Claude Thomas, pastor of First Baptist Church of Euless, TX, observed in a recent column, "In 1997 an article appeared in the journal published by the American Heart Association. It pointed to the negative physical consequences of hopelessness. The article essentially said that those who had...

Confidence

During Super Bowl XXXVII, FedEx ran a commercial that spoofed the movie Castaway, in which Tom Hanks played a FedEx worker whose company plane went down, stranding him on a desert island for years. Looking like the bedraggled Hanks in the movie, the FedEx employee in the...

A guy joins a monastery and takes a vow of silence. He's allowed to say two words every seven years. After the first seven years, the elders bring him in and ask for his two words. "Cold floors," he says. They nod and send him away. Seven more years pass. They bring him back in and ask for his two ...

Little Leroy came into the kitchen where his mother was making dinner. His birthday was coming up and he thought this was a good time to tell his mother what he wanted. "Mom, I want a bike for my birthday," Leroy asked. Now Little...

A little girl was sitting on her grandfather's lap as he read her a bedtime story. From time to time, she would take her eyes off the book and reach up to touch his wrinkled cheek. She was alternately stroking her own cheek, then his again. Finally she spoke up, "Grandpa, did God make you?" "Yes,...

Earlier this year, an urban church in Bristol, England, developed an interesting response to the high crime rate in its neighborhood. It developed "Prayer Patrols" that take place three times daily. Volunteers walk through the streets, knocking on doors, collecting prayer requests, and praying with...

Charles Swindoll wrote, "Who really cared? His was a routine admission to busy Bellevue Hospital. A charity case, one among hundreds. A drunken bum from the Bowery with a slashed throat. The Bowery last stop before the morgue. "The derelict's name was misspelled on the...

One day an office telephone rang and a receptionist answered. 'Hello,' she said, 'This is Fidelity Insurance Company. How may I help you?' A female voice on the other end of the line said, 'I want to talk with someone about having my husband's fidelity insured.' After a long pause and much stammering, the...

Commitment