Posted in bible reading, Bible teaching, daily devotion, devotional, discipleship, Faith Journey, Inspiration, motivation, spiritual journey, tagged appreciation, being polite, do something no one knows about, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Israel Bissel, motives, one who sees, Paul Revere, sinful pride, Thanksgiving on March 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Whatever you do, work with all your soul, as for the Lord and not for people, since you know that will receive the reward of your inheritance from the Lord. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
Colossians 3:23-24
Posted in Bible teaching, devotional, Faith Journey, motivation, tagged appreciation, Captain Charlie Plumb, Ernest Hemingway, Hanoi, Nobel Prize, packing parachutes, parachute, Pulitzer Prize, sacrifice of others, Sherwood Anderson, success, Thanksgiving, USS Kitty Hawk, Vietnam, who packed your parachute, William Faulkner on November 28, 2013| 3 Comments »
Happy Thanksgiving!
Story of the Day for Thursday November 28, 2013
Who Packed Your Parachute?
Remember your leaders who spoke God’s Word to you.
Hebrews 13:7
Captain Charlie Plumb piloted an F-4 Phantom jet during the Vietnam War. On May 19, 1967, he was flying a mission near Hanoi when his jet was hit by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy territory.
Years later, Plumb and his wife were eating in a restaurant in Kansas City. A man a couple tables away kept staring at him. Later, the man got up from his table, walked over up to Charlie and said, “You’re Captain Plumb.”
“Yes, sir, I’m Captain Plumb.”
“You flew jet fighters in Vietnam,“ he said. “You were on the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.” The man continued to recite Plumb’s history in Vietnam: being shot down, parachuting into enemy hands, and spending six years as a POW.”
“How in the world,” Charlie asked, “did you know all that?”
“Because,” the man replied, “I packed your parachute,” adding, “I guess it worked.”
Charlie Plumb has shared his meeting with this sailor with thousands of audiences. When he finishes his story, he asks: “Who packed your parachute?”
We focus on those who achieve great things as if their accomplishments were done on their own. Yet, Charlie Plumb’s encounter with a sailor from the Kitty Hawk led him to realize that his success is due to the help and sacrifices of so many others.
After World War I, a returning vet rented an apartment in Chicagoin order to live next to one of his favorite authors, Sherwood Anderson.
For two years, the two met nearly every day. When the young veteran, hoping to become a writer, brought samples of his work to Anderson, he could count on receiving brutally honest critiques. After each critique, the young man would return to his typewriter and seek to improve his writing.
Seven years later, the young man, Ernest Hemingway, published his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. “I didn’t know how to write,” Hemingway admits, “until I met Sherwood Anderson.”
After Hemingway’s success, Anderson moved to New Orleans. He began mentoring another young writer. Three years later, this new student, William Faulkner, published the American classic, The Sound and the Fury.
Anderson was a fine writer, but is better remembered for those he helped. Three of Anderson’s students won the Nobel Prize for literature and four won the coveted Pulitzer Prize.
Who mentored you? Who guided and instructed you to become the person you are?
Whatever we achieve in life, it’s important to remember two important people: those who guided us with their wisdom, and those who packed our parachute.
(copyright 2011 by climbinghigher.org and by Marty Kaarre)
Posted in bible reading, daily devotion, discipleship, Inspiration, spiritual journey, tagged discouraged man, fake turkey, misunderstanding, refuge, Texas law frim, Thanksgiving, thanksgiving turkey, unintentional mistake on July 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Then the Lord said to Moses . . . “Choose some towns to be your cities of refuge.”
Numbers 35:11
But Swindoll explains how one young attorney has no use for a turkey. Besides having no idea how to cook one, he was single and didn’t need a whole turkey.
His co-workers understood this, so one year they replaced his turkey with one made out of paper mâché and weighted to make it feel like a real turkey.
On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the young attorney picked up his bird, announced how grateful he was to work at the firm, how thankful he was for his turkey, and went home.
He caught a bus and, with the large turkey on his lap, wondered what he was going to do with it. Just then a discouraged-looking man boarded the bus and sat next to him. The attorney learned the man had a large family but was out of work. He had spent the day job-hunting with no success.
The attorney saw his opportunity to do a good deed; he would give the man his turkey. But he didn’t want the man to feel like a beggar, so he asked him, “How much money do you have?”
He had less than three dollars.
The attorney said, “I’d like to sell you this turkey.”
The man was moved — thrilled that he could bring home a turkey for Thanksgiving. When the man got off the bus he waved to the attorney. “God bless you! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I’ll never forget you.”
Can you picture the man bursting through the front door? “Kids, you’ll never believe what a nice man I met today! Come here, look what I have.”
On Monday morning, the young attorney’s co-workers were dying to find out about his turkey.
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? And it feels awful.
When we do something wrong, it’s often easier to find forgiveness than when we hurt someone unintentionally and have no way to apologize. How do you find forgiveness for something you don’t really believe was wrong?
In the days of Moses, God told him to set up refuge cities for accidental sins. If you killed someone unintentionally, you could flee to a refuge city and be ensured safety until justice was done.
Those refuge cities are a small picture of who God is for us. “O Lord,” Isaiah says, “. . . you have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in distress.”
Story of the Day--climbinghigher 
