The Girl With No Future

         Désirée was a fourteen-year-old teenager, and she was nervous. She had enrolled in the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts.          

         Like, many girls her age, she battled insecurities. Moreover, her life had been especially difficult. Included in her misfortunes was the death of her father, who died when she was four.

         Her grandfather had been a performer at one time, and he had encouraged her to pursue acting as she was growing up. Now, with her mother's approval, she was to begin acting lessons in a prestigious school.  

         Sadly, her dreams were not realized. Brutally, experts and professionals told her that she "had no future at all as a performer."

         Our blessing is that Désirée ultimately did not listen to those who were supposedly able to see into her future. She continued to pursue a career in acting, using modeling as her portal into her dream profession.

         Today, who does not enjoy watching Lucille Désirée Ball perform in movies and her classic TV show?

         A lot of people grow so depressed living in this world, they cannot bear to look to the future.

         I’m so glad we serve One, who is not only the God of the past and present, but also of the future. He sees what we cannot see, and He is moving our world to powerful, yet wonderful end. Although we cannot see it as He can, we can view it with hope through faith.

          20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (Eph. 3:20-21.)

  

Source for Lucille Ball story: u-s-history.com

The Power that Changes Lives

                    Robert Caro writes about a federal study of half a million farm families in the thirties, showing that each person used an average 40 gallons of water every day. A family of 5, the average, used 200 gallons or 4/5 of a ton of water every day. That's 73, 000 gallons of water—300 tons—in a year!

            In the Texas Hill Country, the average well was located 253 feet from the house. In one year, the normal person would be required to walk approximately 1750 miles carrying buckets.

               Pumping 73, 0000 gallons by hand and walking the 1750 miles would require the equivalent of 63, eight-hour, work days.

            Normally, each bucket would carry four gallons of water, which weighed 32 lbs. That's 64 pounds of water a person would have to carry, each trip, from the pump!

            And guessed who carried it? Maybe kids helped, but mostly the farmer’s wife!

            That's why so many developed back trouble and stooped backs.

            Now, imagine how electricity changed life on the farm?

            It operated pumps for water, irons for ironing, washing machines for washing.

            Now, electricity was present all that time of pumping water. Humans had not discovered it or harnessed its power. But Humanity finally discovered the power of electricity and the farm families accessed that power for themselves…. The power of electricity changed lives.

            God has power to change lives even more. You may not see it, but it is there. Go to God.

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (Eph. 3:20-21).

Sitting on Treasure

I read in WORLD magazine, this week, that a family now looks to Superman, as a true superhero. They were about to lose their house, which had been in their family for several years.

As family members were preparing to be evicted, they came across a box of comic books. In this box was the comic book that introduced Superman to the world in 1938. Back then, it sold for ten cents. Estimates now place its value around $250,000.

I think Christians, likewise, do not realize the treasure they are sitting upon. By that, I do not mean US dollars, rather I am talking about a life in Jesus that is so full of contentment and meaning, it exceeds our ability to describe. What's more, this quality-of-life—this life to be treasured—is available throughout eternity.

I cannot explain it. Paul tries, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” (Eph. 3:20-21.)

The Serendipity of Failure

A few years ago, James Burke noted in TIME magazine that Alexander Graham Bell invented an instrument to inform people of the arrival of telegrams. He did not realize it would become the telephone.

Alessandro Volta devised a eudiometer for exploding bad-smelling gases with electricity. This became the spark plug.

In the late 1800s, aniline dye accidentally fell into a German researcher's petri dish that contained a bacterial culture. He discovered that the dye “preferentially stains and kills certain bacteria.” This paved the way for chemotherapy.

Serendipity intervened: in London summer of 1928, an open window in a hospital lab let in a spore that settled on a staphylococcus-culture dish left unwashed. A mold grew and contaminated the staphylococcus. The lab user returned. Hence, because his lab had not been cleaned, lab user and bacteriologist, Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin.

An Italian explorer sailed across the Atlantic Ocean hoping to find a new route to India and enrich himself trading for spices. Christopher Columbus instead discovered a new world, which literally led to seismic shifts in geography, world power, and, literally, world view.

By its purest definition, all of these inventions and discoveries were failures. They did not meet their original objectives. However, the successes of the byproducts of these “failures” have been staggering.

All of these serve as a nice metaphor for the Christian’s walk with God. Whether they are true failures or unplanned directional turns, Scripture teaches us God can work through both. This truth lends an atmosphere of excitement to the Christian journey. As my colleague, Tim Henderson, put it in one of his blogs, “It is better living to be watching for the unexpected than expecting the living to follow our plan. May you enjoy a life of watching God do more than you can explain or imagine.”

Tim’s words remind me of some of Paul’s, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” (Eph. 3:20-21.)