Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

It was the enraptured Rutherford who said in the midst of very painful trials and heartaches: "Praise God for the hammer, the file, and the furnace!" Let's think about that. The hammer is a useful and handy instrument. It is an essential and helpful tool.

Yesterday, we talked about innovative people, and I mentioned that there are a whole lot more innovative people around than any of us can imagine. Could you be one of them? Let's take a little test and see.

It takes guts to innovate, because it requires creative thinking. Thinking is hard enough, but creative thinking—ah, that's work! To get the juices squirting, you have to be dissatisfied with the status quo.

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.

Yesterday, we visited David as he faced off against Goliath. Refusing to accept his brothers' rationalizations or listen to the giant's threats, David saw through the Philistine strategy and withstood it through sheer, solid faith. You know the outcome.

Goliath reminds me of the cross-eyed discus thrower. He didn't set any records . . . but he sure kept the crowd awake! Day after day, he paraded along the slopes of the Valley of Elah throwing out threats and belching blasphemies across the creek.

The Cave of Adullam was no Holiday Inn. It was a wicked refugee camp . . . a dark vault on the side of a cliff that reached deeply into a hill. Huddled in this clammy cavern were 400 losers—a mob of miserable humanity. They came from all over and wound up all together.

Yesterday, we focused on Philippians 1:6, noting that God "who began a good work . . . will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." And, since we are to be "imitators of God" (Ephesians 5:1), it seems to me we oughta be about the business of persistence.

Persistence pays. It's a costly investment, no question about it. But the dividends are so much greater than the original outlay that you'll almost forget the price.

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 with those "extrinsic agents" that beat upon our fragile frames.

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.

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?

Gifted evangelist Tom Skinner penned a book with a title that won't let me go: If Christ Is the Answer, What Are the Questions? I like that . . . not only because it's creative, but because it strikes a chord in my soul.

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.

A small bottle containing urine sat upon the desk of Sir William Osler. He was then the eminent professor of medicine at Oxford University. Sitting before him was a classroom full of young, wide-eyed medical students.

Nobody is a whole chain. Each one is a link. But take away one link and the chain is broken. Nobody is a whole team. Each one is a player. But take away one player and the game is forfeited.

We've been talking about the essential skill of listening, particularly as it relates to Sunday sermons. I asked you to come up with some ideas on what can be done by the listener (not the preacher) to keep the sermon interesting.

Most of us were born hearing well, but all of us must learn to listen well. Listening is a skill, an art that is in need of being cultivated. Dr. Ralph Nichols . . . believes that we think four, perhaps five, times faster than we talk.