Jimmy Kimmel “high-five’s” the President

             I am not a fan of Jimmy Kimmel. However, I do appreciate something that he said last week at the National Correspondence Dinner in Washington DC.

            Actually, it was at the close of what was basically his standup act. Having entertained and skewered politicians of both parties, and having joked to and about the president of the United States, Kimmel ended his monologue by saying, “I [also] want to think Mr. Mills, my high school tenth grade history teacher, who said I would never amount to anything if I kept [messing] around in class. Mr. Mills, I am about to high-five the President of the United States.” After Kimmel did indeed high-fived the President of the United States, he told the audience--and I am paraphrasing here--, “Take that Mr. Mills.”

            Good for Jimmy Kimmel. He does demonstrate the fact that all of us had better be careful as we watch young people file through our midst.

            I have the privilege of teaching high school seniors at a Christian academy. I teach them Bible. Today's “screw ups” may be tomorrow's bosses.

            For several years I taught freshman Bible a Christian university. Some of those classes had close to a 100 students. Enough time has passed for me to see a few of those freshmen, who seemed destined for failure, turn into successes.

            I have enormous respect for Kimmel, who has taken his disruptive and anti-educational behavior and turned it into an art form. Indeed, he does this so well that the national correspondents believed he would be the ideal entertainment for their annual dinner in which the President of the United States is the guest of honor.

The Dot

           Here’s a convicting story. A preacher was once addressing a group of men. He took a large, blank sheet of paper, placed a black dot in the center with his pen, and held it up before the men.

            “What do you see?” he asked.

            One person responded quickly, “I see a black mark.”

            “Right,” the preacher replied. “What else do you see?”

            Total silence.

            “Don’t you see anything other than the dot?” he asked.

            No reply.

            “I’m really surprised that you have completely overlooked the most important thing of all—the rest of the sheet of paper.”

            His application was this. Life is full of blessings and possibilities. Too often, we allow the relatively fewer and smaller, dot-like disappointments or painful experiences to distract us.

            In our lives, we have so much to be thankful for—and so much possibility with what is yet to come.

           

19 Praise the Lord; praise God our savior! For each day he carries us in his arms (Psalm 68:19.) NLT

Source: Our Daily Bread