July 16, 2026 | Moments Almanac | Soar

Welcome to Scattered Moments for July sixteenth, twenty twenty-six. And on this day in nineteen sixty-nine, the ground itself seemed to shake. A Saturn V rocket, taller than a thirty-six-story building, roared to life at Kennedy Space Center. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins were strapped inside, carried by seven and a half million pounds of thrust toward a destination no human being had ever reached. For a few breathless minutes, the entire world looked up. It remained one of humanity's greatest engineering feats. But thirty eight years earlier, on that same July date, another journey reached its destination with almost no one watching. In a mud brick mission station in Il Bambi, in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Charles Thomas Studd breathed his last. No countdown, no cameras, no cheering crowds, just a missionary surrounded by believers whose lives had been changed because one man decided that Christ was worth everything. The prophet Isaiah once heard the Lord ask, Whom shall I send and who shall go for us? And Isaiah answered, Here I am, send me. CT Stud answered that same call. He had once been one of England's greatest celebrities. He captained England's cricket team. Crowds adored him. Wealth, prestige, and comfort were already his. Then he encountered Christ in a way that reordered everything. He walked away from fame to sail for China with six other young men who became known as the Cambridge Seven. Later came India, then Africa. He gave away much of his inheritance, buried loved ones, endured illness, spent decades carrying the gospel where few outsiders were willing to go. His motivation never became more complicated than this. If Jesus Christ be God and he died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him. Apollo eleventh was an extraordinary mission. It required astonishing courage, brilliant minds, and unimaginable resources to send three men nearly a quarter of a million miles from Earth. Stud's journey required something different. He spent not fuel, but years. Not rockets, but surrender, not billions of dollars, but everything he personally possessed. One mission planted a flag on the moon, the other planted churches that would outlive him. One returned to Earth with a splashdown followed by ticker tape parades. The other ended at a simple grave in the Congo, where fifty missionaries and nearly two thousand African believers gathered to honor a life poured out for Christ. Jesus said, For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his own soul? That question still hangs over every generation. Most of us will never climb into a rocket, most of us will never cross an ocean to become missionaries, but every one of us is invited to leave the launch pad of comfort and follow Christ wherever he leads. C. T. Studd left his words that still challenge comfortable Christianity. Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. The greatest journey isn't measured by how far we travel, but how completely we surrender. And that's today's Moments Almanac. I hope you'll join me tomorrow. Until then, take care, notice the scattered moments, and share the grace.