Our society is just less open to platitudes, more open to stories.

No place is too common. No person is too hardened. No distance is too far. There's no person God cannot reach. There's no limit to his love.

The past does not have to be your prison. You have a voice in your destiny. You have a say in your life. You have a choice in the path you take.

Fear never wrote a symphony or poem, negotiated a peace treaty, or cured a disease. Fear never pulled a family out of poverty or a country out of bigotry. Fear never saved a marriage or a business. Courage did that. Faith did that. People who refused to consult or cower to their timidities did that. But fear itself? Fear herds us into a prison and slams the doors. Wouldn't it be great to walk out?

My first encounters with faith came about the time I was a Boy Scout, at about 14 or 15. I made the logical deduction that they operate the same way; I treated my faith like earning a merit badge, and everything about Christianity was about earning merit badges.

What to change your life? Begin by saying, "The Lord is my shepherd."

The ultimate solution to POVERTY is found in the COMPASSION of God's people.