Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

While traveling across northern California several years ago, I tuned in a radio talk show where the host had just conducted a poll of his listeners regarding job satisfaction. Some sort of questionnaire had been mailed to folks within a broad radius of several cities along the San Francisco peninsula and East Bay region.

In a cartoon strip some years ago a little guy was taking heat from his sister and friends for a newly found "calling"—patting birds on the head. The distressed birds would approach, lower their little feathered pates to be patted, sigh deeply, and walk away satisfied.

It was Ernest Hemingway who once said, "Time is the least thing we have of." And he was right. How quickly time passes—and how often we lament this. If only we could tack an extra twenty-five or thirty years on to the usual span. There is so much more we want to see, to celebrate, to do.

Call me sentimental, but some tunes really send me reeling. And nobody—I mean nobody—does it any better than Barbra Streisand. Her rendition of "The Way We Were" is pretty close to the ultimate in my book. Remember the words? "Memories . . . light the corners of my mind. . . ."

"My treat!" Nice words to hear, huh? They have flowed into my ears from any number of places. At Thirty-One Flavors on a smoggy, stifling, sweltering August afternoon after I've ordered a double-decker "pralines 'n' cream, dark cone" with a buddy. He digs deeper, faster. I start licking, smilin'.

A birth is always exciting. Yes, always. Whether it is your baby or someone else's, those first cries never fail to make our hearts flutter. Family ties are strengthened as new life extends the roots. Everybody moves in closer and smiles approvingly. What power little babies possess!

How have you responded to these temptations mentioned in yesterday's reading in your own life? Do you give things instead of giving yourself, your presence, your personal involvement? Do you save your best for the workplace? Do you deliver lectures rather than earning respect by listening and learning?

I don't often recommend a volume without reservation, but I think every man should read Temptations Men Face by Tom Eisenman. I'm not saying I agree with everything in it, or that you will, but his observations, insights, and suggestions are both penetrating and provocative.

You—or someone you know—may soon be graduating. I extend my congratulations! Whether you set new academic records or not, you finished. You saw it through. I commend you. Before that happens, however, let me give you four simple commandments that apply to anyone who is graduating.

Conscience is our moral intuition. It's that part of us that passes judgment on our own state. And it takes away our confidence when something is sour or bad. It takes away our security when it is soiled. "Let your conscience be your guide." You've heard that. You've said it. Wait a minute.

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.