Nelson Mandela: What’s Inside a Person?
What’s inside a person? Nelson Mandela is born and raised in a country village, becomes a lawyer against all odds, sacrifices everything in a fight for political freedom, becomes the leader of that fight, goes to prison for life in lieu of the death penalty for attempting to overthrow the government, gets released after 27 years, and forgives all the people who oppressed him and his people, then becomes president of the same nation and one of the most significant people of our generation. He wasn’t perfect and had a less-successful private life–divorced twice–yet he himself was the first to…
Paul Crouch Achieved His Vision
Paul Crouch, who built a Charismatic Christian television network empire, has died at 79. Loved by some, ridiculed by others; a great blessing to some, a superficial showman to others. Whatever you may think of the man is okay with me. But one thing about him deeply convicted me and is to all of us inescapable. In the mid 1970s, on the ceiling of a room in his house, he saw a vision. A map of North America appeared. From it pencil-thin lines streaked in all directions. Crouch asked, “Lord, what does this mean?” God responded with just one word:…
Meeting God after Disaster
In the aftermath of disaster, people worship. It’s happened in the Philippines after the great Typhoon. And we see it wherever there are believers. We’d like to think that when disasters strike, churches would be miraculously exempt from damage. After all, they’re God’s houses. But if they were, I wonder what effect it would have. Would it really make a positive difference? Somehow I think not. I suspect we would start to lean toward a magical take on our beliefs rather than living them out by faith. We would focus on what happened or didn’t happen versus meeting God in…
American or Kingdom Citizen
The German magazine Der Spiegel reports evidence that the National Security Agency has been spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone since 2002. God help us all. Angela Merkel has long proven herself to be among the world’s finest national leaders. And she’s one of my heroes. The revelation that my country has been tapping her cell phone–along with earlier revelations in France, and now Spain, and who knows how many more national leaders and citizens whose victimization haven’t yet been revealed–is a shock, and I am left ashamed of my own country’s betrayal of our closest allies. It…
Will You Adopt Me?
Davion had been born to a mother in jail, grown up in foster care and group homes and lived his life in a rage. When he finally tracked down his mother. She was a drug addict, in and out of prison, and had died only weeks earlier. That changed him. He turned around his behavior, his grades, even his weight. He desperately wanted to be accepted into a family. Tampa Bay Times reports that he heard God would help those who help themselves, so with his case worker’s support (the two are in the photo), he nervously went to a…
