stories from 1 samuel 16

British author Leonard Ravenhill told the story of a group of tourists visiting a picturesque village where they saw an old man sitting by a fence. In a rather patronizing way, one of the visitors ask...

Speedy Morris is the basketball coach for LaSalle University. He was shaving when his wife told him he was wanted on the phone by Sports Illustrated. He got so excited over the prospect of national re...

John Berkley told a story about how he loves live professional choir concerts. At one concert, the conductor asked if anyone in the audience was there celebrating their birthday. Now, it was actually ...

I absolutely love Marvel movies. I’m talking about Thor, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Black Widow, Guardians of the Galaxy. All of them. In Ragnarok , Thor, the Norse god, played by the incredibly good-...

It is reported that after David’s secret anointing as king, he was called to play the harp for King Saul, who was abandoned by God and plagued by an evil spirit: “And whenever the harmful spirit from ...

Leo Tolstoy, the great writer, famously renounced his inherited wealth and chose to live as an ascetic and hermit in his later years. One of his disciples, a writer named Chertkov, was a wealthy arist...

One of my favorite movies is Hoosiers (1986). It tells the story of a small-town basketball team from Hickory, Indiana, that finds greatness under the leadership of their coach, Norman Dale. The...

Years ago, the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) was driving through New Jersey when his car unexpectedly broke down. While a mechanic worked on the repairs, Caruso struck up a conversation wi...

Impostors draw their identity not only from achievements but from interpersonal relationships. They want to stand well with people of prominence because that enhances a person’s résumé and sense of se...

I will never forget the witness of an Episcopal priest named Tom Minifie several years ago in St. Luke’s Church in Seattle, Washington. He spotted a high-profile couple sitting in the last pew with th...

On March 11, 1830, a young English girl was studying a lesson on the royal family with her tutor. As she examined the genealogical chart, she suddenly realized the astonishing truth—she was next in li...

After many years of highly successful ministry, Dwight Lyman Moody had an experience of which he himself said, I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it, it is almost too sacred an experience to name...

A missionary family who has started organic churches in some of the most dangerous fields in the world once returned to the states for furlough. On the first Sunday back, they visited a large Baptist ...

In Circle of Quiet , Madeleine L’Engle describes how her young adult novel A Wrinkle in Time was dismissed by eight publishers before it eventually landed with the publishing house of Farra...

Peter Ustinov, the British actor, director, and playwright, once received an indignant letter from the headmaster of his son’s school. The letter complained that his son frequently disrupted lessons b...

Bernard de Fontenelle (1657–1757), was a French author and philosopher, and was once engaged in conversation with the “Sun King”,  Louis XIV.  Louis began expressing his skepticism about the existence...

When the renowned writer and poet Dante Alighieri first saw the painter Giotto’s children, he was startled by their ugliness. “My friend,” Dante remarked, “you create such lovely figures in your art—w...

In the intro sequence of the beloved children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood , the first interior shot does not show the host. Instead, in the beat before Fred Rogers appears on the screen si...

Sometimes, older relatives find it hard to grasp the success of their younger family members. Shortly after Woodrow Wilson’s victory in the 1912 election, he visited his elderly aunt. “What are you do...

For those of us who live in the shadow of self-doubt, who may wonder what meaning a life of relative anonymity may have in a society filled with the cult of celebrity in which likes, reposts, and digi...

During the 1992 presidential elections a friend of mine told me about an awkward moment in his Bible study. One of the group members expressed excitement because that Sunday, she had seen a bumper sti...

A missionary was preaching in the village market, and some of the people were laughing at him because he was not a very handsome man. He took it for a time, and then he said to the crowd, “It is true ...

What the early Christians did not have to deal with to the same extent that we do today is how race has become an idol. On both sides of the racial divide, so much is twisted by the social constructs ...

Have you ever noticed that we often see ourselves, specifically our bodies, our facial features differently? In 2013 the soap company Dove decided to explore this phenomenon by hiring an FBI-trained f...

There is a story told about a Jewish farmer, who ended up stuck in his field for the Sabbath. As the sun went down, the farmer realized he would have to remain in the field until sunset the next day, ...

In the Christian faith, we frequently take for granted how radically Jesus evens the playing field. No matter your wealth, your position, let alone your race or gender, all of us are equal in God’s ey...

In his excellent book, Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World , Mike Cosper shares a short vignette about the comedian Louis C.K.* Louis CK tells fans he meets in pu...

Best-Selling leadership author Stephen Covey tells the following story about an incident he experienced in the New York subway system, an experience that would radically alter his perception of what i...

Dr. Bob Reccord tells the story of a major move that was set to take place inside the halls of a Fortune 500 company. It was unheard of, but the company was ready to promote a 38-year-old from vice pr...

Performance-enhancing drugs are a major problem in the sporting world. Cycling, baseball, weightlifting, football—athletes at the highest levels need something to put them over the top or keep them in...