Richard Franz

Growing up, we may have let peer pressure get us involved in something without thinking it through fully. When our moms found out, they would ask, “If everyone was going to jump off the bridge, would you go jump, too?” Mom was sincerely looking out for our well-being. She said this to make us think, Why am I about to do this thing everyone else is doing? But how much of society still follows the crowd every year?

“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” was a hit song originally written for the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, an American western film starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman. The song promoted the value of looking at the bright side even in the face of endless slights and struggles:

But there’s one thing I know:

The blues they send to meet me

Won’t defeat me; it won’t be long

Till happiness steps up to greet me.
 

Raindrops keep falling on my head

But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turning red;

A young woman once went to her grandmother and told her about the difficulties of her life and the hardships she was facing. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling—whenever one problem was solved, a new one seemed to pop up.

We sometimes read Scripture and miss details that, if contemplated, expand our minds almost to their limits.

Mankind’s history is littered with stories and accounts of people betraying or attempting to hoodwink their fellow man. Biblical accounts include Cain’s murder of his younger brother Abel, Jacob’s trickery of his elder brother Esau, Delilah’s attempts to undermine the mighty Samson, and the betrayal of Jesus Christ by His disciple Judas. And in many cultures around the world, stories of trickeries both failed and successful fill entire anthologies.