Illustration: Humility

At the state funeral of Ronald Reagan, the story was told of the time Reagan was in the hospital, recovering from the attempt on his life. An aide entering the room was alarmed to find him on hands and knees, wiping up some water he had spilled from the sink. "Mr. President!" exclaimed the aide, "We have people for this." Reagan simply replied that he didn't want the nurses getting into trouble because of water on the bathroom floor.

Illustration: Ego, Arrogance, Humility

The famous actor Gregory Peck once was standing in line with a friend, waiting for a table in a crowded Los Angeles restaurant. They had been waiting for some time; the diners seemed to be taking their time eating, and new tables weren't opening up very fast.

Seeing Scripture Through the Prism of Application

Bob Russell is one of the finest practitioners of application in preaching. In Dave Stone's book Refining Your Style (Group), there's a brief interview with Bob in which he talks about his approach to application: "The ideal for me is about half Bible teaching and half application. I say, 'Here's the point. Here's what happened to King David. Now do you see how this applies to your life? Here's what this Scripture says about people in the workplace. You see how this applies to your life?' Then pretty soon, the people in the pews start anticipating that. They start looking at the Bible through a different prism because they're seeing how it's going to apply.

‘Take Words’: Hosea 14:1-9

Where in Scripture do you turn for encouragement? How many would give the Old Testament prophets as their answer? I'll wager that many of us would say we find their poetry hard to understand and their words of judgment-wellsomething other than encouraging.

Unbroken

Laura Hillenbrand is another compelling author. Her latest book is Unbroken (Random House), the story of Louis Zamperini, who went from being a teenage petty thief to an Olympic runner, then a World War II POW, and ultimately a man who found Christ through the ministry of Billy Graham.

Bloody Crimes

James L. Swanson's book Manhunt was a great read, on the search for John Wilkes Booth after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. His newest book is Bloody Crimes (Harper Perennial), which tells the interweaving story of Lincoln's assassination and funeral (and long railroad journey to his final resting place) and the chase for Jefferson Davis at the end of the Civil War.

Illustration: Truth, Lawyers

Stanford Research Institute was studying the differences in vocational perceptions. They devised a short but succinct test. The first to be tested was an engineer. The researchers asked him: "What does two plus two make?" The engineer simply said, "In absolute terms: four."

Illustration: Valleys

Besides the Bible's Valley of Megiddo, the most famous valley in literature is surely Alfred, Lord Tennyson's valley of death in his poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade," written to commemorate the suicidal charge by British forces in the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War (1854-1856): "Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon in front of them, volley'd and thunder'd."