Years ago, Bill Hybels shared how he had seen a newscast about a big Vietnam veterans parade in Chicago. Part of the commemoration was a mobile version of the Vietnam Wall. Like the original, it bore the names of all the soldiers who had died in Vietnam. Hybels said one newscaster asked a vet why he had come all the way to Chicago to visit this memorial and to participate in the parade. The soldier ...

In his book Are You Fascinated? management consultant Ken Tucker shares a story about the great lengths a person will go to find something of great value:

[Bill Adams, CEO of a large hospital in Virginia, received a frantic call from a woman.] "My mother came into your hospital with her wedding ring, and now we can't find it," [she] said. … "I want to make an appointment to discuss this with ...

Most kingdoms do anything they can to protect their king. This is the unspoken premise of the game of chess, for example. When the king falls, the kingdom is lost. Therefore, the king must be protected at all costs. Another notable example comes from the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill desperately wanted to join the expeditionary forces ...

God can't clean the house of you when you're still in it.

—Anne Lamott, U.S. author (1954—)

Change in giving to religious organizations and churches in 2008: +5.5 percent (a total of $106.89 billion)

Change in overall charitable giving in 2008: –2 percent (a total of $307.65 billion, the first decline in overall giving since 1987)

There were five of us traveling across the Sahel of Africa, just south of the Sahara Desert. We had started out in Niamey, Niger, and we were working our way toward the Dogon in Mali. We were traveling through Burkina Faso in a Toyota Land Cruiser. The air conditioning system was broken, and the temperature outside was 120 degrees plus. It was dusty, the windows were open, and it was hard to carry ...

In light of the economic crisis of 2009, researchers asked 695 U.S. parents to identify their top priorities:

• Fifty-four percent said their children's health care
• Twenty-five percent said housing
• Eleven percent said food and groceries
• Six percent said their own and their spouse's health care
• The remaining participants listed other items.

My friend Linda, who teaches first grade, told me about an interaction she had with one of her students on the first day of school. Accustomed to going home at noon in kindergarten, Ryan was getting his things ready to leave for home when he was actually supposed to be heading to lunch with the rest of the class. Linda asked him what he was doing. "I'm going home," he replied. Linda tried to explain ...

Jesus relentlessly undermines all that is not god to make room for the God who has redeemed our hearts.

A few years ago, a good friend of mine took his three-year-old daughter, Amy, to her first circus. Before the event her father tried his best to describe the exciting atmosphere of the big top. She asked lots of questions along the way. Would she get to pet the elephant? Could she swing on the trapeze? Would the clowns come and talk to her? The night before, she could hardly sleep. She woke her parents ...