The difference between an oak and a bonsai--apart from their size--is the root system.  Whereas the bonsai may be interesting, perhaps even curiously captivating, it is the oak that has strength which endures the test of time and is there after the fire, the drought, and the storm.

The Dead Sea is five times saltier than ocean water; and consequently, it's almost impossible for someone to drown in it.  A certain visitor to the area, not knowing this, fell off a pier into the water and wildly began to flail his arms and legs because he couldn't swim.

There's a bit of doggerel which says, "Three moves are as good as a fire," and anyone who has packed his possessions more than twice in a given year mumbles to himself, saying things such as, "What in the world am I keeping this for?"  Nonetheless, you keep that old stuff--just in case you might need it some day.

Ask any teen: What’s the biggest influence in your life and you might expect them to answer “friends” or “social media!”  And the parents of those teens might tell you the same thing. It is true, in cultures throughout the world, cellphones and internet connectivity are radically changing the fabric of a teen’s life.

On his sickbed prior to his death, the British preacher, Charles Spurgeon, said, “If you do not wish to be full of regrets when you are forced to lie still, work while you can. If you desire to make a sickbed as soft as it can be, do not stuff it with mournful reflections that you wasted time when you were in health and strength.”  I suppose it is only natural that when you get to the place Spurgeon described that you have some regrets.  You can no longer climb that mountain or swim the lagoon.  Neither can you jump stairs two at a time or run and leap across the meadow.

"Then he said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me'" (Luke 9:23).  Who was this one to make such a bold statement? He's identified in history as Jesus of Nazareth, but Nazareth was merely the place where He grew up.  One day, Jesus put the question to His disciples, saying, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" (Matt. 16:13). Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16).

"Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends," wrote Harriet Ward Beecher. Most of us, however, never get to the cemetery with those faults.  We gunnysack them.  We file them away in our memory banks, we store them in the closet; and then when the time is right, we marshal them and use them as weapons and clubs to wreak vengeance upon our enemies.

When General James Edward Oglethorpe said to John Wesley, “I never forgive,” Wesley answered, "Then I hope, sir, that you never sin."  Why did Wesley say that?  Because sooner or later, you do sin, you say something you ought not to have said, you do something that hurts someone, perhaps someone you love, and you need to be on the receiving end of forgiveness.

Before they put astronauts aboard the spacecrafts that were sent to the moon, scientists used a rather elaborate system to keep the missiles on the right path in space. It seems that, in spite of their great accuracy, the missiles would deviate from the correct trajectory and wander off course.  The slightest deviation would, of course, cause them to go hurtling off in space forever, and miss the moon entirely.  To correct the deviation, scientists installed receivers in the rockets. From Cal‑Tech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a message would be radioed through space to the missile.  The receiver aboard the spacecraft would translate the message, causing the great retro-rockets to fire for a precise number of seconds to correct the course of the space missile gone astray.

In one of his plays, William Shakespeare wrote, "There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will."  What the great poet of England was saying is that the hand of God guides us, and, at times, His guidance overrides the human will.