Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

We've been talking about Jesus's parable in Mark 4:1–20 about the farmer who sows seeds in four different types of soil. As I mentioned in Part One, I'm bothered by the third group because thorns come in and destroy the healthy growth of the Christian.

Give the Reverend Dullard Drydust enough time and he will manage to confuse most sections of the Bible. Because we preachers are notorious for getting hung up on . . . theological trivia, we often shy away from those passages that appear nontechnical.

The history of great civilizations reminds me of a giant revolving door. It turns on the axis of human depravity as its movement is marked by the perimeter of time. With monotonous repetition each civilization has completed the same cycle.

Each morning you awaken to an unpredictable set of hours filled with surprises and trials and anxieties. You know before your feet ever touch the floor you are in for another who-knows-what day.

Those folks who used to put together Campus Life magazine got my vote. With an incredible regularity they would put the cookies on the lower shelf so that any high schooler in America could thumb through the thing without getting turned off.

Strange, isn't it, how we tend toward extremes? What begins as self-improvement becomes self-enslavement . . . what starts as merely a mellow change of pace leads to a marathon of fanaticism. We're nuts! Left to ourselves, we'll opt for extremes most every time.

I laughed my way through Judith Viorst's How Did I Get to Be Forty and Other Atrocities. I've long since passed the half-century mark, so it seemed reasonable that I should at least face the music of being forty.

In pain, grief, affliction, and loss, it often helps to write our feelings . . . not just feel them. Putting words on paper seems to free our feelings from the lonely prison of our souls.

It's a cartoon I've smiled at again and again. There are two Eskimos sitting on chairs, fishing through holes in the ice. The fella on the right has draped his line through your typical disk-like opening . . . about the size of a small manhole.

If you are involved in church or religious activities to the point that your home life is hurting, you're too involved—and you're heading for trouble. Look at what you're doing in the light of eternity. God is primarily interested in the quality, not quantity, of our spiritual fruit.

God has ordained and established three great institutions: the home (Genesis 1:27–28; Ephesians 5:22–31), the church (Matthew 16:18; Acts 2:41–47), and government (Romans 13:1–7). There is no question regarding our belief that the church and state (government) should be separate and distinct.

When it comes to physical healing, often confusion reigns. To combat it, I'd like to point out five "laws" of suffering. These "laws" will do more to help the hurting and erase their confusion than perhaps anything else they could read.

"Have you heard of the Four Spiritual Laws?" That question, found in a small booklet, has been asked and answered thousands—perhaps millions—of times in our generation. These "laws" have been used by God to introduce His plan of love and forgiveness.

God often delivers His best gifts to us in unexpected ways . . . with surprises inside the wrappings. Through apparent contradictions. Somewhat like the therapy He used when Elijah was so low, so terribly disillusioned. How did the Lord minister to him?

Tom Landry, the late head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, was once quoted as saying something like this: "I have a job to do that is not very complicated, but it is often difficult: to get a group of men to do what they don't want to do so they can achieve the one thing they have wanted all their lives."

What a beautiful scene in the soul is Lake Contentment! Undisturbed by outside noises brought on by the jackhammers of exaggeration, those who enjoy the lake know what relaxation is all about. They know nothing of any winter of discontent.

A number of years ago I read that, believe it or not, the average American is exposed to about three hundred advertisements a day. Today that number has very likely increased!

Due to the tragic problem of ignorance and passivity in our world today, I've been extolling the benefits of reading. Yesterday, we talked about number one: reading sweeps the cobwebs away; it expands us. Today, I'll note three additional benefits.

The three Rs have stood the test of time as reliable criteria for a dependable education. They are poised like disciplined sentinels against one of man's greatest enemies: ignorance. The original blocks of granite, unimpressed by educational styles.

Okay, are you ready to have your mind boggled? If not, better shove this aside until you can handle it. It's too stretching to pass over with a yawn. The germ thought struck me when I was deep in the redwoods some time ago. I lay back and looked up.