When the Catholic Bishop Gerard Trickle opened his mail, he found the ordinary items--letters and parcels from friends in his native England along with the usual assortment of advertisements.

"Dear Dr. Sala," wrote a  father well into his 70s, "One of my greatest heartaches is that my children are not living for the Lord.  They were all raised in a Christian home.  In fact, my wife and I have spent most of our lives in the Lord's service, but more than anything else, we would like to see them come back to Him before we die."

"As a carpenter," writes Roy Lessin, "Jesus worked with a hammer, nails, and wood.  When He picked up a hammer, He knew that one day a hammer would be raised up against Him; when His hand drove in a nail, He knew that one day nails would be driven into Him; when He worked with wood, He knew that one day there would be a tree where He would offer up His life.

There's nothing really new under the sun, and when it comes to human relationships, the same dramas play out over and over again.

A forest fire or a devastating fire that destroys a neighborhood or a section of a city--terrible as that may be--can be put out.

A friend was eulogizing a man who had suddenly passed away, saying, "He had such a good heart!"

"Everyone knows they're going to die," said Morrie Schwartz, adding, "but nobody believes it.

When God called Jeremiah to be a spokesman, the young man – probably in his late teens or early 20s – said, “Ah, Sovereign LORD…I do not know how to speak; I am only a child,” and hearing this, God said, “I’m sorry, Jeremiah, I must have made a big mistake.”

There's good news, friend!  Life is not a matter of chance or fate.  Winning is not the equivalent of standing in front of a slot machine when you feel lucky, or picking the right five or seven numbers in the lottery.  Some 3,000 years ago David wrote, "My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139:15,16).

Armin Gesswein called it, "One of the rarest prayer promises in the Bible," referring to the words of Jesus to the disciples in the Upper Room when he said, "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you" (John 15:7).