Istrouma Ascension Podcast

"Stay thirsty, my friends."  So ended every commercial in a well-known marketing campaign.  The ads featured an older, debonair fellow dubbed, "The World's Most Interesting Man."   In each commercial he would do something exotic and daring—cliff diving in Acapulco, riding a monster wave on some exotic coastline, freeing an angry bear caught in a trap, sowing up his own injury while chatting with m...

It was an exciting day when I got my high school senior ring. Not long afterward I was riding with my friend in his new pickup truck. We were headed to play a basketball game. I decided to take off my ring and lay it on the dashboard of the truck.  As we rounded a curve in the road, the ring slid along the dash and promptly dropped into the AC vent.    We tried to fish out the ring but with no luc...

What's your favorite Christmas movie?  Commonly mentioned ones include "Elf," "Home Alone," and "Miracle on 34th Street."  But my personal favorite is "It's a Wonderful Life."   The main character is George Bailey.  As a young man, he is full of dreams about what his life will become.  He wants to leave his quaint hometown of Bedford Falls and see the world.  But family responsibilities keep him t...

In the early 1900s Los Angeles, California was rapidly growing.  To supply the city with needed water, a massive, concrete dam was built in the mountains above the city.  The St. Francis Dam was finished in 1926.  Once the reservoir filled, the seemingly indestructible dam held back more than twelve billion gallons of water.    Almost immediately upon completion, cracks began to appear in the mass...

A good start doesn't guarantee a good finish.  I learned that lesson by running distance events in high school.  The runners that sprinted the first couple of hundred yards and gained an early lead were not necessarily (nor even likely) to be the ones that finished the race well.   This is illustrated well by a couple of world-class milers.  The first man ever to run the mile in less than four min...

Chuck Colson was a young, aggressive attorney.  He rose to be a special assistant to the president of the United States during the administration of Richard Nixon.  He moved in the circles of greatest power and prominence.  He was known to be ruthless and willing to tackle the toughest of assignments.  He was sometimes referred to as the president's hatchet man.    In the aftermath of the Watergat...

The old saying goes, "Everybody loves an underdog."  I think it is because underdogs exceed expectations.  They give us hope that we, too, though overwhelmed, can win.    On Valentine's Day in 1992, two Alabama high schools met in a regular season basketball game.  They were the Fort Payne Wildcats and the North Jackson Chiefs.  The game was hard fought and went into overtime.  The refs were calli...

What an inspiration it is, when someone exceeds expectations!    I want to tell you the story of a little girl who did just that—repeatedly.   She was the 20th of 22 children in her family. She was born prematurely. Doctors did not expect her to survive. But she did. She exceeded expectations.    While still a young child, she contracted polio, causing her left leg to become paralyzed. Some people...

Many of us learned Mother Goose nursery rhymes growing up.  One of the best known goes like this:   "What are little girls made of?  Sugar and spice and everything nice.  That's what little girls are made of."   How about boys?   "What are little boys made of? Snips and snails and puppy dog tails. That's what little boys are made of."   Let's tweak the question and word it this way, "What are godl...

There's an old saying that goes something like this: "God can hit a straight lick with a crooked stick."  The basic meaning is that God can take imperfect instruments, like you and me, and do amazing things.   How old a saying is it, you may ask?  Well, here's a version of it from over 300 years ago:   "Do not contemne thy weak brother.  God can raise his thoughts, or direct his follie to a happie...

There's one sound that no relay runner ever wants to hear—it's the sound of a dropped relay baton clanking on the track.   At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, both the United States men's and women's 4x100-meter relay teams dropped their batons—and heard that dreaded sound.    Both squads were heavy favorites.  Both were leading their races and headed for certain victory.  But both dropped the batons as...

Ever feel like life is a merry-go-round, without a lot of "merry"?    If you've seen many New Year's come and go, you probably know the feeling.  Been here.  Done that.  New Year's resolutions that are broken before they are cold.  According to statistics, the percentage of Americans who keep their New Year's resolution for one month is 55.  Who keep it for six months: 40.  Who keep it for two yea...

How many laws are there in the United States?  No one is exactly sure.  It may be that no one can count that high!  They've been accumulating, of course, for more than 200 years.  When federal laws were first collected and printed in 1927, they fit into one single volume.  By the 1980s, there were 50 volumes.   The federal tax code alone contains millions of words and is some 6500 pages in length....

It's a rare thing, particularly in our American culture, to fall on our knees, isn't it?  It is reserved for very special occasions.  And rightly so.  It is not something to be done lightly.   I remember one occasion when I knelt before another.  It was a beautiful spring evening, lit by the glow of a full moon.  I knelt before a beautiful young woman named Nell.  I knelt there as a sign of my res...

Jesus is called by many names or titles in Scripture.   Some of these names have a special tie to the Christmas season—Immanuel, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.   Many of his names, including these that I've just metioned, are transcendent.  They speak of His power and sovereignty.  He is Master, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and the list goes on.    But t...

On April 25, 2015 a huge earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale struck Nepal.  Thousands of structures were damaged and the death toll soared to 9,000.  The world watched in horror.    Rescue personnel threw themselves at the enormous task in front of them.  They grew exhausted and discouraged as they labored hour after hour in a desperate attempt to save lives.  As hope began to fade, the...

There are lots of things about the wise men that we don't know.    We don't know how many wise men there were, though tradition teaches us that there were three.  We don't know their names.  In the sixth century, someone decided that their names were Melchior, Baltazar and Gaspar.  Operas have been written ascribing these names to them.  But no one really knows what their names were.  We don't kno...

ESPN has a realtively new feature called "#YouHadOneJob."  It focuses on people who had one task to do, but failed spectacularly doing it.  It's a light-hearted look at some sports bloopers.   In life we sometimes think we have a lot to do—go to school, do homework, shuttle the kids, pay the bills, etc.  But the truth is, we really only have one primary task.  That "job" is clarified in Philippian...

It won't be long till Christmas!  One tradition of this season is the sending and receiving of greetings.  One site estimated that 1.6 billion greeting cards will be sent and that those cards will have a value of some two billion dollars.   It is important to greet one another.   The tradition of greeting one another has strong roots in the Christian faith.  Over 90 times the word "greet" or some...