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Apples of Gold
Radio Script for May 28, 2010
“A Man With His Big Boy Toy”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
Well I finally did it.
I finally found a good way to get my old home video tapes into a computer for editing.
We have a lot of tapes. First there were the VHS tapes we made with my dad’s big old RCA camera. Then came the smaller tapes when we got a little camera of our own.
And there they are, all stacked up, hours and hours of footage – and most of it boring.
Once in a great while we might get out a tape and watch it, and it’s fun for a while; but then it gets boring.
For example, there’s the tape of my daughter’s third birthday party. There is about an hour of footage, and at first it’s really interesting. It’s fun to see what people used to look like – the clothing, the hairstyles – and that’s good for about five minutes.
Then there is probably another five or ten minutes worth of cute comments and fun activities. Unfortunately, all that cuteness is buried under an avalanche of boring.
And, boring or not, it’s all rotting away on those old tapes.
So, I have a grand vision of editing them all and passing them out on DVDs, thereby saving the memories forever, and making them watchable without seizing up into a boringleptic coma.
In this day and age of powerful home computers, massive hard drives and easy video editing programs, it sounds simple, right?
Well I dare you to try and find the very best but reasonably priced system for this. In fact, my goal was to spend no money, if it all possible. My daughter has a powerful computer (which I financed, by the way) so all I really needed was a way to digitize the videos.
Well long story short, I finally found a friend with a great “capture” unit and another friend with the unusual cable I needed to make it work.
So last week I began editing that birthday party. I started by watching the whole video and marking the best parts.
Now I probably sound like any other guy messing around with technology, a man with his big boy toy, right?
But let me say this. There is more going on than meets the eye. Working on these videos causes something special to happen inside of me.
It turns my heart to my children.
I use that phrase because it’s found in the Bible.
First there is a prophecy in Malachi 4:6. “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children…”
And then an angel said it in Luke 1:17 about John the Baptist. “And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children…”
When I read that I think, “You know, this is something important that God wants done. He wants the hearts of fathers to be turned toward their children.”
A lot of dads are already there. They coach little league teams and read Bible stories. They pray with their kids and tuck them in at night. Their children sit on their lap while they watch a kids show and eat popcorn.
But a lot of dads don’t do it. They are gone a lot on business, and when they are home they don’t pay a lot of attention to the kids. Maybe they tolerate them, and maybe they do what their wife tells them to do, like “You are going to this recital.”
And if 50% of marriages end in divorce, then maybe half the dads don’t even live with their children, and I’m sure that often means “out of sight, out of mind.”
I know what it’s like. We dads can get very focused on things, and if the kids aren’t in the line of sight, they can just fade further and further out of focus.
That’s why this is so important. What will it take to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children?
Well for me, this is one thing that does it – working on old family videos.
My kids are mostly grown up now, and I relate to them more like adults than children. But working on the videos stirs up the old “dad” feelings – and bonds me once again to my children.
So what does it for you? Perhaps it’s praying for your children, or taking them out to eat. Maybe it’s going fishing or playing a little one-on-one basketball.
It’s probably different for every dad, but here is one thing that’s the same for all of us.
We all need to do whatever it takes to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
© 2010 The Arrow’s Tip
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(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
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