chicago has some of the nation’s worst traffic jams. They are caused, at least in part, by what traffic reporters call “gapers’ delays.” These are caused by drivers who can’t help but tap on their brakes and look at a nearby accident scene, slowing down everyone else. We are simply drawn, like vultures, to a good tragedy.
Second, the history surrounding the Titanic is particularly compelling. We are drawn to the shocking confluence of factors that, in concert, brought down a ship that was thought to be unsinkable and killed so many passengers and crews needlessly: Captain Edward Smith’s dubious decision to run the Titanic at night, at full speed, in waters where icebergs had been sighted; too few lifeboats; and the failure of a nearby ship, the Californian, to come to the Titanic’s aid despite noting her flares.
Third, there is a sense of not only the end of an era, but of the end of a world, which the Titanic, in a sense, personified. She was the most luxurious liner of her era, which was hanging on the doorstep of the devastation of two world wars, a depression, and the eventual collapse of the British Empire.
Fourth, we see the Titanic — shiny, proud, and ultimately doomed — and feel our own vulnerability. Despite all our technological advances, we have perhaps never felt less secure. We worry about everything: red meat, our PSAs, and on and on. We sense that our wealth is powerless to save us and is perhaps actually killing us.
Fifth, there is the eerie feeling among many that the ill-fated White Star liner represents a parable for our own uncertain times. And as we face our existential threats — possible nuclear strikes, economic meltdown, and the collapse of longstanding societal norms — we wonder whether we’re up to the challenge.
Conservative pundit Mark Steyn notes the damning character differences between our era and that of the Titanic a century ago. “On the Titanic, the male passengers gave their lives for the women and would never have considered doing otherwise,” Steyn writes. “On the Costa Concordia, in the words of a female passenger, ‘There were big men, crew members, pushing their way past us to get into the lifeboat.’ After similar scenes on the MV Estonia a few years ago, Roger Kohen of the International Maritime Organization told Time magazine: ‘There is no law that says women and children first. That is something from the age of chivalry.’ “If, by ‘the age of chivalry,’ you mean our great-grandparents’ time.”
And perhaps the age in which we find ourselves is irredeemable. If so, this would not be the first time for God’s people, who periodically must be taught the painful but ultimately bracing lesson that this world is not — and indeed cannot be — our ultimate home. Our cabin, however comfortable, is only on a sinking ship.
However, we have a sure Anchor, whatever the storms of life. As the Psalmist says:
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
Some surviving passengers reported that when the Titanic finally went down, the ship’s musicians were calmly playing the hymn, “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” Whatever happens to us on our own sinking ship, are we prepared to do the same?
Why Go To Church
A churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me I can't remember a single one of them. So I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."
This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor.
It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher: "I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me those meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!"
Thank God for our physical and our spiritual nourishment!
