Devotionals

Sir Francis Bacon is credited with coining the phrase “knowledge is power,” intending to highlight the importance of education for personal advancement.  He understood that with greater knowledge comes increased control over a situation.  Unfortunately, it can also be used negatively. I once worked for a police chief who began every budget meeting with an in-depth examination of the overtime expenditures of each section [...]

Last week I watched my favorite NFL team lose a game in the closing seconds by a single point.  Sports analysts described the loss as the worst in team history due to a series of bizarre blunders.  The most egregious of them took place when one of the players broke through the defense for a 72-yard run to score a touchdown—except it didn’t count.  [...]

“Answer shopping” is a tactic that compares potential solutions from different sources to identify the one most favorable.  Without any instruction, little ones figure it out.  When a toddler bumps his head, he waddles right past dad to get to mom because he prefers her response.  Teenagers figure out that a request involving a greater risk of injury is probably better suited to dad.  [...]

One of the most enjoyable parts of being on a remote vacation is the absence of regular schedules and everyday responsibilities—no alarm, no traffic and no boss.  The freedom to spend your time any way you like can be a source of genuine refreshment.  It’s the retirement life that people chase their entire professional lives.  As delightful as that kind of autonomy sounds, it’s [...]

A humorous way to point out someone’s failure to complete a straightforward task is to say, “You only had one job.”  One example is the company that mistakenly hung the sign for “WOW Productions” upside down so that the colorful, oversized letters across the roofline read “MOM.” Another example involves the Sean O’Casey Bridge in Dublin, Ireland.  It’s a pedestrian “swing bridge” designed to [...]

What does the British Army of the Second Boer War, the Russian Army of World War I and the French Army of World War II have in common?  They all entered battle unprepared.  Overconfident, in 1899 the British Army brought their outdated, colonial warfare techniques to fight against an army with modern rifles and artillery.  In World War I the Russians mobilized their troops [...]