Giving Years ago, a young mother was making her way across the hills of South Wales, carrying her tiny baby in her arms, when she was overtaken by a blinding blizzard. She never reached her destination and when the blizzard had subsided, her body was found by searchers beneath a mound of snow. But they…
Author: Alan Holden
Money
Money and Experience When a person with experience meets a person with money, the person with experience will get the money, and the person with the money will get some experience. –Leonard Lauder IRS Policy When you consider the taxes the average person has to pay, the IRS seems to have a policy of “handicap…
The Modern World
I Know How He Feels Our family had gathered around the television to witness the arrival of Pope John Paul II in America. As we watched the Pontiff step from the plane and symbolically kiss the ground, my eighty-year-old aunt turned to me and confided, “I know just how he feels. I hate to fly,…
Missions
Doing One Thing Right Charles Malik, Lebanese ambassador to the United Nations, asked in a speech: “What has been the greatest American contribution to the rest of the world? Has it been money? Has it been food? Has it been medical skill? Has it been military might? Has it been industrial know-how?” Then he answered:…
Ministry
What Is a Parable? Let me offer a few thoughts on illustrations. Illustration is an art with three purposes. First, its purpose is to find the listener, and second, to help the listener find the speaker. It is like a bridge. Third, an illustration establishes contact between the listener and the text, so that a…
Middle Age
Couples Apart Middle age is that time of life when a man will let his wife go anywhere as long as she doesn’t insist on his coming along. Really Fast Forget about jets, racing cars, and speed boats. Nothing goes as fast as middle age. Sinning in Middle Age Middle age is when you have…
Mercy
The Full Range of God’s Music I used to go out in the morning to get the paper when we lived in El Paso. Our house was a good four miles from the main parade ground at Fort Bliss. On most mornings, I could hear the whump, whump, whump of the thirteen-gun salute which was…
Maturity
The Opposite of Steward Is Victim In his book, The Search for Power, Harvard Professor David C. McClelland contends that there are four stages in the development of the individual to maturity: Stage 1: Power is perceived as coming from others, but is directed toward oneself. Stage 2: Power is perceived as residing within oneself,…
Materialism
Prudent Romance No woman marries for money; they are all clever enough, before marrying a millionaire, to fall in love with him first. –Cesare Pavese Sending It on Ahead Sigmund Freud’s favorite story was about the sailor shipwrecked on one of the South Sea islands. He was seized by the natives, hoisted to their shoulders,…
Marriage
Nothing Sacred Marriage used to be a contract. Now many regard it as a ninety-day option. Unlucky Man He’s been unlucky in both his marriages. His first wife left him and his second wife hasn’t. The Wages of Sin Is Stupidity Ann Landers received a letter from a woman who had broken off an affair…