Nearly every weekend in my part of town, a bus stop shelter, a light pole, or a traffic sign is knocked down. In one curve in front of the Thermas Sports Club, the bus stop shelter was destroyed three times. The city finally moved it up the avenue.

Why is that? Drunk drivers. Between our neighborhood and downtown are a couple of nightclubs. At four and five in the morning, people stagger to their cars and rev up for the ride home. In their drunken stupor, they often don't make it. We've even seen upturned cars in the creek next to a major intersection.

That not to mention that alcohol is involved in most fights and murders between people who know each other. Bar brawls, nightclub fights, knifings -- alcohol loosens the tongue, raises one's arrogance level, and lowers inhibitions -- the fiery mix for trouble.

On top of that, Zig Ziglar writes:

"Authorities now know that approximately one person in sixteen who ever takes a social drink will become an alcoholic! How many of you would get on an airplane if before it took off you knew there was a 1 out of 16 chance that it would crash and destroy your life. Actually, the odds for a commercial airliner crashing are closer to 1 out of 1,000,000; but even with those odds some people will not fly. Yet many of these same people will take a drink!"

I'll take my chances with an airplane. But alcohol scares me silly. I stay as far away from it as I can get.

Lord, our lives have become so full of things and events that our souls are empty. Sin has covered us like kudzu, so that our hearts are jaded and hardened, and our eyes can no longer cry. We have seen it all, and nothing more disturbs us or moves us.

Break through our shells, O God, that we may fall at your feet, sense your holiness, and have our lips purified by the heat of your altar. Woe am I, a man of uncleaness in the midst of an unclean people! Forgive us, Father, forgive, that we may live to see your light. Through Christ crucified. Amen.

"In thy face have I seen the eternal."
--Baron Christian Karl Josias von Bunsen, To his wife, when dying at Bonn (1860), found in "Life of Baron Bunsen", vol. II, p. 389

by J. Randal Matheny

Would you answer this ad?

"Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success."

Five thousand brave candidates stepped forward. Out of those Shackleton chose his crew.

Jesus Christ published his call two millenia ago.

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters -- yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26-27, NIV).

But with honor and glory for the successful.

Would you answer this call?

Father of lights, you have set the peoples where they should live, put the animals in their habitats, made each thing for its time. Sometimes, I can't even find a piece of paper on my desk, so I am calmed to know that you do not lose anything, much less a single soul. Above all, you have put us at your side as the apple of your eye, the centerpiece of your attention. Thank you, Lord, for knowing where we belong, in Christ Jesus. Amen.