Humility and Self Denial

Leonard Bernstein, the celebrated orchestra conductor, was asked, what is the hardest instrument to play. He replied without hesitation: "Second fiddle. I can always get plenty of first violinists, but to find one who plays second violin with as much enthusiasm or second French horn or second...

Bible Reading

When their son left for his freshman year at Duke University, his parents gave him a Bible, assuring him it would be a great help. Later, as he began sending them letters asking for money, they would write back telling him to read his Bible, citing chapter and verse. He would reply that he was reading the...

Running

The ancient Greeks held four national festivals, or games - Olympian, Isthmian, Pythian, and Nemean. The most important were the Olympian games, followed by the Isthmian, held every two years on the Isthmus of Corinth. The modern Olympics still retain vestiges of the dual emphases in the...

Direction

Stanley Jones tells of a missionary who got lost in an African jungle, nothing around him but bush and a few cleared places. He found a native hut and asked the native if he could get him out. The native said he could. "All right," said the missionary, "show me the way." The native...

Misunderstandings

A priest is walking down the street one day when he notices a very small boy trying to press a doorbell on a house across the street. However, the boy isvery small and the doorbell is too high for him to reach. After watching the boy's efforts...

Humility

John Ortberg writes, "Not long ago, there was a CEO of a Fortune 500 company who pulled into a service station to get gas. He went inside to pay, and when he came out he noticed his wife engaged in a deep discussion with the service station attendant. It turned out that she knew him. In fact, back in high...

Heavenly Attitude

Three women die and all three reach Heaven at the same time. There they meet St. Peter. He tells them he has some other important business to transact and asks them to wait outside. Finally he returns and calls the first woman into his office. He apologizes for making her wait so long. "Oh, I don't...

Risk

John G. Paton, a missionary to the South Sea Islands, often lived in danger as he worked among the hostile aborigines who had never heard the Gospel. Three witch doctors claimed that they would kill Paton. To carry out their threat, they said they needed some food he had partially eaten. He...

Desire

According to The Executive Speechwriter Newsletter (vol. 12, no. 3), "Desire kept young W. Clement Stone on Chicago's street corners selling newspapers. Desire later made him one of the wealthiest people in America as principal owner of Combined Insurance Corporation of America. "Desire made...