In our relationships with others, often what passes for love is little more than a neat business transaction. People are kind to us, so we repay them with equal consideration. When they treat us unjustly, our negative response is really what they asked for. Everything is so balanced, so fair, so logical with this ...

Life's Purpose

At church camp when I was a teenager, an ugly rumor about two of our counselors quickly became the talk of the camp. The next day, at morning prayer, the minister read the story of the adulterous woman, in which Jesus told the crowd that any person who had no sin could cast the first stone. And one by one, those...

John Cassis tells the story related to him by a customs officer at the U.S.-Canada border: "A man came through one day with his four- or five-year-old son. The customs officer asked the man if he had anything to declare. The man said no, but he looked suspicious, so the officer pressed on. "'Are you carrying cigarettes?' ...

Insignificance of Human Beings

Incarnation Of Christ

During the Second World War, a church in Strasbourg was destroyed. After the bombing, the members of this particular church went to see what was left and found that the entire roof had fallen in, leaving a heap of rubble and broken glass. Much to their surprise, however, a stature of Christ with outstretched hands that ...

In her book It Only Hurts When I Laugh, Ethel Barrett tells about a king of Sparta in ancient Greece who boasted to a visiting monarch about the mighty walls of Sparta. But the guest didn't see any walls, and finally he said to his host, "I'd like to see those walls. Show them to me!" The Spartan ruler pointed with great ...