Click here to listen to the radio version.
Click here to search the AOG archives.
Apples of Gold
Radio Script for July 20, 2010
“She Fixed Her Pleading Eyes Upon the Priest”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
“She fixed her pleading eyes upon the priest.”
That’s a line from Madame Bovary, a classic novel you might have read in school. It’s about a wife who becomes a prolific adulteress, and was very controversial when it was published in the 1850’s.
Before she went off the deep end, Emma Bovary took her aching soul to the local priest. He didn’t know it, but her life hung in the balance. She was at a critical junction, and he had a great opportunity to influence her for the Lord.
As she approached the church, the priest was trying to settle rowdy boys for catechism.
That’s when many opportunities come, by the way, when we are distracted.
Emma walked up and the priest said, “How are you?”
“Not well,” she said; “I am ill.”
“What does Monsieur Bovary think of it?” asked the priest, referring to Emma’s husband, who was a doctor.
And now listen closely to Emma’s answer. “Ah!” she said, “it is no earthly remedy I need.”
That should have caught the priest’s attention. She was a true spiritual seeker, but he didn’t recognize it.
And the question for us today is, would we recognize it? Would we recognize a spiritual seeker if they were standing right in front of us?
The priest didn’t. He was distracted by the unruly boys.
Emma began to open up her very soul to the priest.
“I should like to know…”
“Take care, Riboudet!” cried the priest angrily. “I’ll warm your ears, you imp!”
He turned back to Emma and asked about her husband. “He is a doctor of the body,” laughed the priest, “and I of the soul.”
He called himself a doctor of the soul, and before him was a soul in cardiac arrest.
“Yes,” she said, fixing her pleading eyes upon the priest. “You solace all sorrows.”
But the priest was blind to the fact that she was referring to her own sorrows.
Repeatedly she hinted that she was struggling and wanted to talk about it, and repeatedly he missed it.
And here is one reason he missed it. As far as he could tell, she had no good reason to be struggling. She was a pretty young woman whose husband was a doctor. Could a woman like that even have any struggles?
And we probably do the same thing. It’s easy to look at the good things in someone’s life and overlook the hints that they may be struggling.
“Oh Doug, it’s just a novel. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?”
Okay, well how about this true story I heard on NPR. A woman from Wisconsin named Ruth Camps told about a pivotal time in her life.
She was a city girl who had moved to rural Wisconsin with her husband. She was poor and lonely and pregnant. Then her mother died. In fact, there were nine family-related deaths in one year.
To deal with her suffering she decided to go to the church. The building was locked and the priest was standing outside.
“He knew me,” she said, “but he did not unlock the church. I don’t know why.”
It might sound like I’m picking on priests here, but I’m not. It could be any of us.
So there’s pregnant Ruth, cracking under the weight of many burdens, going to the church for relief, and the priest won’t let her in. Maybe he had urgent matters elsewhere, who knows? Ruth didn’t know, but listen to her conclusion.
“It was the nail in the coffin of my traditional beliefs.”
She was struggling mightily, at a critical fork in the road, and he did not recognize it. And for over 40 years now she has had no use for the Lord or the church or Christianity.
People face these critical junctions everyday, but do we recognize it? Is our heart open to others? Emma Bovary looked at the priest with “pleading eyes.” Do we see the pleading eyes of others?
In John 4:35 Jesus said, “Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!”
Focus on His first six words, “Lift up your eyes and look.” That’s what we need to do. We need to lift up our eyes, up from our routines, up from our own needs and desires.
We need to lift up our eyes and look . . . for the fields are white for the harvest.
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
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