My good friend John and I were working our way through a midlife crisis so we came up with a bucket list:

1. Be in a storm at sea
2. Take a parachute jump
3. Learn the eskimo roll in a kayak
4. Try Scuba diving

I know what you are thinking, but there is something about the 40’s that makes men do unnatural endeavors. They start believing the door is closing on possibilities and they’d better grab the ring because it won’t come around again.

I jumped from the plane thinking this would be my last view of earth. Then, I was so seasick; I wished someone would put me down. Lastly, I almost drowned in a swimming pool trying in vain to do the eskimo roll. Never did get to go scuba diving, which is probably why I can write this today.

Solomon spoke of doing things:

Ecclesiastes 1:17

And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind.

Except for the wisdom part, my friend and I took a shot at the rest. We discovered that, when it comes to Solomon and chasing the wind, history does repeat itself.

Think about it.

Gary

It was a warm summer evening and eight or ten of us middle school kids were just goofing off on someone’s lawn. X’s mother and father pulled up in their car. The mother was driving and the father got out and threw X into the rear seat and started punching him as the car drove away.

We were stunned, and I didn’t respond to the event well. My dad had never touched me in anger all the time I was growing up. I never saw any child treated like that. X was a tough kid, but was well liked by our little gang. He died at a young age of a heart attack, and I will never forget X or what I witnessed on that warm summer evening in Maine. The memory hurts me now more than it ever did.

It is a shame that that father didn’t practice what the Bible teaches about children:

Colossians 3:21

Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.

None of the gang had a father like that, and I believe we went home with a different respect for our dads.

Think about it.

Gary

Robert Frost knew about the time- tested principle of roads. The traveler is always presented with more than one, but he can only take one at a time.

If only I had enlisted, if only I had taken that person for a life partner, if only I had never smoked, if only I had eaten better, if only I had taken education seriously…  the list is endless.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

“If” is a two-letter word that is more soul-searching than any word in the Bible.

Hebrews 3:15

 while it is said, “Today if you hear His voice,

Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.”

Hardness is the wrong choice and has eternal consequences. You take that road and you will always be looking back with regret.

Think about it.

Gary

We were two young boys who often found ourselves wrestling. He was a challenge because he was stronger than I was and had a trigger temper that I needed to avoid at any cost.  Sometimes we’d even be rolling down a flight of stairs or the steep embankment of a gravel pit. The weapon I had at my disposal was a sense of humor that I could easily use on him and subdue him. I think he preferred laughter to winning. (The Irish are strange that way.)

When God places us in difficult, confrontational situations, we must rely on the tools he has given us.

Ephesians 6:11-12

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Can you see that? You are destined to wrestle, but God has given you the tools to win.

Think about it.

Gary

The song, “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places,” was sung by Johnny Lee. It was released in June 1980. It was a hit because so much of humanity can relate to it. The path of finding that perfect partner is littered with the wrecks of failures in this pursuit.

One stanza goes like this:

I was lookin’ for love in all the wrong places
Lookin’ for love in too many faces
Searchin’ their eyes
Lookin’ for traces of what I’m dreaming of
Hoping to find a friend and lover
I’ll bless the day I discover
Another heart lookin’ for love.

Perfect love is not found in man, but in the One who fashioned us.

Romans 8:35

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

1 John 3:1

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

It’s good to love others and have others love us. However, His love is unconditional, secure, and eternal.

Think about it.

Gary

It was the summer of 1864, and (no, I wasn’t there) the country was being torn apart by war and racial tension. It seemed like half of America was at the throats of the other half. Homes and families were divided over many issues.

The Reverend Lowry, who was frustrated while ministering in New York City because of confederate sympathizers, was meditating on:

Revelation 22:1:

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb

The pastor had an inspiration about a future time when everything was going to be OK and God’s people were going to be united in fellowship with Him. He sat down and produced this ageless hymn.

The chorus in that song goes like this:

Yes, we’ll gather at the river,

The beautiful, the beautiful river;

Gather with the saints at the river

That flows by the throne of God.

“Why can’t we all get along?” is a soul-searching question. The sin nature of man is the only answer to that. However, there is coming a day when even our sin nature will be removed and we can stand before the throne of God united.

Give it some thought.

Gary

My brother-in-law befriended an old man who has very little of this life’s goods. As he related the account of his friendship, my mind went to another story of his father standing up for the underdog. How heartwarming to see another generation doing the right thing because it can.

Paul made the same challenge to the Philippian Christians:

Philippians 4:9

Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.

It is amazing the benefit we can be to others when we realize the reward from reaching down and helping others up.

Think about it.

Gary