Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

Snap a telescopic lens on your perspective for the next few minutes. Pull yourself up close . . . close enough to see the real you. From the reflection in your mental mirror, pay close attention to your life. Try your best to examine the inner "you" on the basis of time.

"Physician. One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well," defines A. Bierce in The Devil's Dictionary. Of all the professions, that of the physician has to be the most paradoxical. Brilliant and quick-thinking . . . yet unable to write so that anybody (except a pharmacist) can decipher the words.

Several years ago I asked the ministry staff at the church I was pastoring to reflect on how their mothers had influenced their lives. Here are a few of the responses I received.

Several years ago someone interviewed the contemporary artist Marc Chagall for a PBS program. The young, arty interviewer started the session with a question about influences. His question was very long and involved and exhibited his own learning along the way.

If there's one attitude families are guilty of more than any other when it comes to mothers, it's presumption . . . taking them for granted . . . being nearly blind on occasion to the load moms carry. This was reinforced in my mind last week as I was thumbing through a row of crazy greeting cards at a local drugstore.

I had just completed a manuscript on Philippians, and my heart was full of joy. Not only because I was through (isn't that a wonderful word?) but because joy, the theme of the inspired letter I had spent weeks studying, had rubbed off. It was as if Paul and I had shared the same room and written at the same desk.

When I was deep in the redwoods some time ago, I lay back and looked up. I mean really up. It was one of those clear summer nights when you could see forever. So starry it was scary. The vastness of the heavens eloquently told the glory of God. No words could adequately frame the awesomeness of that moment.

Pull a sheet of scratch paper out of your memory bank and see how well you do with the following questions: Who taught Martin Luther his theology and inspired his translation of the New Testament? Who visited with Dwight L. Moody at a shoe store and spoke to him about Christ?

A Greek class was given an assignment to study the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25–37. As is true in most classes, a couple or three of the students cared more about the practical implications of the assignment than its intellectual stimulation.

Remember the words Marine Private Gomer Pyle used to repeat in almost every episode of his television show? "Surprise, surprise!" Some surprises refresh us. We're low. Under the pile. Then, out of the blue, we receive a letter of affirmation. Those lines, though few, lift our spirits.

Wisely labeled "the saving virtue," tact graces life like fragrance graces a rose. One whiff erases any memory of the thorns. It's remarkable how peaceful and pleasant tact can make us. Its major goal is avoiding unnecessary offense, and that alone ought to make us crave it.

I feel like starting with the words the nurse says as she approaches your bed with one hand behind her back: "This won't take long, but it may sting a little." Are you aware of what waiters and waitresses say about the Christians they serve?

Do you need to be set free? Honestly now, is your next step the need to forgive? Do it. Don't let anything or anyone talk you out of it. I know, I know. After all the misery you have had to endure, why should you have to be the one who humbles yourself and forgives?

Class Action is a class act. It's a film about two lawyers who go head-to-head, both in court and in life. They are father and daughter . . . on opposite sides of a complicated case charged with the full spectrum of emotions. It is the father-daughter interplay that gives the story its definition.

According to Scripture, three things are required for spiritual victory: birth, faith, and truth. In order to enter into the ranks of the victorious, we must be "born of God." It occurs when I accept Jesus Christ as Savior. Then comes faith. I draw upon the power that is in me.

During the reign of Oliver Cromwell, the British government began to run low on silver for coins. Lord Cromwell sent his men to the local cathedral to see if they could find any precious metal there. After investigating they reported: "The only silver we can find is in the statues of the saints standing in the corners."

Like potatoes in a pressure cooker, we twenty-first-century creatures understand the meaning of stress. A week doesn't pass without a few skirmishes that beat up on our fragile frames. They may be as mild as making lunches for our kids before 7:30 in the morning (mild?) or as severe as a collision with another car.

Remember that time you got ticked off trying to find a verse in the Bible and couldn't? That was almost as bad as the day you decided to read a couple of chapters and got hung up on "Nazirite" . . . or scratched your head over "cubit." These are like hardened, glazed coverings that suddenly obscure our understanding of God's truth.

Like sticks of dynamite taped together with a short fuse, our times are really volatile. Anger is ready to explode into physical violence at the slightest provocation. This entire globe seems brimming with hair-trigger hostility, ready to flare into full-scale disaster. It's not just a vast global problem, however. It's personal.

Thanks to the Word of God, we can list several marks of integrity that God would have us appropriate into our lives. Do you have these marks of integrity? 1) An excellent attitude 2) Faithfulness and diligence at work 3) Personal purity of the highest caliber 4) Consistency in your walk with God.