A Book: The Dynasty by Jeff Benedict – This book was recently recommended to me and I must say I have not been disappointed. It details the backstory of how the New England Patriots dynasty came about. One reviewer said this: “The Dynasty is Jeff Benedict’s latest masterpiece. . . . It’s a relationship book, it’s a football book, it’s a business book. . . . I was surprised at the level of detail in Robert Kraft’s quotes and his willingness to allow [the book] to go to some pretty painful places. . . . If you love football the way I do, you’ll just eat up these stories.” It is a good time to be reading it with the Super Bowl coming up and Tom Brady making yet another appearance.
An Encouragement and A Story: My friend Wayne Alford sent me an email last week that encouraged my soul. Our pastor is currently preaching through the book of Colossians. When Wayne turned to Colossians in his Bible he came across some notes from a sermon that I preached at Ridgecrest in July of 1993. It was the very first sermon I preached at Ridgecrest and did so in view of a call to be the student pastor. He reminded me of the outline of the message and of a story I told called “Remember the Duck.” I went back and read it and it was good enough to re-share here:
Remember the Duck
A little boy visiting his grandparents was given his first slingshot. He practiced in the woods, but he could never hit his target. As he came back to Grandma’s back yard, he spied her pet duck. On an impulse he took aim and let fly. The stone hit, and the duck fell dead. The boy panicked.
Desperately he hid the dead duck in the woodpile, only to look up and see his sister watching. Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing. After lunch that day, Grandma said, “Sally, let’s wash the dishes.”
But Sally said, “Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen today. Didn’t you, Johnny?” And she whispered to him, “Remember the duck!” So Johnny did the dishes.
Later Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing. Grandma said, “I’m sorry, but I need Sally to help make supper.” Sally smiled and said, “That’s all taken care of. Johnny wants to do it.” Again she whispered, “Remember the duck.” Johnny stayed while Sally went fishing.
After several days of doing both his chores and Sally’s, finally he couldn’t stand it. He confessed to Grandma that he’d killed the duck.
“I know, Johnny,” she said, giving him a hug. “I was standing at the window and saw the whole thing. Because I love you, I forgave you. I wondered how long you would let Sally make a slave of you.”
A Memory and a Quote: I wrote a blog post on Saturday about Zermatt Switzerland – one of my most favorite places in the world. In the post I talked about our “Rocks of Remembrance” story and a day worth re-living. It was fun to hike down that mountain again in my mind and it reminded me of a favorite quote…
Don’t collect possessions. Collect experiences!
Here are two questions that I will just leave sitting here: 1) What is a day that you would like to re-live? 2) What are some of your favorite experiences that you have collected over the years?
A Song: Behold Our God by Sovereign Grace Music