A woman rescued Rudy from the animal shelter days before he was to be euthanized and the dog became her companion For ten years Rudy slept calmly beside Linda rsquo s bed but then he abruptly began to jump next to her and lick her face Linda scolded him but every night Rudy repeated the behavior ldquo Soon he was jumping on my lap to lick my face every time I sat down rdquo Linda said As she was planning to take Rudy to obedience school she began to consider how insistent Rudy was and how he always licked her [... more]

The Brisbane City Hall in Australia was a dazzling s project White stairs boasted marble from the same quarry Michelangelo used for his David sculpture The tower reflected Venice rsquo s St Mark rsquo s Basilica and the copper dome was the largest in the Southern Hemisphere The builders intended for a massive Angel of Peace to adorn the pinnacle but there was a problem no money left Plumber Fred Johnson came to the rescue He used a toilet cistern an old lamp post and bits of scrap metal to craft the iconic orb that rsquo s crowned the tower [... more]

After another health setback I feared the unknown and uncontrollable One day while reading a Forbes magazine article I learned that scientists studied the rising of the ldquo Earth rsquo s rotation velocity rdquo and declared that the Earth ldquo wobbled rdquo and is ldquo spinning faster rdquo They said we ldquo could require the first-ever lsquo drop second rsquo mdash the official removal of a second from global time rdquo Though a second doesn rsquo t seem like much of a loss knowing that the earth rsquo s rotation could change seemed like a big deal to me Even [... more]

Nineteenth-century Scottish pastor Thomas Chalmers once told the story of riding in a horse-drawn carriage in the Highlands region as it hugged a narrow mountain ledge along a harrowing precipice One of the horses startled and the driver fearing they would plummet to their death repeatedly flicked his whip After they made it past the danger Chalmers asked the driver why he used the whip with such force ldquo I needed to give the horses something else to think about rdquo he said ldquo I needed to get their attention rdquo In a world overflowing with threats and dangers all [... more]

In a resident with cholera accidentally transmitted the disease via the Elbe River to Hamburg Germany rsquo s entire water supply Within weeks ten thousand citizens died Eight years earlier German microbiologist Robert Koch had made a discovery cholera was waterborne Koch rsquo s revelation prodded officials in large European cities to invest in filtration systems to protect their water Hamburg authorities however had done nothing Citing costs and alleging dubious science they rsquo d ignored clear warnings while their city careened toward catastrophe The book of Proverbs has a lot to say about those of us who see trouble [... more]

Bridger Walker was only six when a menacing dog lunged at his younger sister Instinctively Bridger jumped in front of her shielding her from the dog rsquo s ferocious attack After receiving emergency care and ninety stitches to his face Bridger explained his actions ldquo If someone had to die I thought it should be me rdquo Thankfully plastic surgeons have helped Bridger rsquo s face heal But his brotherly love evidenced in recent pictures where he rsquo s seen hugging his sister remains strong as ever Ideal family members watch over us and care for us True brothers step [... more]

Perhaps the most heartwarming tradition in college football happens at the University of Iowa The Stead Family Children rsquo s Hospital sits next to Iowa rsquo s Kinnick Stadium and the hospital rsquo s top floor has floor-to-ceiling windows offering a great view of the field On game days sick children and their families fill the floor to watch the action below and at the end of the first quarter coaches athletes and thousands of fans turn to the hospital and wave For those few moments the children rsquo s eyes light up It rsquo s powerful to see the [... more]

A man owned more than million in bitcoin but he couldn rsquo t access a cent of it He lost the password for the device storing his funds and disaster loomed after ten password attempts the device would self-destruct A fortune lost forever For a decade the man had agonized desperately trying to recall the password to his life-altering investment He tried eight passwords and failed eight times In he lamented that he had just two more chances before it all went up in smoke We rsquo re a forgetful people Sometimes we forget small things where we placed our [... more]

In Joshua Abraham Norton declared himself Emperor of the United States Norton had made mdash and lost mdash his fortune in San Francisco shipping but he wanted a new identity America rsquo s first emperor When the San Francisco Evening Bulletin printed ldquo Emperor rdquo Norton rsquo s announcement most readers laughed Norton made pronouncements aimed at correcting society rsquo s ills printed his own currency and even wrote letters to Queen Victoria asking her to marry him and unite their kingdoms He wore royal military uniforms designed by local tailors One observer said Norton looked ldquo every inch a [... more]

I recently saw a photograph of Michelangelo rsquo s sculpture Moses in which a closeup view showed a small bulging muscle on Moses rsquo right arm This muscle is the extensor digiti minimi and the contraction only appears when someone lifts their pinky Michelangelo known as a master of intricate details paid close attention to the human bodies he sculpted adding intimate features most everyone else would miss Michelangelo knew the human body in ways few other sculptors have but the details he carved into granite were his attempts to reveal something deeper mdash the soul the interior life of [... more]

I received an email from a young man in England a son who explained that his father only sixty-three was in the hospital in critical condition hanging on to life Though we rsquo d never met his dad rsquo s work and mine shared many intersections The son trying to cheer his father asked me to send a video message of encouragement and prayer Deeply moved I recorded a short message and a prayer for healing I was told that his dad watched the video and gave a hearty thumbs-up Sadly a couple days later I received another email telling [... more]

Poet painter and printmaker William Blake enjoyed a forty-five-year marriage with his wife Catherine From their wedding day until his death in they worked side-by-side Catherine added color to William rsquo s sketches and their devotion endured years of poverty and other challenges Even in his final weeks as his health failed Blake kept at his art and his final sketch was his wife rsquo s face Four years later Catherine died clutching one of her husband rsquo s pencils in her hand The Blakes rsquo vibrant love offers a reflection of the love discovered in the Song of Songs [... more]

In Laszlo Hanyecz made the first purchase with bitcoin a digital currency paying bitcoins for two pizzas In the value of those bitcoins would have been roughly million Back before the value skyrocketed he kept paying for pizzas with coins spending bitcoins total If he rsquo d kept those bitcoins their value would rsquo ve made him a billionaire sixty-eight times over and placed him on the Forbes rsquo ldquo richest people in the world rdquo list If only he rsquo d known what was coming Of course Hanyecz couldn rsquo t possibly have known None of us could have [... more]

The nbsp three hundred middle and high school students of the small town of Neodesha Kansas filed into a surprise school assembly They then sat in disbelief upon hearing that a married couple with ties to their town committed to pay college tuition for every Neodesha student for the next twenty-five years The students were stunned overjoyed and tearful Neodesha had been hard hit economically which meant many families worried about how to cover college expenses The gift was a generational game-changer and the donors hope it will immediately impact current families but also incentivize other families to move to [... more]

When the World Trade Center towers fell on September Greg Rodriguez was one of the victims who died in the wreckage As his mother Phyllis and his father grieved they also carefully considered their response to such a horrific attack In Phyllis met Aicha el-Wafe the mother of one of the men accused of helping the terrorists Phyllis said she ldquo approached her and opened my arms We embraced and cried For Aicha and me there was an immediate bonding We both suffered on account of our sons rdquo nbsp Phyllis met Aicha amid shared pain and sorrow Phyllis believed [... more]

One writer referred to Brazilian skateboarder Felipe Gustavo as ldquo one of the most legendary skateboarders on the planet rdquo No one would have believed this would be Gustavo rsquo s future when he was sixteen Gustavo rsquo s dad believed his son needed to pursue his dream of skating professionally but they didn rsquo t have the money So his dad sold their car and took his son to the renowned Tampa Am skating competition in Florida No one had heard of Gustavo until he won And the victory catapulted him into an amazing career Gustavo rsquo s dad [... more]

Wearing his striped jumpsuit James walked across the steamy jail gym and climbed into the portable pool where he was baptized by the prison chaplain James rsquo joy multiplied however when he heard that his daughter Brittany mdash also an inmate mdash had been baptized that same day in the same water When they realized what had happened even the staff got emotional ldquo There wasn rsquo t a dry eye rdquo the chaplain said In and out of jail for years Brittany and her dad both wanted God rsquo s forgiveness And together God gave them new life nbsp [... more]

Jose a seventy-seven-year-old substitute teacher had been living out of his car for eight years Every night the elderly man bunked down in his Ford Thunderbird LX carefully monitoring the car battery as it powered his computer for his evening rsquo s work Jose used the money earmarked for rent and instead sent it to numerous family members in Mexico who needed it more Early every morning one of the teacher rsquo s former students saw Jose rummaging through his trunk ldquo I just felt I needed to do something about it rdquo the man said So he launched a [... more]

Guy Bryant single and with no children of his own worked in New York City rsquo s child welfare department Daily he encountered the intense need for foster parents and decided to do something about it For more than a decade Bryant fostered more than fifty children once caring for nine at the same time Every time I turned around there was a kid who needed a place to stay Bryant explained ldquo If you have the space in your home and heart you just do it You don't really think about it The foster children who have grown and [... more]

Tucked into a remote gorge in western Slovenia a secret medical facility Franja Partisan Hospital housed an extensive staff that tended to thousands of wounded soldiers during World War II mdash all the while staying hidden from the Nazis Though avoiding detection from numerous Nazi attempts to locate the facility is in itself a remarkable feat even more remarkable is that the hospital founded and run by the Slovenia resistance movement cared for soldiers from both the Allied and Axis armies The hospital welcomed everyone Scripture calls us to help the whole world to be spiritually healed This means we [... more]

Amina an Iraqi immigrant and Joseph an American from birth attended a political protest on opposite sides We rsquo ve been taught to believe that those who are separated by ethnicity and politics carry unbridled animosity toward each other However when a small mob accosted Joseph trying to set his shirt on fire Amina rushed to his defense ldquo I don rsquo t think we could be any further apart as people rdquo Joseph told a reporter ldquo and yet it was just kinda like this common lsquo that rsquo s not OK rsquo moment rdquo Something deeper than politics [... more]

In an explorer named Carl Akely found himself in a remote section of Ethiopia chased by an eighty-pound leopard He remembered the leopard pouncing trying ldquo to sink her teeth into my throat rdquo She missed snagging his right arm with her vicious jaws The two rolled in the sand mdash a long fierce struggle Akely weakened and ldquo it became a question of who would give up first rdquo Summoning his last bit of strength Akely was able to suffocate the big cat with his bare hands The apostle Paul explained how each of us who believe in Jesus [... more]

Since it was the week after Easter our five-year-old son Wyatt had heard plenty of resurrection talk He always had questions mdash usually real stumpers I was driving and he was buckled into his seat behind me Wyatt peered out the window deep in thought ldquo Daddy rdquo he said pausing and preparing to ask me a tough one hellip [... more]

Today apos s Our Daily Bread Devotional [... more]

Abel Mutai a Kenyan runner competing in a grueling international cross-country race was mere yards from victory mdash his lead secure Confused by the course rsquo s signage and thinking he rsquo d already crossed the finish line however Mutai stopped short The Spanish runner in second place Ivan Fernandez Anaya saw Mutai rsquo s mistake Rather than take advantage and bolt past for the win however he caught up to Mutai put out his arm and guided Mutai forward to a gold-medal win When reporters asked Anaya why he purposefully lost the race he insisted that Mutai deserved the [... more]

One evening in the Great Alaska earthquake shocked and writhed for more than four minutes registering a magnitude In Anchorage whole city blocks disappeared leaving only massive craters and rubble Through the dark terrifying night news reporter Genie Chance stood at her microphone passing along messages to desperate people sitting by their radios a husband working in the bush heard that his wife was alive distraught families heard that their sons on a Boy Scout camping trip were okay a couple heard that their children had been found The radio crackled with line after line of good news mdash pure [... more]

Ancient scholars Jerome and Tertullian referenced stories of how in ancient Rome after a general triumphed in an epic victory he would be paraded atop a gleaming chariot down the capital rsquo s central thoroughfares from dawn to sunset The crowd would roar The general would bask in the adoration reveling in the greatest honor of his life However legend has it that a servant stood behind the general the entire day whispering into his ear Memento Mori ldquo Remember you will die rdquo Amid all the adulation the general desperately needed the humility that came with remembering that he [... more]

In as the US economy crashed millions of people lost everything But not Floyd Odlum As everyone else panicked and sold their stocks at cut-rate prices Odlum appeared to foolishly jump in and purchase stocks just as the nation rsquo s future disintegrated But Odlum rsquo s ldquo foolish rdquo perspective paid off yielding robust investments that endured for decades God told Jeremiah to make what seemed like an absolutely ludicrous investment ldquo buy the field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin rdquo Jeremiah This was no time to be buying fields however The entire country was on the [... more]

In at the age of ninety-four George Vujnovich was awarded the bronze star for organizing what the New York Times called ldquo one of the greatest rescue efforts of World War II rdquo Vujnovich son of Serbian immigrants had joined the US army and when word arrived that downed American airmen were being protected by rebels in Yugoslavia Vujnovich returned to his family rsquo s homeland parachuting into the forest to locate the pilots Dividing the soldiers into small groups he taught them how to blend in with the Serbs wearing Serbian clothes and eating Serbian food Then over months [... more]

During the COVID- pandemic many Singaporeans stayed home to avoid being infected But I blissfully continued swimming believing it was safe My wife however feared that I might pick up an infection at the public pool and pass it on to her aged mother mdash who like other seniors were more vulnerable to the virus ldquo Can you just avoid swimming for some time for my sake rdquo she asked At first I wanted to argue that there was little risk Then I realized that this mattered less than her feelings Why would I insist on swimming mdash hardly an [... more]

In the Ecuadorian volcano Sangay erupted The BBC described the ldquo dark ash plume which reached a height of more than m rdquo The discharge covered four provinces about acres in gray ash and grimy soot The sky turned dingy and grim and the air was thick mdash making it difficult to breathe Farmer Feliciano Inga described the unnerving scene to El Comercio newspaper ldquo We didn rsquo t know where all this dust was coming from We saw the sky go dark and grew afraid rdquo The Israelites experienced a similar fear at the base of Mount Sinai as [... more]

The first time I took my sons to hike a Colorado Fourteener mdash a mountain with an elevation of a least feet mdash they were nervous Could they make it Were they up to the challenge My youngest stopped on the trail for extended breaks ldquo Dad I can rsquo t go any more rdquo he said repeatedly But I believed this test would be good for them and I wanted them to trust me A mile from the peak my son who rsquo d insisted he could go no further caught his second wind and beat us to the [... more]

During the baseball season a Chicago Cubs coach wanted to give a baseball to a young boy sitting by the dugout But when the coach tossed the ball toward him a man scooped it up instead Video of the event went viral News outlets and social media skewered this ldquo brute rdquo of a man Except viewers didn rsquo t know the whole story Earlier the man had helped the young boy snag a foul ball and they agreed to share any additional balls that came their way Unfortunately it took hours before the true story emerged The mob had [... more]

When John Lewis an American congressman and civil rights leader died in people from many political persuasions mourned In Lewis marched with Martin Luther King Jr to secure voting rights for black citizens During the march Lewis suffered a cracked skull causing scars he carried the rest of his life ldquo When you see something that is not right not just not fair rdquo Lewis said ldquo you have a moral obligation to say something To do something rdquo He also said ldquo Never ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good necessary trouble rdquo Lewis learned [... more]

When the Nazis drafted Franz J auml gerst auml tter during World War II he completed military basic training but refused to take the required pledge of personal loyalty to Adolf Hitler Authorities allowed Franz to return to his farm but they later summoned him to active duty After seeing Nazi ideology up close and learning of the Jewish genocide however J auml gerst auml tter decided his loyalty to God meant he could never fight for the Nazis He was arrested and sentenced to execution leaving behind his wife and three daughters Over the years many believers in Jesus [... more]

After being informed of a call from a concerned citizen a police officer drove alongside the train tracks shining his floodlight into the dark until he spotted the vehicle straddling the iron rails The trooper rsquo s dashboard camera captured the harrowing scene as the train barreled forward That train was coming fast rdquo the officer said ldquo Fifty to eighty per hour Acting without hesitation he pulled an unconscious man from the car mere seconds before the train slammed into it Scripture reveals God as the One who rescues mdash and rescues often at precisely the moment when all [... more]

In Australia a report outlined ldquo a grim story rdquo of extreme drought heat and fire The account described a horrific year with only minuscule rainfall turning parched brush into tinder Raging fires torched the countryside Fish died Crops failed All because they didn rsquo t have a simple resource we often take for granted mdash this supply we all need in order to live water Israel found itself in its own terrifying dilemma As the people camped in the dusty barren desert we read this alarming line ldquo There was no water for the people to drink rdquo Exodus [... more]

A video game one that rsquo s become a cultural phenomenon places players on a virtual island to compete until one player remains Whenever a player eliminates you from the contest you can continue to watch through that player rsquo s vantage point As one journalist notes ldquo When you step into another player rsquo s shoes and inhabit their point of view the emotional register shifts from self-preservation to communal solidarity You begin to feel invested in the stranger who not too long ago did you in rdquo Transformation happens whenever we open ourselves to see another rsquo s [... more]

During college I spent a good chunk of a summer in Venezuela The food was astounding the people delightful the weather and hospitality beautiful Within the first day or two however I recognized that my views on time management weren rsquo t shared by my new friends If we planned to have lunch at noon this meant anywhere between and p m The same for meetings or travel timeframes were approximations without rigid punctuality I learned that my idea of ldquo being on time rdquo was far more culturally formed than I rsquo d realized All of us are shaped [... more]

As many as homes in one US state are at risk of collapsing due to faulty foundations Without realizing it a concrete company pulled stone from a quarry laced with a mineral that over time causes concrete to crack and disintegrate The foundations of nearly homes have already crumbled and that number will likely skyrocket over time nbsp Jesus used the image of building a home atop a faulty foundation to explain the far riskier danger of building our lives on unsteady ground He explained how some of us construct our life on sturdy rock ensuring that we hold solid [... more]

When I was young whenever my doting Aunt Betty visited it felt like Christmas She rsquo d bring Star Wars toys and slip me cash on her way out the door Whenever I stayed with her she filled the freezer with ice cream and never cooked vegetables She had few rules and let me stay up late My aunt was marvelous reflecting God rsquo s generosity However to grow up healthy I needed more than only Aunt Betty rsquo s way I also needed my parents to place expectations on me and my behavior and hold me to them God [... more]

After Vicki rsquo s old car broke down with no option for repair she started scraping together money for another vehicle Chris a frequent customer of the restaurant where Vicki works at the drive-thru window one day heard her mention she needed a car ldquo I couldn rsquo t stop thinking about it rdquo Chris said ldquo I had to do something rdquo So he bought his son rsquo s used car his son had just put it up for sale shined it up and handed Vicki the keys Vicki was shocked ldquo Who does that rdquo she said in [... more]

Walter Dixon had five days to honeymoon before he shipped off to the Korean War Within a year troops found Dixon rsquo s jacket on the battlefield with letters from his wife stuffed in the pockets Military officials informed his young wife that her husband had been killed in action Actually Dixon was alive and spent the next years as a POW Every waking hour he plotted to get home Dixon escaped five times but was always recaptured Finally he was set free You can imagine the shock when he returned home God rsquo s people knew what it was [... more]

South African Fredie Blom turned in widely recognized as the oldest living man Born in the year the Wright Brothers built their Flyer II he rsquo s lived through both World Wars apartheid and the Great Depression When asked for the secret for his longevity Blom only shrugs Like many of us he hasn rsquo t always chosen the foods and practices that promote wellness However Blom does offer one reason for his remarkable health ldquo There rsquo s only one thing it rsquo s God He rsquo s got all the power He holds me rdquo Blom echoes words [... more]

In seventy-year-old James McConnell a British Royal Marine veteran died McConnell had no family and staff from his nursing home feared no one would attend his funeral A man tapped to officiate McConnell rsquo s memorial service posted a Facebook message ldquo In this day and age it is tragic enough that anyone has to leave this world with no one to mourn their passing but this man was family If you can make it to the graveside to pay your respects to a former brother in arms then please try to be there Two-hundred Royal Marines packed the pews [... more]

For twenty-nine years after World War II ended Hiroo Onoda hid in the jungle refusing to believe his country had surrendered Japanese military leaders had dispatched Onoda to a remote island in the Philippines Lubang with orders to spy on the Allied forces Long after a peace treaty had been signed and hostilities ceased Onoda remained in the wilderness In Onoda rsquo s commanding officer traveled to the island to find him and convince him the war was over For three decades Onoda lived a meager isolated existence because he refused to surrender mdash refused to believe the conflict was [... more]

Alexa Amazon rsquo s voice-controlled device has an interesting feature it can erase everything you say Whatever you rsquo ve asked Alexa to do whatever information you rsquo ve asked Alexa to retrieve one simple sentence ldquo Delete everything I said today rdquo sweeps it all clean as if it never happened It rsquo s too bad that the rest of our life doesn rsquo t have this capability Every misspoken word every disgraceful act every moment we wish we could erase mdash we rsquo d just speak the command and the entire mess would disappear There rsquo s good [... more]