To listen to the radio version, click here.
To search archives, click here.
Apples of Gold
Radio Script for October 1, 2009
“The Faith of a Little Child”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
Missy Haskins was five years old.
Her daddy, Mr. Guinn Haskins, got a new job over in Dothan, Alabama.
They decided not to move the family until Missy’s siblings were done with school, so for six weeks Missy’s dad stayed in Dothan and came home on the weekends.
He worked for G.F.A. – Georgia Florida Alabama Frozen Foods – which was owned by Mr. James C. Barrentine, and operated by his son Jimmy.
The Barrentines treated their new employee like a member of the family. He stayed in their guest house during the week, and ate dinner with them each evening.
Then it was decided that little five-year-old Missy would come to Dothan and spend the week with her daddy. And while he was at work during the day, she would stay with Mrs. Barrentine.
After Missy’s first day at the Barrentine’s, her dad came home from work and was told, “We had a little situation arise.”
“A situation?”
Well you need to know that each day Mr. Barrentine and Jimmy Barrentine would come home for lunch and eat with Mrs. Barrentine. Missy’s dad, Guinn, did not join them for lunch because his work took him away from the office.
So it was Missy’s first day at the Barrentine’s, and they all sat down and started eating lunch.
Except Missy.
She didn’t even touch her food.
Finally Mr. Barrentine, whom Guinn described as “a kind of gruff man,” said, “Missy, what’s wrong with your food?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it, Mr. Barrentine.”
“Then why aren’t you eating it?”
“Because we haven’t blessed it.”
It kind of set them back a while, Guinn said, and finally Mr. Barrentine looked at his son and said, “Jimmy, you bless it!”
And Jimmy stumbled through some kind of grace, but it was good enough for Missy.
And for the rest of the week, they prayed before they ate.
“I don’t know if they ever said grace again,” Guinn said, “but they did while Missy was there, because she wouldn’t eat.”
“And I’ve thought about that a lot of times,” Guinn said. “There I was, a grown man, eating with them for six weeks, and was not a testimony. I didn’t say nothing about it. I just sat down and ate. But here a five-year-old was a good Christian testimony to them.”
When I heard that story I thought, “Wow, the faith of a child.”
In Matthew 18 Jesus’ disciples asked Him, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
Jesus called over a little child and said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
You know, it is humbling to have a childlike faith. Skeptical grownups look at you like you’re nuts.
And sometimes we react by trying to make Christianity seem all logical and reasonable. And there is some logic and reason to it. But it’s mostly just faith.
To be the best Christians we can be, it takes humble, childlike faith in the face of a scoffing world.
They may ask us a lot of questions, and we may try to give them answers, but in the end the only real answer we have is our faith. We just simply believe.
Our faith does not rest on men’s wisdom, as it says in First Corinthians 2:5, but on God’s power.
Second Corinthians 5:7 says we walk by faith, not by sight.
First John 5:4 says that our faith is the victory that overcomes the world.
We simply believe in the Lord and His Word. We have faith.
But it doesn’t stop there.
James 2 says that faith must be “accompanied by action.”
It’s not just in our head, but it shows up in what we do, for everyone to see.
Yes, sometimes it’s humbling, and that’s the way it must be.
Jesus said we must humble ourselves like children.
The world may see us as simpletons, but it actually makes us great in the kingdom of heaven.
We are at our best when we have the simple faith of a little child.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
© 2009 The Arrow’s Tip
To subscribe to your own daily “Apples of Gold” e-mail, write dougapple@wave94.com.
If you want to be removed from this e-mail list, simply click reply and type UNSUBSCRIBE on the subject line.
If you want to catch “Apples of Gold” in its original audio format, go to www.wave94.com
To search through the large archive of past articles, go here: http://www.wave94.com/modules.php?name=Stories_Archive
If you have trouble reaching me at my main e-mail address, try this one: douglas_apple@msn.com
(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)
Why “The Arrow’s Tip”? Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold. Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.” I envision Apples of Gold as arrows, tips dipped in the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God (Rev. 22:1), sailing toward the hearts and minds of men and women around the world.
Doug Apple
General Manager - Wave 94
Christian Radio for Tallahassee
PO Box 4105
Tallahassee, FL 32315
(850) 926-8000
-vi-
No comments:
Post a Comment