Pastor's Devotions by Tim Harris

Flat Stanley is a book that is read by most first graders in our area, followed up by a class project. The story is about a boy named Stanley who is literally flattened by a bulletin board that falls on him while he is laying on his bed (OUCH!). Of course it seems terrible. But, Stanley quickly learns that the terrible thing that has happened to him has many benefits—one of which is that he can now be put into an envelope and mailed to different people in different parts of the world. Thus, Stanley goes places and does things he could never have done before. The follow-up project for the students involves coloring in a picture of Flat Stanley and mailing him to a family friend or relative who in turn takes Flat Stanley to all kinds of places. The friend or relative takes pictures of Flat Stanley and sends back both pictures and a letter outlining Stanley’s many adventures. A few weeks ago, I received Flat Stanley from my nephew Billy. (I think Billy is the second or third one to sen...

The other day, while watching my son Nathaniel play a high school tennis match, I looked up and saw a surprising sight: a huge hawk was being chased through the air by five or six much smaller birds. It was quite a sight to see. After all, the hawk with its wingspan of three to four feet was huge and majestic looking. Often I’ve seen it in the area perched on the top of a tree or soaring through the air. At times, I’ve even seen it diving towards the ground in response to the sighting of some prey. But here it was, this majestic bird being chased by a small flock of little birds, each one no bigger than a small robin. I don’t know much about ornithology, but I’m sure there was a reason for the chase (possibly the hawk was threatening the eggs or chicks of the smaller birds). What I do know, however, is that the hawk could have taken out those little birds pretty easily. It seemed to me that all it needed to do was turn around, go on the attack, and the little birds could have been qu...

One day in 1931 a baby boy was born in Indiana, USA.  Twenty-six years later (1957) a second baby boy was born, this one in Saudi Arabia. Each one was just another baby being birthed into our world like millions of babies are birthed each year. Each one, however, would eventually make a tremendous impact on our world--actually changing our world—but for greatly different reasons. One baby grew to become a man of hate, the other a man of love. One became a man of war, the other a man of peace. One became man who killed, the other a man who brought life. This week I heard it said, “When you were born you cried and the people rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die, people cry and you rejoice!” It made me think of these two baby boys. The baby born in 1957 died, or more accurately was killed by our U.S. armed forces, on May 1, 2011. He was none other than Osama Bin Laden, the man whose terror plots led to the deaths of thousands of men and women, including t...