The Good News Blog

The Hugging Judge
‘Don’t bug me! Hug me!’ – Bumper Sticker

Lee Shapiro is a retired judge. He is also one of the most genuinely loving people we know. At one point in his career, Lee realized that love is the greatest power there is. As a result, Lee became a hugger. He began offering everybody a hug. His colleagues dubbed him “the hugging judge” (as opposed to the hanging judge, we suppose). The bumper sticker on his car reads, “Don’t bug me! Hug me!”

About six years ago Lee created what he calls his Hugger Kit. On the outside it reads “A heart for a hug.” The inside contains thirty little red embroidered hearts with stickums on the back. Lee will take out his Hugger Kit, go around to people and offer them a little red heart in exchange for a hug.

Lee has become so well known for this that he

by Dr. Harold Sala

“…and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.” Matthew 2:9-10

The star of Bethlehem what was it, really? In 1613 the question occurred to Johannes Kepler, the European astronomer. It was just a week until Christmas and Kepler was fascinated by the confluence of the two planets Saturn and Jupiter in the constellation of Pisces.

“Could it be,” thought Kepler, “that the star which guided the Wise Men was really these two planets?” Kepler was intrigued by the idea and began to study. Whether he wanted to prove his idea or to discredit it is not certain, but before he died, Kepler’s brilliant mathematical deductions showed that a conjunction of the two planets did take place in the year 7 BC.

Kepler died before scholars discovered

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE

“…The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart”  -1 Samuel 16:7, NIV

TODAY’S WORD from Joel and Victoria

When the Lord looks at your heart, what does He see? Every one of us has an outer life and an inner life. The outer life is our public life that the people around us see. The inner life is made up of our thoughts, attitudes, and motives. Only you and God know what’s going on inside of you.

Too many people go around today pretending—acting one way, yet on the inside they’re thinking something totally different. Their heart and their actions don’t line up. But we have to understand that God is looking on the inside. We can fool a lot of people, but we can’t fool God. He would rather us be open and honest than

by Dr. Harold Sala

Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? -Galatians 5:7

When you are tempted to give up and quit, do you ever consider what might happen if you didn’t quit, if you tried one more time, if someway, somehow God gave you the strength which you lack and you made it to your goal? That we are temped to quit is a given–everybody, at times, hears a quiet voice within saying, “This just isn’t worth it.”

If the test of your character is what it takes to stop you, then whether you grit your teeth and try again or give up may depend on what’s inside, the kind of stuff you are made of.

In his book Endurance Alfred Lansing tells of the incredible journey of Sir Ernest Shackelton in 1915 across 800 miles of an ice-filled ocean where it was bitterly cold

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE

A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.” -Proverbs 14:30, NIV

TODAY’S WORD from Joel and Victoria

Did you know the best thing you can do for health is to set your heart at peace with God? Peace is such a powerful position. It is a position of life and strength. Peace literally means “to set at one again.” In other words, we have peace when our minds and hearts are in alignment with the Word of God.

It’s so easy to let the pressures and distractions of life pull our thoughts away from the Father. It doesn’t take long before we are so focused on earthly things that we feel overwhelmed and all stressed out. But, we weren’t meant to live anxious about life, we were meant to live in peace.

Today, choose to keep your heart at peace by staying focused on God