Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

As we have been discussing, homes and churches across the country today are haunted by ghosts of the Ephraimites, men who were skilled and fully equipped for battle but who turned and fled when the going got tough (see Psalm 78:9).

Psalm 78 is a hymn of history. Being a Maskil psalm, it is designed to instruct those who ponder its message. The opening words command us to listen . . . to incline our ears to what the composer, Asaph, has to say.

We've been talking about how easy it is to take one thing and transform it into another as it leaves our lips. Exaggerate this detail or rearrange that fact and you've got a recipe that'll make more mouths water than hot fudge on a rainy night.

"Don't garble the message!" If I heard that once during Marine boot camp, I must've heard it four dozen times. Again and again, our outfit was warned against hearing one thing, then passing on a slightly different version.

If you haven't read yesterday's reading, I'd like to ask you to do that. It's crucial that you understand that God has given Christians an extra inner reservoir of power that is more than a match for the stuff life throws at us.

No offense, but some of you don't have any business reading this today. Normally, I do not restrict my words to any special group of people. But now I must. This time it is for Christians only.

I really feel sorry for Eutychus. It was bad enough for the fella to fall asleep in church while Paul was preaching . . . he even fell out the window to his death three stories below! But then, of all things, Dr. Luke included the incident for all the world to read.

Like an anger-blind, half-starved rat prowling in the foul-smelling sewers below street level, so is the person caged within the suffocating radius of selfish jealousy. Trapped by resentment and diseased by rage, he feeds on the filth of his own imagination.

As we've been discussing, there are certain times when it's necessary to keep quiet, to relax, to back off. Intensity often leads to futility. Like the little boy who plants the seed and then nervously digs it up every day to see if it is growing.

Kids are nutty. Some friends of ours in Texas have two little girls. The younger child is constantly on the move, rarely winding down by bedtime. So the nightly affair has become something of a familiar routine.

They called him "Old Hickory" because of his tenacity and grit. His mother chose "Andrew" on March 15, 1767, when she gave birth to that independent-minded South Carolina rebel.

Shakespeare called it "the green sickness." Bacon admitted "it has no holidays." Horace declared that "tyrants never invented a greater torment." Barrie said envy "is the most corroding of the vices."

What exactly is envy? How does it differ from its twin, jealousy? Envy (the more sophisticated of the two) is a painful and resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another . . . accompanied by a strong desire to possess the same advantage.

As you waved goodbye to your friends at church last Sunday, what mental darts were left stuck in the target of your thinking? Can you remember those pointed challenges from the man who stood before you with Bible in hand?

Strange creatures roam the land these days. Being efficient, diligent, and productive, they are remarkably impressive . . . but beneath the surface they are suffering from a miserable malady.

Let's Label. That's a favorite parlor game among Christians. The rules are easy to remember. Any number can play. But it's especially appealing to those who are given to oversimplification and making categorical comments. Name-droppers thrive on this game.

Chances are very good that there are those in your church fellowship, workplace, or family who feel unwanted, forgotten, unloved (and unlovely!)—and are more lonely than words can express. I wish to speak on their behalf and in their defense today.

Her voice was weak and fearful as she spoke to me over the phone. It was almost midnight and she kept apologizing . . . but she was so lonely and wanted someone to listen to her. I never got her name nor her address.

We've been talking about the tragedy of insensitivity in relationships. Parental sensitivity rates desperately low these days. It's part of the fall-out of our rapid pace. Solomon tells us that our children "make themselves known" by their deeds, their actions.

My kids pulled a fast one on me one Christmas years ago. They teamed up, pooled their vast financial resources, and bought me a little motto to set on my desk. It was more than cute . . . it was convicting.