During the outset of the war with Iraq, on March 23, 2003, several members of the 507th Maintenance Company were ambushed and taken as prisoners. A day later, two AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter crewmen were captured when their aircraft crashed. Upon gaining their freedom, Chief Warrant Officer Ronald Young said, “We feel like we won the lottery of life.”
Throughout the course of life, when confronted with various struggles and challenges, we have the opportunity on how best to deal with our burdens. We may choose to bear it alone, seek help and yet continue to bear the burden or look to other sources of strength and encouragement and truly lighten our load.
During the course of his life, king David was confronted with many burdens and challenges. Some of these things were self-imposed and others were beyond his control.
Over the years I have come across various people that when asked about their relationship with God, they say that they have their own way of worshiping Him. Often times, this denotes the formulating of a self-conceived notion of God and His expectations of us. Sadly, at times, God is approached as if He is an old dog living in the back yard of our lives, longing for the spiritual scraps from our table. And of course, when we toss Him an occasional bone He thankfully accepts it with gratitude.
In the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, Reggie Jackson’s plaque mentions his many accomplishments as a baseball player. The 11 Division winners he played on, 5 home runs in one World Series, his 563 career home runs, his American League MVP award were all listed. Interestingly enough, his plaque does not list his record for the most career strikeouts for a hitter. Reggie had over 600 more strikeouts than out distances Hall of Famer Willie Stargell by more than 600 strikeouts.
In the summer of 1976 a friend and I were in Manhattan. We stumbled across the filming of the final scene of the movie King Kong. They were looking for extras to gather around the dead body of Kong, so we happily embraced our role as extras in an Academy Award winning movie (won the award for Best Visual Effects).
As we entered the location where Kong laid, I realizing that we were standing in the plaza of the World Trade Center. I recall how big those towers looked that evening and how small I felt standing between them.
Long ago there was a man named David. He was a mighty warrior and king of Israel.
The book of Acts chapter 15 verse 22 helps us understand David’s relevance in God’s eyes saying, “He raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave testimony and said, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.”
Picture yourself traveling to a neighboring town to share your faith with those living there. The government is watching your every move. At a later point they break into your home and take you off for questioning. They demand that you provide the name of your pastor, the people you worship with and the location of your church gathering. Because you choose to withhold this information you are beaten bloody head to toe. Your captors place your legs in chains and demand that you walk the floor all night long. At some point you realize that your wounds have left a bloody trail below you.
In the Old Testament the role of the Temple priest was an essential aspect to the religious life of the people. The priests were the ones set apart by God to care for the handling and the offering up of the sacrifices and love gifts to God.
In the New Testament the individual believer has been made a priest and is therefore responsible for the offering up of sacrifices. In 1 Peter 2:5 it says, “you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
In the movie Unbroken, Olympian and World War II bombardier Louis Zampenni found himself afloat at sea for 47 days in inflatable rafts after his B-24 Liberator bomber crashed. During this time Louis fought off a shark attack, survived a storm, was strafed by a Japanese plane, and saw one of his two friends who survived the plane crash die.
Today, perhaps more than ever, people, both Christian and non-Christian struggle with setting goals and priorities. There are many reasons why people struggle with such things, nonetheless, the way we perceive reality plays an important role in our choices.
In his article “A Box Full of Treasures: Letters Home from a Young Soldier,” Richard M. Barrett spoke of former judge Philip D. O’Donnell, Jr., going through the personal effects of his recently deceased aunt and coming across an old cigar box containing “hand-written letters and faded photographs.” To his surprise he found a number of hand-written letters from Edward A. Stewart, World War I machine gunner serving with the American Expeditionary Forces in France in November 1918. Eddie was described as a “courageous, patriotic native son who was a popular, well-liked, natural born leader.” Eddie was the sort of son and soldier that made one proud to be an American.
In the book of Acts 14:8-19 the Bible touches on a very unique encounter Paul and Barnabas had during their ministry. The account begins in verse 8 where it says, “In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked.
Martin Luther was truly a great man of God. He lived roughly 500 years ago. He is best known as the man who stood up to the heretical teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. If not for his bravery, we would not have the freedom of worship we enjoy today.
Martin Luther was not only a great crusader of the faith, he was a very loving husband and father. There was a time in his life when he was forced to wrestle with the brevity of life. His time of realization and struggle came when confronted by the illness and eventual death of his young daughter Magdalene.
Men huddled together in small cabins, coughing, hacking, sneezing, shivering, and cold to the bone. They were sick, hungry and considered themselves successful, if they managed to survive another day. Their leader knew, that if they failed to endure this seemingly endless cycle, their hopes and dreams would evaporate, in the blink of an eye.
Most everything surrounding man’s existence here on earth is somehow related to the concept of time and physical space. From the point of conception, to the time of our death, from the rising of the sun, to its setting, we are reminded that all things in this world expire. Science itself predicts that the sun, as we know it, will slowly transform into a “red giant” (a step in the process of the death of a star) in roughly “5 billion years.”
On March 11, 2004, three days before Spain’s general elections, 191 people were killed by a series of explosions set off in the city of Madrid. Based on a fingerprint match, attorney Brandon Mayfield was arrested and jailed.
The quality of the fingerprint match was considered to be an “absolutely incontrovertible match.”1 Typically, examiners demand that “12 unique traits correspond to declare a match.”2 Mayfield’s print shared 15 traits with the one found in Madrid. The fingerprints were so close, even the expert witness Mayfield hired testified it was a match.
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We encourage you to take a few moments to see what author Joy Wilday has for us this week from God’s Word.
Nothing in life is more important than ones relationship with God. Take a moment to consider the Keys To Salvation.
