Everybody’s Doing It

Once a spider built a beautiful web in an old house. He kept it clean and shiny so that flies would patronize it. The minute he got a "customer" he would clean up on him so the other flies would not get suspicious. Then one day this fairly intelligent fly came buzzing by the clean spider web. Old m

Devout Fathers

Gospel musician Hilding Halverson told of overhearing a conversation between his son and two other little boys. The youngsters were bragging about their dads. One boy said proudly, "My dad knows the mayor of our town!" Another said, "So, my dad knows the governor of our state!" Halverson's son th

Gambling

There are now 1,800 web sites dedicated to online gambling, up from 25 in 1997. Americans will lose $3 billion on Internet gambling this year. (The American Enterprise, Jan-Feb 2004, p. 6.)  

Fathers and Mothers

Robert Kopp tells about the woman who was walking with her young daughter. The little girl picked up something from the ground and started to put it in her mouth, but the mother told her to throw it away because it was dirty with germs. "Mommy, how do you know so much?" the girl asked. "Well, it'

Patience

A few years ago I bought a red flowering crabapple tree and carefully planted it in our yard. But it didn't exactly thrive - in fact, one by one the leaves started dropping off! My husband failed to see the urgency of the situation. "Give it a little time," he murmured. The next spring it did a lit

Decisions, Decisions

Sometimes the decision to do nothing is wise. But you can't make a career of doing nothing. Freddie Fulcrum weighed everything too carefully. He would say, "on the one hand… but then, on the other," and his arguments weighed out so evenly he never did anything. When Freddie died, they carv

Computers

According to the Feb. 25, 2003 issue of PC Magazine, the average computer user received 2,200 "spam" messages (unwanted commercial e-mail) in 2002. That number is expected to increase by 63% within the next five years. A 1,000-employee company will receive an estimated 2.1 million spam e-mails eve

Missionaries

A missionary returning home after many years of service was asked, "Tell me what you found when you arrived in New Guinea." "Found, I found something that looked more hopeless than if I had been sent into a jungle of tigers." "What do you mean?" "Why, the people seemed utterly devoid of moral sen

Human Sinfulness

There was a funny scene in the series "All in the Family" when Edith was still a part of Archie's household. Edith, in her own way, was kind of a saintly person. Archie is complaining, as Archie commonly did. He says to her, "That's you all right. Edith, the Good. You'll stoop to anything to be good

Surprises

Chuck Swindoll writes, "In a recent "Dear Abby" column I read a poignant story. A young man from a wealthy family was about to graduate from high school. It was a custom in their affluent community for parents to give their graduating children a new car, and the boy and his dad had spent weeks visit