When I was fourteen years old, I worked most of the summer for a neighboring farmer. We harvested apricots by the tractor-load in the hot July weather. I loved it—driving the John Deere tractor up and down rows of fruit trees, loading large bins of golden-red apricots for delivery to cold storage.

“Son, how’s your relationship with the Lord?” He was looking into my eyes, and the question caught me off guard. I stumbled a bit with my reply. “Well, it’s good, Dad. At least—I hope it’s good.” Dad’s earthly journey would end just a few weeks later. He was literally on his deathbed. Coming from my father as it did, the question was especially jarring. Dad had never been one for church or anything approaching “spiritual” discussions.

Prayer, at times, is akin to a 911 call to Jesus. It’s urgent, demanding immediate attention. Consider Numbers 12:13 when Moses cried out to the Lord for his sister, Miriam: “Please, God, heal her!” Or David in Psalm 12:1, “Help, Lord, for the godly are fast disappearing!” Or how about Peter in Matthew 14:30 as he slipped beneath the waves? “Lord, save me!”

Petra’s song, “Not of this World,” boomed across the venue in Pasco, Washington, with hundreds of young people singing with the band, “We are strangers, we are aliens, we are not of this world.” It was the spring of 1985, and I was deeply moved as these kids enthusiastically worshipped and praised Jesus.

Daniel, a Bible hero in the Old Testament, had some really big asks in his prayer time. He believed in God with all his heart, was willing to risk his life for that faith, and prayed before his open window (at least) three times a day.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are like prophets that speak to Christians and churches today. Their dramatic story unfolds in the third chapter of Daniel.

God reminds us to remember. And you know why. When it comes to marking and taking note of all that the Lord has done in us and for us and through us, most of us are notorious forgetters. But when we make the effort to remember God’s deeds and His grace toward us, we reproduce the joy of His goodness. Your memory is a reproducing tool to encourage your faith in Jesus. Is it any wonder Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” every time we come around His New Covenant table of communion?

My mind didn’t wander much for the three days that Nancy and I joined friends for a conference on spiritual warfare. Dr. Karl Payne, teaching from his book of that title, had our full attention.

It was July, and even with the summer sun set, it was still boiling hot in our little house. For most of our growing up years, our family didn’t have air conditioning. My brother Jack and I, sleeping in the same bedroom, lay in our beds sweating—sometimes with damp washcloths on our faces. Even after the sun went down, the air was dead and heavy, with nothing stirring except the mosquitos slipping in and out through the hole in the screen.

Sunday night church services used to be as common as Wonder Bread in America. Altars were common, too. I remember the solid walnut altars—dark, rich, brown—one on the left and one on the right at the front of the sanctuary.

Standing in front of the large sign, I had to laugh out loud. And I have to admit that my laughter was just a tad cynical.

Because the lights in the operating room were so bright, I squinted. Two nurses, one on my left and the other on my right, were watching over me. Both were pleasant, friendly and busy. The anesthesiologist was cracking jokes as he stood behind the nurse on my left.

When each of our five children were around ten months old, they would point with their tiny forefingers and say, “What’s that?” Prompted by their curiosity, those were some of the first words they ever put together.

Some people say I am “over saved.”

Too much Jesus they say. Well, if they only knew.

In 1979 Van Halen’s hit, “Runnin’ with the Devil,” was my theme song. Deliverance along the road of salvation took time, because I didn’t know what I was stuck in—or what was stuck in me.

City buses pass constantly through the German Colony in Jerusalem. Mom and I boarded one for the ten-minute ride to her office at Bridges for Peace, a Christian ministry helping Jewish people return home to Israel.

When I was seven years old, I liked to watch a futuristic cartoon character named George Jetson and his wife, Jane, on our old black-and-white TV. They had a robot maid named Rosie, which was pretty cool, but it was also amazing to see George and Jane talk to their son Elroy—and even George’s boss, Mr. Spacely—on a video phone. This was a piece of hardware that allowed them to actually see and speak to people in other locations. Back in 1962, that was a pretty wild idea—the stuff of some far-future society, where everyone lives in little Space Needles.

The buzzing chatter around the rodeo arena went still. Everything slowed down except my heart rate. All I could hear was the leather creaking in the saddle and a slight jingle as I gently tugged on the big bay horse’s reins and backed him into the chute.

When I was in my teens, our low-profile part of the world had a couple of AM stations available for our musical enjoyment. One was country-western, and the other contemporary rock. Our high school piped in the rock station during lunch, much to the student body glee.

Even the switchbacks are lung-sucking steep on Mickinnick Trail. But the views and vistas looking East over Lake Pend Oreille are so breathtakingly beautiful, it’s worth every strenuous step. Or at least—that’s what Nancy and I kept telling ourselves as we labored up the three-mile route.