Risking It All - Happy Independence Day!

I am proud to be an American.  I am grateful that the founders of this great country valued liberty over security.  I ran across this video below.  It is 9 minutes and 54 seconds and is a history lesson taught by the beloved Paul Harvey.  I miss that man.  This is worth your time.  The Founding Fathers of our country risked it all.  They pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

Happy Independence Day to you and yours.  Paul Harvey

He Is Risen!! Bought With A Price

I walked out to the barn this morning to milk the cows.  The weather was nice and cool on Resurrection Sunday Morning.  Maybe it is just me, but most Resurrection Sunday Mornings are gorgeous.  Blue skies, nice weather, green leaves on trees, flowers blooming.  It is as if God was putting an exclamation mark on the day we celebrate the empty tomb - the day that Christ rose from the dead to redeem us from our sins.

Milking cows is a peaceful task.  It is quiet, except for the clucking of the hens scratching for grain right outside the gate.  And the goats bleating.  And the calves mooing and the swish sound of of milk hitting the muslin cloth that covers the milking bucket.  This morning while milking the cows, I happened to have my phone with me.  For some reason I searched on YouTube for Paul Harvey.  I miss Paul Harvey.  We need journalists like him again!

While I milked, I turned up the volume on my phone and listened to a 4 minute message that Paul Harvey gave years ago that is poignant and well worth your time to listen to it:  (Click the arrow below)  Good Day!

He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.  Matthew 28:6

All Things Work Together for Good

I miss Paul Harvey.  Back when I was farming with my Dad, he would come pick me up on the tractor and tell me it was 'bean time.'  We would drive into town and go to the Texaco station on the corner of Main Street.  They had the best chicken fingers ever!  Gas station food is good stuff, I tell ya.  We would drive back to the farm and turn down Durio Cemetary Road and park underneath the shadows of the sprawling limbs of a giant live oak tree that shaded the tombstones of a family cemetery that contains the remains of soldiers that fought in the Civil War.

We'd roll down the windows, open up our white paper bags of chicken fingers and fries and open up the little packets of ketchup, squirting it on the bag to dip our chicken fingers in.  While we ate our chicken, we'd always listen to Paul Harvey's News & Commentary that came on a noon.  We especially liked a segment called "The Rest of the Story," where he'd tell an interesting story about someone or something that had an interesting twist at the end or you'd learn something that you didn't know.  Paul Harvey would close with..."And now you know - the rest of the story!"

I want to tell a similar story today that I read on the website Mentalfloss.  It involves a tragic story about actress/entertainer Jayne Mansfield.  In the summer of 1967 Jayne Mansfield, her driver and her lawyer and three of her children were traveling from Biloxi, Mississippi at 2:30 a.m. en route to New Orleans for a television interview the next morning. They were driving the Buick Electra 225 fast and came upon an 18 wheeler.  It was shrouded by mosquito fog from another truck and they never saw it.  They drove right up underneath the back of the big rig, shearing off the cab and killing the 3 adults instantly. Amazingly, the 3 kids sleeping in the back seat all survived with minor injuries.  If you watch the television program, Law and Order, you'll know one of Jayne Mansfield's kids, Mariska Hargitay, who plays a detective in the crime series.  She was 3 years old at the time and survived the accident and still has a scar from it.

The tragic fatal accident led the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to mandate that all 18 wheeler trailers to be fitted with "Mansfield Bars" to keep cars from running up underneath the back of the trailers.  I'm sure you've seen them on the Interstate.  There is a photo of them below:

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While it was too late to save Jayne Mansfield and the adult occupants of her vehicle, the "Mansfield Bars" have saved countless lives.  Something good came from something very bad.  If man can take a horrible thing and make something good out of that tragic situation, how much more can God?  It reminds me of Romans 8:28 " And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."

All things means good things AND bad things.  If you love God and are called according to His purpose, He will cause all things - both the good and the bad - to work together for good.  This serves as a good reminder to me when I'm going through rough times.  God is working.  I may not understand it, and it may not be in my timing, but I need to be patient and trust Him.  He's working it all together for good.

And now you know the rest of the story...

If I Were the Devil

After my post the other day about Bringing Lunch out to the Field, I was thinking about Paul Harvey's commentaries we would listen to on the radio.  As Dad and I would eat our lunch each day by the family cemetery under the shade tree of a century old oak tree, Mr. Harvey would join us for lunch saying, "Hello, Americans, this is Paul Harvey.  Stand by for news!"  It was one of those routines that you hated to miss.

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We liked listening to him.  It was like an old friend had joined you for lunch.  He told the news along with commentary and his "The Rest of the Story" segments were always so interesting and inspiring. He (along with Vienna sausage sandwiches and having lunch with my Dad) can be credited with making lunches on the farm a memorable experience.  I wonder if Paul Harvey liked Vienna sausages or if he preferred Olive Loaf?

Regardless, back on topic: If you're like me, you've probably received more than your fair share of chain emails.  Most of them are untrue or embellished and the others are designed to make you fearful.  Back 7 years or so, I received one containing an essay entitled, "If I were the Devil," supposedly written by Paul Harvey.  Actually (according to Snopes.com), the one that was making the rounds on the Internet was not written by Mr. Harvey, but was somewhat similar, with the same cadence and theme.

The original essay that Mr. Harvey penned back in 1964 and was included in his newspaper column back then.  I searched and found the one he really wrote and it is as follows:

If I Were the Devil

If I were the prince of darkness, I would want to engulf the whole world in darkness.

I'd have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree — thee.

So, I would set about however necessary to take over the United States.

I'd subvert the churches first, and I would begin with a campaign of whispers.

With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: "Do as you please."

To the young, I would whisper that the Bible is a myth. I would convince the children that man created God instead of the other way around. I'd confide that what's bad is good and what's good is square.

And the old, I would teach to pray after me, "Our Father, which are in Washington ..."

Then, I'd get organized, I'd educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting.

I'd peddle narcotics to whom I could. I'd sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. I'd tranquilize the rest with pills.

If I were the devil, I'd soon have families at war with themselves, churches at war with themselves and nations at war with themselves until each, in its turn, was consumed.

And with promises of higher ratings, I'd have mesmerizing media fanning the flames.

If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellect but neglect to discipline emotions. I'd tell teachers to let those students run wild. And before you knew it, you'd have drug-sniffing dogs and metal detectors at every schoolhouse door.

With a decade, I'd have prisons overflowing and judges promoting pornography. Soon, I would evict God from the courthouse and the schoolhouse and them from the houses of Congress.

In his own churches, I would substitute psychology for religion and deify science. I'd lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls and church money.

If I were the devil, I'd take from those who have and give to those who wanted until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious.

What'll you bet I couldn't get whole states to promote gambling as the way to get rich?

I'd convince the young that marriage is old-fashioned, that swinging is more fun and that what you see on television is the way to be.

And thus, I could undress you in public and lure you into bed with diseases for which there are no cures.

In other words, if I were the devil, I'd just keep right on doing what he's doing.

51 years later, here we are.  Mr. Harvey hit the bulls eye.  How could he have been so prescient?  I only wish he wouldn't have written it as I think the Devil used it to develop his strategy to hasten America's fall.  In reading that and seeing how far we are down the path of darkness, it might be easy to become discouraged, but there is always hope.  Rather than shake our heads and give up, we can do a few things: First - Pray.  Ask for guidance and direction and deliverance.  Then, begin to make a difference by being a Light in your own sphere of influence - with your spouse, your kids, and your extended family.  Don't give up in doing good.  Finally, as the Good Book says, "Submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil and he will flee."