Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

I grew up in the heyday of radio. (Fact is, I didn't even see a television set until I was a teenager.) If we got our homework done, we could listen to various weeknight radio shows.

The past couple of weeks have been some of the toughest of my life. My emotions have spanned the spectrum: shock, sorrow, horror, intense anger, disillusionment, disappointment, and utter bewilderment.

Do you teach the Bible? If so, that's great. No other calling is more needed or carries with it greater responsibility. My advice? Study hard. Pray for insight. Be accurate with facts. Be clear in your delivery.

Maybe I'm weird, but there are times the Bible makes me laugh. I mean really laugh. The older I get and the more comfortable I feel in the Book, the more I find times when a smiling response is not only appropriate, it's expected.

Ever made a mental list of things that irritate you? Here are a few I've got on mine: traffic jams, long lines, misplaced keys, stuck zippers, interruptions, late planes, squeaking doors, incompetence, and flat tires.

Many great men and women down through the ages have offered counsel on how to keep our tongues checked and caged. Like Will Noris, the American journalist who specialized in rhymes that packed a wallop.

I was raised to believe in the importance of a "quiet time." To the surprise of some, that concept did not originate with the late Dawson Trotman, the founder of the Navigators, but with the Lord Himself.

Can't and won't. Christians need to be very careful which one they choose. It seems that we prefer to use "can't." "I just can't get along with my wife." "My husband and I can't communicate." "I can't discipline the kids as I should."

The words of Psalm 23 are very familiar to all of us. Yet, unless we read that psalm through the eyes of a sheep, we will miss its magnificent message. Remember how it concludes?

What those little Visine drops do for our eyes, relief does for our sighs . . . "it gets the red out." Few feelings bring a greater sense of satisfaction than relief, which Webster defines as "the removal or lightening of something oppressive."

"You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is required. The stars neither require it nor demand it" (Annie Dillard). A lot of things in life are like that, aren't they?

A Public Agenda Foundation study, coauthored by Daniel Yankelovich, came up with these top ten qualities that today's workers want in a job: 1) Work with people who treat me with respect. 2) Interesting work . . .

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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 . . .

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.

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?

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.