When I was deep in the redwoods some time ago, I lay back and looked up. I mean really up. It was one of those clear summer nights when you could see forever. So starry it was scary. The vastI had just completed a manuscript on Philippians, and my heart was full of joy. Not only because I was through (isn’t that a wonderful word?) but because joy, the theme of the inspired letter I had spent weeks studying, had rubbed off. It was as if Paul and I had shared the same room and written at the same desk.ness of the heavens eloquently told the glory of God. No words could adequately frame the awesomeness of that moment. One of my mentors used to say, “Wonder is involuntary praise.” That night, it happened to me.

Various methods are employed to communicate the good news of Christ to the lost. Take the Eager-Beaver Approach, for example. “The more scalps, the better.” This numerical approach is decision-centered, and little (if any) effort is directed toward follow-up or discipleship or cultivating a relationship.

Duffy Daugherty, a colorful Michigan State football coach in years past, used to say that you needed only three bones to journey successfully through life: a wishbone, to dream on . . . a backbone, for strength and courage to get through the tough times . . . and a funny bone, to laugh at life along the way. Not bad advice.

Billy Wilder, the great movie producer, openly admitted: “I have a vast and terrible desire never to bore an audience.” With tacit agreement Jack Parr once declared: “The greatest sin is to be dull.”