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WITandWISDOM(tm) - April 12, 2005 ISSN 1538-8794 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin Source: Inspire, http://www.inspirelist.com/ ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: Jimmy Carter: In 1976, I was invited to speak to the 17,000 delegates assembled for the Southern Baptist Convention. Later that year I would be elected U.S. president, but I was asked to speak because I was an active member of the Brotherhood Commission, not because of my political status. Three of us were asked to represent Baptist men, and we were requested to limit our speeches to five minutes each. I was very concerned when I looked at the program, because the first speaker was the eloquent and charismatic Billy Graham, and I had to follow him. And then I was somewhat relieved, because the person speaking after me was a truck driver. I was told that he was literate, but not well educated, and I thought to myself, "Well, I suppose that at least I'll sound good compared to him." As we sat on the stage waiting to be introduced, the truck driver told me he had never made a speech in his life. "I don't think I can live through it," he said. "I just can't do it." He was drenched with sweat, and I was barely able to prevent his fleeing. Billy Graham gave one of his usual forceful and inspiring talks, and I did the best I could with my own remarks. Then the truck driver got up, and for a long time he just stood there. Someone took him a glass of water, and he almost mumbled into the microphone. "I was always drunk, and didn't have any friends. The only people I knew were men like me who hung around the bars in the town where I lived." Then someone--- he didn't remember who--- told him about Christ, and he wanted to tell other people. He studied the Bible. and talked to some men in the local church where he became a member. The only places he felt at ease were barrooms, and he began to talk to customers there. The bartender told him he was ruining his business and should find some other place to make a nuisance of himself. But he persisted, and eventually the folks in the bar looked forward to asking him questions. He said, "At first they treated me like a joke, but I kept up with the questions and when I couldn't answer one, I went and got the answer and came back with it. Fourteen of my friends became Christians." He stood there a few seconds, and then returned to his seat. The truck driver's speech, of course, was the highlight of the convention. I don't believe anyone who was there will ever forget that five-minute fumbling statement, or remember what I or even Billy Graham had to say. .....Jimmy Carter Source: Christian Voices, http://www.christianvoices.org ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: Roger Thompson writes... When I was in high school, I worked for a time at an armored-car company, Brinks Armored Co. in San Bernardino, California. My job was to take care of the coin that Brinks handles. We used to get forty tons of coin from Las Vegas. My job was to wrap this coin, and you had to be double-jointed and triple witted to run the huge machine that wrapped coins. And I could wrap $10,000 worth of quarters an hour. A bag of quarters weighs about eighty pounds--a thousand dollars. One day we got a call from Bank of America in downtown San Bernardino, and they were in a panic: "We've got to have some coin in the hour." Well, all the armored trucks were gone, and so Larry, my manager, backed his '49 Ford pickup into the bay. Now if Brinks ever finds out about this they're going to shoot this guy. We loaded $25,000 worth of coin in a '49 Ford pickup. That thing was dragging. That's over a ton. Larry said, "Hop in. We're going up to B of A." We hopped in. I'm in my T-shirt and blue jeans. We drove up to the front of the Bank of America, parked the truck, and Larry said, "Hang on, I'll go in and get the dolly, and we'll haul this stuff in." I'm whistling, standing against this truck for twenty minutes. I don't have a gun. I thought, If anybody notices what is in this common looking pickup truck, I'm a dead duck! Of course, you can't carry eighty pounds very far. The treasure that people were walking by! But they didn't see it for the commonness of the delivery system. Roger Thompson, "Treasure in a Brown Bag," Preaching Today, Tape 42. Source: A Dose of Inspiration, http://www.quietstones.com/mydailydose ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: Joe woke himself up with a loud "Hello!" to someone in his dream. As the next day came and went, Joe thought the nocturnal outburst was his alone to remember. But that night, as he and Margaret were getting ready for bed, she said dryly, "If you see anyone you know tonight, just wave." Submitted by Alex Bern ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: What's Wrong With Grown-Ups When the 10-year-olds in Mrs. Imogene Frost's class at the Brookside, N.J. Community Sunday School expressed their views of "What's wrong with Grown-ups?" they came up with these complaints: 1. Grown-ups make promises, then they forget all about them, or else they say it wasn't really a promise, just a maybe. 2. Grown-ups don't do the things they're always telling the children to do--like pick up their things, or be neat, or always tell the truth. 3. Grown-ups never really listen to what children have to say. They always decide ahead of time what they're going to answer. 4. Grown-ups make mistakes, but they won't admit them. They always pretend that they weren't mistakes at all--or that somebody else made them. 5. Grown-ups interrupt children all the time and think nothing of it. If a child interrupts a grownup, he gets a scolding or something worse. 6. Grown-ups never understand how much children want a certain thing--a certain color or shape or size. If it's something they don't admire--even if the children have spent their own money for it--they always say, "I can't imagine what you want with that old thing!" 7. Sometimes Grown-ups punish children unfairly. It isn't right if you've done just some little thing wrong and Grown- ups take away something that means an awful lot to you. Other times you can do something really bad and they say they're going to punish you, but they don't. You never know, and you ought to know. 8. Grown-ups are always talking about what they did and what they knew when they were 10 years old--but they never try to think what it's like to be 10 years old right now. J.A. Petersen, ed., For Families Only, Tyndale, 1977, p. 253 Source: Weekend Encounter, by Dick Innes, Copyright (c) ACTS International, 2004, http://www.actsweb.org/subscribe.htm