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Radio Script for October 17, 2007
“For Dads on the Edge of an Affair”
Hello, I’m
To flirt with adultery is to steal from your children.
To commit adultery is to plunder your own offspring.
You bring a hellish hammer down on your kids when you take time meant for them and squander it on some woman not your wife.
Would you strike your children a vicious blow? Would you take your strong hand and smack their ears ‘til they bled? No, you love your children too much to hurt them like that.
Yet to toy with adultery is to hurt them.
One of the most powerful scenes I’ve ever seen is in the movie “Hope Floats.” Not that I recommend the movie, but there is one scene that every father even flirting with another woman needs to see.
The dad is leaving home to go be with his “lover.” All of a sudden he sees his little girl, Bernice, following him with a bag in her hand.
He says, “Bernice, what do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going with you.”
“Honey, that’s impossible.”
“But I’m going with you.”
“No, you’ve got to stay with your mama.
“You told me you wanted me with you, remember?”
“Listen, honey, I’ve got to go. Now don’t do this to yourself, okay? Don’t make a scene. Now go back inside.”
But Bernice carries her little luggage out anyway and throws it in the trunk with Daddy’s – who takes it out and hands it to her.
“Stop it, Daddy!”
“Bernice, you know I’d take you with me if I could.”
“You can!”
“Try to understand, baby. Connie and I, we need this time to ourselves to try and make a go of it. Then I’ll come back for you, I promise.”
“You want me! You wrote it in your letter!”
Dad gets in the car, and now Bernice is standing outside the locked door, crying.
“Please, let me in! You want me!”
“I’ll always want you, Bernice. You’re my little princess.”
And he drives away, abandoning the heart and soul of his own little girl.
Like I said, it’s one of the most powerful movie scenes I’ve ever scene, and a must see for any dad toying with the idea of even looking twice at another woman.
But let me tell you, that dad started hurting his little girl long before that tragic scene. He started hurting her the minute he diverted some of his precious time away from her in order to cultivate a relationship with Connie.
That scene of little Bernice reminds me of a song by John Mayer entitled “Daughters.” The singer tells of a girl he’s in love with, but who is driving him crazy. He can’t figure out what her deal is, and finally he decides that maybe her problem is not with him, but maybe it goes back to the fact that her father left her.
The second verse goes like this:
“Oh, see that skin?
It’s the same she’s been standing in
Since the day
She saw him walking away
Now she’s left
Cleaning up the mess he made.”
Dad, do not betray your children. And do not mistake the truth. When you spend time cultivating a relationship with another woman, you are betraying your children. You are robbing them of Daddy time, the time you are supposed to be loving them and teaching them and cheering them and listening to them. Yes, you have a relationship to cultivate, but it’s with your child, not some other woman.
King David learned that lesson the hard way. Instead of a tidy little family with one wife and kids, he took advantage of his leadership position and ended up with children by several women. But oh, the heartache that rained down on him because of it. He had to witness the brutal death of some of his kids, and it all came back to his own unfaithfulness. He would have saved himself many daggers to the heart if he would have just been a faithful husband and father.
After David’s affair with Bathsheba, Second Samuel 11:27 says, “But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.”
That is the fork in the road. You can decide to please the Lord, or not. David decided not to, and he paid for it the rest of his life.
If you are a dad today, make a vow to please the Lord. Make a vow to be a faithful husband and father. And whatever you do, don’t do anything to hurt the blessed little offspring God has placed in your care.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With
(Fade out with “Daughters” by John Mayer.)
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