Category Archives: Challenge

Challenge, Issues of the Day, Just for fun

If You Would Have Purchased Apple Stock Instead

Most people love their Apple products. What would your bank account look like if rather than purchasing the new Apple product, you would have bought their stock instead–dollar for dollar? Well, in an article written by Yaron Yitschak found in the Plugged newsletter, this is what you would have realized:

The first iPad arrived April 3, 2010 and cost $499.00, but if you would have purchased the same amount of stock at that time you would have $3,000.00, a 500 percent profit. 

The first iPhone came out June 29, 2007, cost $499.00 and your profit today would be $5,700.00.

The MacBook arrived in 2006. If instead you bought $1,099.00 in stock you would have accumulated $22,500.00. A 2,000 percent increase.

The first Mac Mini came out in 2005 and cost $499.00. Your stock worth today would be $19, 700.

The iPod debuted October 2001, cost $399.00 and with a 14,500 percent increase your profit today would be $58,000. But wait…

One more. The first Macintosh computer was released on January 24, 1984 and the base model cost $2,495.00. If you would have rather opted to purchase Apple stock verses the computer you would have gained 38, 500 percent on your money and be sitting on $960,000.

Wow, that sure made me think. Unfortunately, I never had that kind of insight. While raising a family in the 80’s, there was no possible way I would have shelled out $2,495.00 for any stock to have possibly lost it all. But, I have been told repeatedly that if you like a certain product or company and think others will as well (think Amazon), then purchase a small amount of stock as an investment, e.g., 100 or 500 dollars. 

There is a Proverb that says, “Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes it grow.” When we expect an instant return on our money without any labor invested, we are gambling. Some say that investing in the stock market is like gambling, but publicly traded companies are owned by their investors, you and me. Your retirement account (IRA, 401K) more than likely has a percentage of your funds invested in stock.

What to do with the gain realized? There is another Proverb for that question, “A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.”

Standard
Challenge, Encouragement

Pigeons Carried Messages that Saved Thousands

Were you aware that the undergarment company, Maidenform, designed and created 28,500 pigeon brassieres? They were vests really. The vests attached to the pigeon leaving their head, wings, tail and feet exposed.

 

Using carrier pigeons throughout WWII was a safe, secure and reliable method of communication. The Army Signal Corps sent out 30,000 messages via these homing birds. They traveled at 50 miles per hour and an average of 25 miles per mission. Pigeons were actually capable of 600 miles of travel if needed.

 

Housed in their vests were messages, maps, photos, reports and even tiny cameras. While the U.S. military utilized 55,000 pigeons, the British used 200,000 feathered messengers. Some even received medals of honor.

 

Today technology has replaced the pigeon. But this story caught my eye because man has this unique way of discovering the reasons that God created certain animals, plants, bacteria and matter. With bombs dropping and bullets flying these birds, not recognized by the enemy as a threat, flew behind enemy lines to deliver life-saving messages to troops on the ground. Their heroic efforts saved thousands of lives.

 

Christians carry a message too, and it’s life-saving. The Bible calls it the gospel, i.e., good news. It’s not political, it’s not controversial, it’s not negative and it’s not embarrassing; but it is urgent. The good news of the love of Jesus to all of mankind is life-changing and it is our responsibility to carry this message to the world.

Standard
Challenge, Encouragement, Healing, Issues of the Day

My “Victim Awareness Letter of Apology”

A number of years ago we were robbed. What a mess with such senseless damage to deal with. There were police reports, insurance company calls and descriptions, pictures taken and more police calls after the individual was caught.

 

Long after the damage was repaired and we were able to identify what was stolen, we received the following letter from the minor who created this nightmare. It read:

 

Dear Mr. Prokopchak, I’m sorry for what I did to you and I know it was the wrong thing to do. And if there is anything that I can do for you tell me or write back. And will not ever do some thing like this again. So plz take my apology and I’m really sorry.

 

We were pleased the probation department of his county required this letter of apology and for him to pay his fines. It was a costly mistake.

 

I did write him back. I told him how violated we felt. I told him that it was not good for him or for us and I told him that taking responsibility for his mistake was the right thing to do. More importantly, I told him that we forgave him and we would not hold it against him. Finally, I told him that I believed it had matured him and that he would become an amazing young man with a wonderful future who would experience personal growth through all of this.

 

Then I shared what he could do for me. I wrote, “You could receive God’s forgiveness for what you have done and then forgive yourself and start over. All things could become new in a personal relationship with Jesus.”

Standard
Challenge, Encouragement, Issues of the Day, Men

Our Remarkable Mothers

My amazing mother was a hardworking hair stylist and worked most Saturdays.* One Saturday, my Russian speaking Ukrainian grandfather was in charge of my care until she returned home from the beauty shop. He loved mushrooms and mistakenly decided to pick some orange ones that were growing beside an old tree stump in our front yard.

You might be able to surmise these were no ordinary mushrooms, nor were they suited for human consumption. They were toadstools, a toxic and highly poisonous mushroom. My grandfather cooked them. They turned green and we ate them. My young body became ill, violently ill. When my mother returned home and identified what “Pop” had cooked for lunch, she gave me warm milk to expel the poisonous contents from my tender stomach. Then she rushed us both off to the doctor.

The doctor told my mother that she saved our lives by creating a way to rid the two of us of the toxins. My trust in my mother increased hugely that day and my dependency on her increased as well. I felt secure with her presence or just knowing she was in the background somewhere. From this and multiple other incidents in my life, she became a safe place to me.

How about you? Was your mother a safe place for you? It’s time to honor her this week for Mother’s Day. “Her children arise and call her blessed…” (Proverbs 31:28)

(*Note: The above story was taken from my book, Identity: The Distinctiveness of You.)

Standard
Challenge, Marriage, Men, Women

Are You Living in the Past or the Present in Your Marriage?

Often the present is a window into our past, but it doesn’t have to dictate our future. We often develop what many call, “self-directed commands” from our histories. For example, “I need to make sure my family is protected” or, “I need to perform to be approved of.” These are innocent responses to how we interpreted our environment and they’re not always correct, but seem to remain with us until God deals with those areas. Obviously, as they are revealed, it’s good to work on them, discover the truth and find freedom from them.

Here’s the thing though: marriage can tend to bring out those self-directed commands and most times we’re not realizing it. We observe something our spouse is doing or not doing and it is accentuated in our head due to a historical connection. I am not saying our spouse is faultless, but all too often it’s not really our spouse, it’s us, i.e., our reaction connected to our history. That’s why it is often said you cannot change your spouse, only yourself. The reality is marriage teaches us to love and God uses it (as author Gary Thomas states) to not necessarily “make us happy,” but rather to make us more like Him. In short, one of the ways we express our love for God is how well we love our spouse in spite of their imperfections.

Marriage exposes our weaknesses and when our weaknesses are exposed the more difficult it may be to show respect. However, showing respect amidst difficulty is a sign of maturity. To dishonor and disrespect our life mate is a sign of immaturity. That is, immaturity defined as my needs are not being met and I am not happy. Truth is, in marriage we are no longer free to pursue whatever self-centered thing(s) we want. What we must strive for is what is best for our partner so that it builds “us” and not just me. When we run toward our struggles, we are strengthened. When we run away, we remain immature and weak especially when it comes to relationship.

Finally, when we hold back in marriage due to a present or historical incident, we are saying, “I will no longer relate to you on a deep level of intimacy.” When we move away from that deep level of intimacy and we stop sacrificing for one another, we are on the road to narcissism. And that is so well addressed in the verse that follows.


“…Being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others [your spouse] better than yourselves. Each of you should not only look to your own interests, but also to the interests of others [your spouse].”  (Philippians 2: 2-4)

Standard
Challenge, In the news, Issues of the Day

Earth Day: Some Not-So-Scientific Observations from Six Decades of Life

It’s interesting living life in my mid-sixties. That doesn’t seem so old to me now. I was born in the 50’s, grew up in the 60’s, left home and established my own household and served in the US military in the 70’s, went to college and was a missionary in the 80’s and traveled the world in the 90’s to date. I love the fact that I can now say, “I’ve been around the block.” It means I have lived through many major world crises, four in particular that I want to point out.

 

 

I lived through the drug infested, rock and roll introduced sexual revolution of the 1960’s and 1970’s. I also lived through four “scientifically proven” crises as well. In 1975 the talk around the world and in the scientific community particularly was “global cooling.” Yep, Time magazine even had a cover article on it in the 1970’s. Everything, everywhere on our planet was cooling and one day we would be living in a frozen tundra if we were living at all. Our planet as we knew it would be modified forever.

In the 1980’s the scientific consensus was that acid rain, caused by electricity-generating plants fueled by coal and spewing out sulfur dioxide was destroying our forests, our deserts, our lakes and our streams. Yes, acid rain would eat the paint right off of our cars. Not one fish would be left in a stream due to acid rain. Food could not be grown as we knew it because of acid rain. By 1991 following a ten-year study by the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program the conclusion was acid rain was not destroying our forests and did not hurt our food crops and caused no measurable health risks.

 

The third major scientific crises in my lifetime was the earth’s ozone layer developing holes and weakening. The ozone layer that surrounds our earth is made up of gases approximately 12-18 miles from the earth’s surface and it absorbs ultraviolet light—a pretty important part of God’s creation. Soon scientists discovered the real enemy to this disappearing ozone layer was hair spray, chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) used in spray bottles. Quickly, every pressurized spray can using CFC’s disappeared from the store shelves. By the mid 1980’s animals “were going blind” from this phenomenon. Depletion of this layer is still being studied, but scientists are also recently discovering that in many areas the ozone is “repairing itself” or there is actually an increase in thickness.

 

Today, we are suffering from “greenhouse gases” like CO2 and global warming. Yes, even cow flatulation is being measured by scientists. Climate change is our newest fear from science. I wonder if one day all of the present “facts” will change as the three previous disasters have? I don’t know. I am not a scientist and I cannot attest to the effects of global warming to be true, to be false or to be somewhere in between. I will let you decide that for yourself.

But this I do know:

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. (Psalm 24:1)

The Heavens are yours, and yours also the earth; you founded the world and all that is in it. (Psalm 89:11)

God created our world and He has a long-term plan for it, meanwhile, we need to be the best stewards we can possibly be of the earth because it belongs to God. We must do our part to not pollute, to use less water and become more conservative with all of our natural resources. But we need not live in fear. I appreciate science, but while the “facts” of science seem very convincing, they can also be very wrong and change. Two more things I know about God? He is never wrong and He does not change.  (See Malachi 3:6.)

Standard
Challenge, Children, Encouragement, Parents

A Crochety Old Store Owner

Down the street from where my mother worked as a beautician was a candy store with every child’s dream of sweet delights. So many kinds of candy imaginable and most of it was one cent per piece. However, on this particular day, I was after an ice cream cone. The problem was, there were too many flavors to choose from. The elderly store owner was growing impatient with me, but I just struggled to decide. Finally, she barked, “WELL, WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” I looked at her, the flavors, the ice cream, fiddled with the change in my hand and then shrugged my shoulders.

 

The next thing I knew she told me to, “GET THE H*** OUT” until I could decide. I was so scared, I ran for the door, ran down the street and ran into my mom’s beauty shop. Through my tears, I told my mother what happened. She marched me right back to that store, letting the crochety old lady know the little boy hiding behind her was her son. Man, did that store owner ever change her tune in a hurry. With ice cream in hand, my mother taught me a few lessons that day.

 

The first lesson was to not be afraid of confronting my fears. My mother was not afraid or intimidated by that store owner. She pursued what her son was too fearful to complete. Believing my story, she refused to allow her son to be treated in such a harsh, unpleasant way. Parents protect. She taught me that I could stand up for myself and it wasn’t wrong to do so. There was no love in that store owner’s expression to me, only fear-filled words. My mother, on the other hand, spoke only words of love.

 

Joshua 23:10 expresses that God would be with Joshua and fight for him. I believe He fights for you and me. Like a loving parent, He sees how His children are treated and responds in love to each of us. You are protected by Him and with His voice of love, encouraged to face your fears.

Standard
Challenge, Encouragement, Healing, Issues of the Day, Small Groups, Training

The Look

It transpired right after Peter’s denial as he disowned Jesus. Jesus was within sight of His disciple Peter and just after Peter’s final denial something really unnerving is mentioned in the gospel of Luke, chapter 22.

The rooster crowes and then this happens, “The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.” There were no recorded words spoken, only a “look.” It was done, over, just as Jesus had said it would happen. Peter would deny Him in His presence. Can you imagine with me what Peter felt in that moment? His whole body must have become warm and filled with mixed emotions as blood flowed through his neck to his flush face. I can see him wanting to escape the trauma he felt, looking down, shaking, feeling embarrassment and, of course, shame. What thoughts were going through his mind as fear must have gripped his heart during and after “the look?”

Sometimes I ask a small group question that goes like this, “If you had the opportunity for one do-over in life, what would it be?” I know mine; do you know yours? I’ll bet everything I own that at that moment Peter would have wished for his one do-over.

However, Peter received His Lord’s forgiveness and went on to be the greatest soul winning preacher of the New Testament. He didn’t quit, he didn’t get depressed and he didn’t remain in shame. I believe he went to the cross and made it right. And for me, it is one of the greatest stories of redemption in the Bible.

Is there anything in your life that needs redeemed? There is One who from the cross said, “Shame off of you. Let’s work on a do-over.”

For Peter, the hours leading up to Jesus’ resurrection must have been pretty dark, but then came Sunday, where everything must have become full of light, life and hope!

Standard
Challenge, Encouragement, Issues of the Day, Marriage, Men, Women

If You Have Chosen to Be Sexual…

I had this thought the other day when considering sexual boundaries in our lives. It’s one that I suppose some persons will agree with and perhaps others will strongly disagree with. It’s an observation I have made over the years as I watch how people respond so differently to God’s sexual boundaries lovingly written to us within His word.

Here’s the thought provoking question: If one chooses to be sexual prior to marriage, why not be sexual outside of your marriage?

It’s the same act isn’t it? It’s breaking the same moral guideline, right? It bears similar consequences, doesn’t it?

When we sow sexual seeds before marriage, what makes us think we’ll reason differently or be tempted differently while married?

If you are a young person who desires to obey your heavenly Father, then choose to sow into your future marriage relationship by following God’s moral code today. Do not think that you’ll get away with acting out sexually and then have no consequences after you say “I do,” having spoken vows of commitment for the remainder of your married life.

If you have crossed God’s boundaries, then I urge you to ask for forgiveness and experience deep repentance over disobeying your heavenly Father. Your future is very connected to the seeds you sowed in the past. Break off any soul connections from prior relationships. Declare Galatians 3:13 over your life and disconnect yourself from curses spoken or sowed. Commit once again to purity before marriage and within marriage.

Standard
Challenge, Encouragement

Everything That Can Be Invented Has Been Invented

In 1889, Charles Holland Duell was the Commissioner of the U.S. patent office. He is infamously quoted as having said that the U.S. patent office would soon shrink in size and eventually close because, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

 

Seems humorous and extremely shortsighted to us today doesn’t it? In fact, we might say there is still so much more to be invented and discovered. Did you know most new inventions are simply improvements over prior inventions? Just think about the transitions the lightbulb has gone through. We might say the more we know or discover, the more there is to know and discover.

 

It feels like decades ago now, but I met the man who invented something he called the “Stick.” He picked me up at an airport in Kentucky to take me to where I was speaking. Being inquisitive about him, I asked what he does for work. Driving an older car that was several different colors and had a trunk full of tools in it in which my suitcase did not fit, he told me he “…owned a lot of apartments that [he] had to maintain.”

 

The Stick was the tech piece that allowed the internet and your land line telephone to be used together. Prior to his invention, we used either the phone or the internet, but not both. He told me he sold his invention, not mentioning the value or bragging about his accomplishment.

 

Later, his pastor told me he became very, very wealthy through his sale, but it did not change who he was. He still loved working with his hands and getting dirty. He even rebuilt the transmission of his old car on his dining room table. He told me his wife was not very happy with him and he was looking forward to our marriage seminar that weekend! He volunteered to be my driver to and from the airport. Truly a man of humility.

 

Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. (Proverbs 11:2)

 

True humility and fear of the Lord lead to riches, honor, and long life. (Proverbs 22:4)

 

Don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. (Philippians 2:3)

 

By the way, Charles Duell left the patent office to become a District of Columbia judge appointed by President Roosevelt in 1904. Perhaps a better fit for him?

Standard