underground serenade
I was wowed by a video clip in which seven singers performed an 800-year-old hymn. They sang it a cappella in a German subway station where the underground acoustics created a haunting, beautiful sound. While the performance mesmerized me, I noticed that only a few people stopped to listen. With such a beautiful message and amazing delivery, I wondered why more people failed to attend the impromptu concert.
finishing well
Finishing well. It’s an idea we typically reserve for those approaching the last few years of life. But as a wise, older man (now with Jesus) once pointed out to me, finishing well is not simply for the elderly. In fact, it’s the choices we make now—years before we say our final “goodbyes”—that will help determine how we complete our years on earth.
no longer acting
A gifted local actor was asked to play the part of Scrooge in an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for my friend’s church. The revised story included a scene where his crusty character broke down, confessed his sin, and received Jesus as his Savior. Each play practice, the actor struggled with the scene—for he was not a believer in Christ. On opening night, however, as he was spoke the scripted words of repentance and acceptance of God’s gift of salvation, the Holy Spirit moved in his heart and he gave his life to Jesus!
prison break
"I absolutely know that in anybody’s eyes I was a traitor,” Mosab Hassan Yousef told the Wall Street Journal before the release of his book Son of Hamas. “To my family, to my nation, to my God. I crossed all the red lines in my society. I didn’t leave one that I didn’t cross.”
By “traitor,” Mosab—the son of Sheikh Hassan…
