Radio
Script for November 30, 2006
“Get Your Goat”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
Have you ever heard the phrase “Get your goat”?
No one seems to know exactly where it came from, or if it might
actually be “get your goad,” but either way it means the same
thing. If someone “gets your goat” it means they got to you.
They got through your defenses and upset you.
So the question is, what does it take to get your goat?
If you have a short fuse, you’re easy. Anybody can get your goat.
Your personal peace is paper thin, and the first drop of rain spoils
it.
Maybe you pride yourself on being stable and rational. But you know
how it goes. Along comes someone who will not give up. They keep
pushing buttons until they find the right ones.
What is the sign that someone has “got your goat?” When you
overreact. Your reaction is not calm and measured, but it suddenly
bursts forth in an irrational display of emotion.
Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick is in the news this week
because someone got his goat. His team played poorly, and as they
walked off the field a fan yelled something offensive to Michael
Vick. That was it. He had had enough. He flashed the single digit
sign language for “you got my goat.” And the league fined him
$10,000.
Sure he was frustrated. Sure the fan was offensive. But Vick
reacted as if he and the fan was all there was. Obviously the league
didn’t see it that way. There is a much larger picture that Vick
ignored, and it cost him 10 grand.
Usually when someone gets our goat and we overreact, it’s because
we are not seeing the big picture. If we saw the big picture, we
would react differently.
In driver’s ed we were taught not to swerve for small animals.
“Why not? We don’t want to murder the cute little bunny.”
Because you and the bunny is not all there is. The bigger picture
shows the wreck you might have if you jerk the wheel.
Another lesson from driver’s ed. We were taught to look further
down the road in order to keep the car steady. If you only look at
the road directly in front of you, you will constantly turn the
wheel, reacting to every little thing.
The same is true in life. To be steady and stable, we need to look
further down the road.
When Paul wrote the book of Ephesians, he said he was “a prisoner
for the Lord.” He could have focused on the walls of his
confinement. It could have gotten his goat. I mean, how unfair is
it to be in prison for serving God and loving people?
But he looked beyond the walls and saw the bigger picture. He wrote
things like, “…how wide and long and high and deep is the love of
Christ…” He wrote, to God be the glory “…throughout all
generations, forever and ever!”
Talk about seeing the big picture! Paul saw beyond the walls, beyond
his own life, out through all the coming generations. And it brought
him incredible peace and stability, in spite of all the people trying
to get his goat.
Michael Vick was “had” as soon as he focused on that fan and got
caught up in the flurry of the moment.
The same happens to us at school, at work, at home. Our peace is
lost when we let someone get to us. We focus on them, when we need
to look beyond them, to the bigger picture.
What is the bigger picture? The bigger picture is beyond our little
situation, beyond whatever we are struggling with. The bigger
picture goes beyond our little lives to the grand, eternal scheme of
things under the control of the Lord God Almighty.
HE is the big picture. HE is our motivation. HE is our focus in
life. Paul writes that we can be “filled to the measure of all the
fullness of God.” *
I don’t know about you, but I want that. I want to be “filled to
the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Then I know that I will be stable and strong in all circumstances. I
will see past the flurry of the moment. And I’ll know that no
matter who comes along, and no matter how many buttons they push,
they will not be able to “get my goat.”
Comments?
E-mail me…dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
*
Ephesians 4:19
©
2006 Darling Child al Fine
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(Proverbs 25:11 – “A
word fitly spoken is like apples
of gold in settings
of silver.”)
Fine (pronounced
"feenay') is the Italian word for "end." D.C.
al Fine tells you to
go back to the beginning of the piece and repeat until you come to
the marking Fine. In
the Christian life, we must keep coming back to the beginning…our
childlike faith in the forgiveness freely given by our Heavenly
Father…at the foot of the cross.
