Jesus warned against piling up money on earth, because money comes and goes. A sad reminder of the vulnerability of money came with the June 2009 news story of an elderly woman in Israel who had hidden her life savings of one million dollars in her bed mattress. Every night she slept on one million in American dollars and Israeli shekels. She must have felt very secure with her fortune literally inches ...

In his book Are You Fascinated? management consultant Ken Tucker shares a story about the great lengths a person will go to find something of great value:

[Bill Adams, CEO of a large hospital in Virginia, received a frantic call from a woman.] "My mother came into your hospital with her wedding ring, and now we can't find it," [she] said. … "I want to make an appointment to discuss this with ...

In a 2009 article for Christianity Today magazine, author Jocelyn Green gave readers a glimpse into the lives of different military officers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder—with special attention given to the responsibility the church has in ministering to those officers. She writes:

Nate Self's military record was impeccable. A West Point graduate, he led an elite Army Ranger outfit ...

What does a six-year-old boy want for his birthday? Legos. A bicycle. Thomas the Train. A DVD of a recent movie that he will watch repeatedly. If he made a list, it would go well beyond this. But what if he could get more than this? What if he could get immeasurably more than he could ask or imagine? When Gabriel Hurles turned six, that's exactly what he got. The little boy was so focused on eating ...

As our Bible study group began focusing on the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, I felt pretty smug. After all, I didn't worship more than one God, steal, commit adultery or murder, lie about my neighbors, or plot to cheat them out of what was rightfully theirs. But one evening we came to the command to honor our father and mother (v. 12). Against my will, I thought of my mother, who'd passed away ten ...

Seinfeld is a popular television comedy based on the humor of comedian Jerry Seinfeld. In a scene from an episode entitled "The Conversion," Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and George (Jason Alexander) are sitting in Jerry's apartment, and George is talking about how his most recent relationship with a woman is falling apart because of religious differences.

"She says we can't ...

My daughter, Zoe, is two-and-a-half and loves to play hide-and-seek. Sometimes she hides, but usually the game involves hiding my cell phone. Unfortunately she doesn't yet understand the object of the game. She makes me close my eyes—that much she gets. But it's downhill from there. First of all, she always hides my phone in the same place: on the stairs, in plain sight. No matter how many times ...

Natalie, a 22-year-old woman from San Diego, California, has decided to pay for her Masters Degree by selling something that is precious and belongs only to her: her virginity. She got the idea from her sister, who was able to save up enough money for her own degree by working as a prostitute for three weeks.

Natalie realizes that the idea may seem appalling to some, but she is unconcerned: "I know ...

Twice I've visited heaven, or close to it: the Masai Mara, perhaps the greatest wildlife preserve in the world. The Masai Mara is part of the vast grasslands that stretch over the fertile plains of East Africa. Here, elephant, cheetah, gazelle, wildebeest, water buffalo, giraffe, crocodile, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and hundreds of other furry or scaly, tusked or horned, fleet-foot or slithering, ...

After years of street violence, drug use, and thievery, Fernando "Fernie" Aranda was sent to prison to a serve a 25-years-to-life sentence. But prison didn't change Fernie. His life behind bars matched the life he had lived on the streets. At one point he was even a suspect in the deaths of three fellow inmates. But Fernie's defiance ended when his 70-year-old mother came to visit him in prison. She ...