There You Are!

It was a forgettable moment that I’ll never forget. 

I was talking to a woman at a basketball game, a young mother.  Suddenly her little girl was standing there in front of us, and this young mother sparkled with delight as she turned toward her daughter and said, “There you are!”

I thought, “What a greeting!  I would love to be greeted like that.  Why, I would feel special all the time – as if people had been looking for me, couldn’t wait to see me, and were overjoyed when suddenly, there I was!”

I have heard people talk about their dogs, that when they arrive at home, no one else may care, but their dog is always excited to see them. 

My kids are all old and boring now, but I remember when they were little, and I would come home from work, they would all run to the door and it was like a party every day.  “Daddy’s home!  Daddy’s home!”

One of my favorite memories is the night I came home and my youngest daughter jumped out from behind the door and doused me with a bucket of confetti! 

What if we always greeted each other with such joy?  It changes the color of the room. 

“There you are!”

I remember years ago visiting a little country church.  I had become friends with the old pastor, and he invited me to a concert there with his all-time favorite group:  “Heaven Bound.”  That night I met the leader of the group, Jeff Gibson.  He was very nice and friendly and genuine. 

Fast forward a year, when the pastor had another concert with, who else, Heaven Bound.  And I’ll never forget Jeff Gibson, still smiling as if he had been smiling all year, approaching me, shaking my hand, calling me by name, and seemed genuinely glad to see me again.  He said with a smile and a handshake what the young mother had said with words:  “There you are!”

I think of Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son.  That son was trouble.  Kind of a jerk.  Good riddance.  And yet his father loved him and watched and waited for him to come home.  When the boy ran out of money and his life was a wreck, he decided to go back. 

Luke 15:21 picks up the story, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him.  He ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”  The father said to his servants, “Quick!  Bring the best robe and put it on him.  Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  Let’s have a feast and celebrate!”

Did the son deserve such a greeting?  Not at all.  But the father poured it on anyway, out of the love that flowed through his heart for his son.

That story illustrates God’s love for us, even when we don’t deserve it.  And God wants us to love each other like He loves us.  And one way we can show love to each other is to simply be glad to see each other…and show it. 

And for me it all goes back to that forgettable moment I’ll never forget, when that young mother sparkled with delight and said to her little girl, “There you are!”

(As heard on Wave 94.1 FM)

www.wave94.com

dougapple@wave94.com

 

Tallahassee Woman Attacked While Praying

Tuesday morning a Tallahassee woman did her usual thing.  She went to church to pray.

As this woman, four months pregnant, was kneeling in prayer, she was brutally assaulted by a man who was apparently robbing the church.  She was viciously beaten and stabbed.  The attacker only fled when she convinced him that other church members would soon arrive.

Then he stole her purse and her car, and the stolen car led to his quick arrest.

Now you’d think if God was going to protect anyone from violence it would be a pregnant woman kneeling in prayer inside a church.  Right?

And now if there was anyone with the right to doubt God it would be this woman, right?

And yet her faith is strong.  The Tallahassee Democrat reported that she is “ready to forgive her assailant.”

So the question is, how can her faith in God be strong when God didn’t protect her?

I think it’s because God gives special grace in such situations.  Yes, He allows them to happen, for reasons I don’t know.  But then He pours in a special grace.

It’s hard to understand unless you’ve been there.

Many years ago my habit was to drive to a neighboring town to pick up a little old lady for church.  One dark Wednesday night I did this, with my little daughter in the back seat.  If there was ever a moment blessed by God, it should be this one.  Here I was, a devout Christian, taking my daughter to church on a Wednesday night, and to top it off we picked up a widow who couldn’t drive herself.  God must have been smiling.

Then out of nowhere a large deer slammed into the side of my car, its head smashing into my driver’s side window.  Witnesses said the deer was running full steam across the highway when it hit me.

It was like a shotgun of glass to my face.  They took us to the emergency room, and everyone was okay except me.  I had shards of glass in my eyes.

They flushed out my eyes for a long time with jets of blue liquid.  They spoke about my vision is sober tones, and scheduled an emergency appointment with an eye specialist first thing in the morning.

As my wife drove me home from the hospital that night, I just sat there, slumped down in the passenger seat with my head against the window.  What a night.  What about my eyes?  Would there be permanent damage?  Would I ever see clearly again? 

Now you’d think I might get bitter with God, or at least question Him.  But I didn’t.  For some reason, I didn’t.  Something welled up inside me that said, “Lord, even if my eyes are permanently damaged, I will serve You.”

I don’t know where that reaction came from.  All I can say is that it was a special grace.

And by the way, my eyes did heal, thank you God!

From the outside looking in, you can only imagine what it’s like, and we usually imagine the worst.

I once knew a man who was a street fighter.  He was a little guy, and I think he made up for it by picking a fight every chance he got.

Well he became a Christian, and he was in my Bible study group.  One day he said, “I have a question.  I know a guy who used to witness to people out on the street.  One night he was out there talking to people about Jesus and a couple of drunks came along and beat him up.  Why would God let that happen?  It makes me mad just to think about it.”

I answered with a question.  “Do you think it made that Christian mad?  Do you think he was bitter about getting beat up?”

This new Christian thought for a second and said, “No, I don’t think so.”

I said, “I don’t think so either.”

Why not?  Because of that special grace.

I had a guy from church call me one time when he found out his wife was cheating on him.  He was totally devastated.  But as the situation unfolded I saw God work such a special grace in that man – a grace far beyond his normal character.  Many times I just shook my head and said, “Lord, you are doing something amazing in the heart of that man.”

I love this phrase found in Hebrews 4:16, “…grace to help in time of need.”

God allows us to go through times of great need.  Devastating things happen.  I don’t know why, and I wish they didn’t, but they do. 

But something wonderful happens as we call out to God in these times.  He gives us a special grace.  A “grace to help in time of need.”

 

(As heard on Wave 94.1 FM)

dougapple@wave94.com

www.wave94.com

 

The reaction to this woman’s attack has been interesting.  Christians understand her willingness to forgive.  Others are aghast at anything short of extreme punishment for her attacker.

 

This special grace that God gives His people reminds me of something Adrian Rogers said once.  Ponder this:

“We have no right to be believed so long as we can be explained.”

 

This special grace is simply unexplainable.

 

Read more about the woman’s story here:

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007710030319

http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200771003023

 

 

Alan Jackson's Wife

Alan Jackson is a country music star.

His wife Denise has a new book out entitled “It’s All About Him:  Finding the Love of My Life.”

Denise and Alan grew up in the little town of Newnan, Georgia.  They fell in love and were married long before Alan began a career in country music.  They both worked hard and pinched pennies while he struggled to make it in the music business.

Alan finally hit the big time in 1990, and their money problems were over.  They began to live the life of the rich and famous.  Just about anything they wanted they could buy. 

But Alan was gone a lot, and various things took their toll on the marriage.  In late 1997 Alan told Denise that he was moving out.  She describes that time in her life as “relentless pain.”

She said, “The only anchor in my life was Alan.  Tethered to him, I had a sense of who I was.  By his side, I was a woman to be envied.  Life revolved around Alan…”

“Over the years, he had become my foundation,” she said.  “So when he left, there was nothing left for me to depend on.  My house had been built on shifting sands, and now in the storm…I felt like everything was going to collapse.”

Fortunately, Denise was involved in a women’s Bible study group, and they supported her, prayed for her, and pointed her in the right direction – toward the Lord Himself.

Denise said, “It’s odd.  I would never have chosen to go through the pain of those awful days.  But through it, God got my attention.  I had been skimming along on the surface of my fairy-tale life, ignoring the fact that Jesus was softly and tenderly calling me to come home to Him.  I’d closed my eyes to any warnings that a storm was coming in my marriage.” 

“Once that storm broke my heart wide open,” she said, “I finally cried out to God.  I heard His voice.  I felt His love.  And I realized that Alan was never designed to be the center of my life.  No human being could fill that place.  Christ alone could truly be my all-in-all.”

“Anger came quite naturally,” she said, “But as time went by, a miracle happened.  I found myself drawn by God’s Spirit into a different response altogether.  I found that the more I pursued my new relationship with Jesus and the more I explored the Bible, the more my attitudes were changing.  It was incredible.  I saw the words in Psalm 1 beginning to come true in me, of all people.  I was finding my ‘delight’ in God’s Word.”

The good news is, eventually Alan moved back, they renewed their vows, and God began healing their marriage.  And you can read all about it in Denise’s new book, “It’s All About Him.”

Now let’s go back to the crux of their problem.  It took Denise a long time to figure it out, but it was this.  She said, “I realized that Alan was never designed to be the center of my life.  No human being could fill that place.  Christ alone could truly be my all-in-all.”

You see, God is the Creator, and everything else is just part of His creation. 

In his “Confessions” St. Augustine wrote, “‘What is the object of my love?’ I asked the earth, and it said, ‘It is not I.’ … I asked the sea, the deeps, the living creatures that move about, and they responded, ‘We are not your God; look beyond us.’ … I asked heaven, sun, moon, and stars, and they said, ‘Nor are we the God whom you seek.’ ‘Then tell me of my God who you are not - tell me something about Him.’ And with a great voice they cried out, ‘He made us.’”

 In the September edition of Christianity Today, Daniel Williams wrote that “it is an abuse” to love anything God has made as if it were God.  He said we will never find fulfillment in anything God created.  We will always expect more from it than it can deliver.

Of course, it’s a trite phrase that “money can’t buy happiness.”  Denise Jackson said, “I already knew that no amount of material stuff could bring contentment.”  But what she realized through her marital problems was that “no human relationship – even if it seems ‘perfect’ – can really satisfy the deepest longings of a person’s soul.”

See, everything but God is just part of His creation.  And nothing He created was meant to take His place.  Not stuff, and not people – not even your spouse. 

Augustine learned it.  Denise Jackson learned it.  We all must learn it, and hopefully not the hard way. 

Learn what?  Learn this.  The focus and the foundation of our life, the center point of our affections must be, and only be, the Lord.

(As heard on Wave 94.1 FM)

dougapple@wave94.com

www.wave94.com

 

Michael Vick Finds Jesus

Everybody’s heard about the legal troubles of quarterback Michael Vick.

In the midst of it, guess what?  I just read this quote from Vick in Time magazine.  “Through this situation, I found Jesus.”*

Some are skeptical, but I hope he did.  I hope he allows God to do a great work in his life.  I hope for years to come we will hear from Michael Vick about what the Lord is doing in him and through him.

You know what we need to do?  Pray fervently for Michael Vick.

Here’s another news item, reported Monday by WCTV television.  And to tell you the truth, it kind of shocked me.  They said that the high school graduation rate for black males around Tallahassee was, quote, “hovering around 50%.”**

Now just let that sink in.  Think about what kind of job you can get without a high school diploma.  It’s bad enough what you can get with just a high school diploma, but without?  That is not a bright future. 

And speaking of bright future, Florida makes it so easy to get a good education.  First of all, the public schools are free.  And if you do a good job, the state offers the Bright Futures Scholarship to cover your college tuition.  It’s an incredible opportunity. 

And yet roughly half the young black men around Tallahassee will miss the boat entirely.  I don’t know how many that is, but let’s just say it’s around 500 kids a year.  In ten years, that’s 5,000 young men with very little education.  What are they going to do?  How are they going to get a job or support a family or have any kind of stable life?

You know what we need to do?  Pray fervently for the young black men around Tallahassee, and also for those who are trying so desperately to reach them.

Here’s a news item you won’t read about in your local paper.  I am deeply concerned about this issue.  I think it is a plague that is tearing its way through our country, and I have no idea how to stop it.  I feel like I’m standing on the beach looking up at a 100 foot wave.  What else can I do but yell in fear?

I am talking about the plague of internet pornography.  It is an onslaught from hell.  It dehumanizes and degrades.  Computer users become peeping toms, and begin to see people as mere objects for their own pleasure. 

And here’s the thing.  When you dehumanize people, you become capable of all sorts of evil.

The plague of internet pornography operates at the moral microbial level.  Its initial effects are unseen, taking place in the hearts and minds of the viewers.  But so many viewers!  Millions of viewers. 

I think about this generation being raised with easy access to the internet, and all the filth it belches out.  An entire generation influenced.  I look at what is happening, and all I see is a 100 foot tidal wave.  I think about my own daughters and who they will end up marrying.  Will they find a Godly young man, unscarred by internet porn, a young man who won’t treat them as an object?

I read about the high percentage of pastors who have problems with internet porn.  Not that long ago a porn problem would have immediately disqualified a pastor from the position.  You cannot have a man as a spiritual leader who is taking little hits of the porn drug when he gets the chance.  But the hellish part of it is that it’s so easy to get away with.  And if that many people are doing it themselves, who’s going to bring it up?  Who’s going to confront someone, if they don’t want their own computer’s hard drive examined?

I’m telling you, it is a flood of filth that is washing over our nation, and though we may not see the effects on the surface, they are coming.  They have to.  There is no way a nation can have such a morally rotten influence that is so prevalent, yet continue to function normally.  It simply cannot happen.  There is a big price tag on this one, folks, and I don’t have any idea what to do about it.

But I know one thing to do.  Pray.  Pray that God will somehow stem the tide of moral decay. 

If there ever was a “stronghold,” pornography is a stronghold.  Thank God Second Corinthians 10:4 says, “…the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds…”

Thank God James 5:16 says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

Thank God there IS power in prayer!

So what can we do for Michael Vick?  Pray!

What can we do for the young men whose futures look bleak?  Pray!

And what can we possibly do about the plague of internet pornography?  Pray!

Our nation’s future hinges on it.

* http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1657830,00.html

** http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/9964986.html

(As heard on Wave 94.1 FM)

dougapple@wave94.com

www.wave94.com

 

Conversations in Your Head

Do you ever have complete conversations in your head?

It’s where you think about what you would say, then what the other person would say, then how you would respond.  It’s the whole conversation, and it’s all in your head.

Probably some of your wittiest conversations take place right there in your head.

A salesman worked for me one time, and he would give me a play-by-play of imaginary sales calls.  He would say he had a good potential client and I would say, “Have you talked to them?” 

“No, but I’ll just give them a call and I’ll tell them what we’re doing and they’ll say ‘That sounds good,’ and I’ll say, ‘Would you like the $500 package or the $300 package,’ and they’ll say, ‘Give me the $500 package.’”

Some of his best sales calls took place right there in his head.

I know I do this, and I wonder if everyone does it.

I can be driving down the highway, completely immersed in conversation – in my own mind.

This is a good habit, as long as you have one key ingredient:  empathy.

Can you put yourself in the other person’s shoes?  Can you truly see things from their perspective?  When you carry on their part of the conversation, is it really what they would say, or is it just your characterization of them?

The next time you carry on a conversation with someone in your head, ask yourself, “How well do I really know this person?”  And don’t be too quick to answer.

For example, we don’t know what other people went through growing up.

I remember one time I was talking with a coworker who I thought I knew fairly well.  After all, I worked with her every day.  But then one time I said something about divorce, and she went off on me.  Turned out her parents were divorced, and it was a very sensitive subject for her. 

Then there was the man I worked with and the day I used the word “crazy.”  Later he wrote me a letter about how I shouldn’t throw around the word crazy because someone close to him had very real mental issues and he was offended by such words.

I have learned over the years, obviously sometimes the hard way, to be more empathetic in my conversation.  And when I run through these conversations in my head, I try to think about what is really going on in the other person’s life, instead of just putting words in their mouth.

I think it’s good to carry out these conversations in your own mind.  Call it practice before the big game.

In real life, if you let something slip out, you can never get it back.  But in your mind you can slip up and learn from it, without hurting anyone along the way.  You can analyze what you would say and your motives for saying it.

Ephesians 4:29 says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

When you carry out a conversation in your mind, ask yourself, “Will these words benefit those who listen?  Will it build them up according to their needs?”  If not, then reroute your conversation.  Ask yourself, “What can I say that will build people up?”

Mental conversations prepare us for real conversations.  If we practice saying good things, we are more likely to actually say good things.

Romans 16:19 says, “…be wise about what is good…” 

I think we need to hone the skill of being good.  We do that by practice.   The time to make mistakes is in practice, so that when it’s time for the real thing, we do it right.

One of the most important ways to be good to people is in our conversations.  We are to be wise about what is good in conversation.

And the way to do that is by practicing conversations in our head.  We are doing it anyway.  We just need to take control. 

So the next time you catch yourself carrying on a conversation with someone in your head, turn it into a practice session for saying good things to build people up, and benefit all who listen.

(As heard on Wave 94.1 FM)

www.wave94.com

The Plague of Dissatisfaction

She let out a big sigh.

“What,” I said.

“I’m not satisfied.  I just don’t have any satisfaction in my life right now.”

O.K.  Let’s talk about that for a minute.  Satisfaction.  What brings a sense of satisfaction to our lives?  Can you remember a time when you felt truly satisfied with your life?

I think, if you ponder it for a moment, you will find that you felt most satisfied when you were moving toward a meaningful goal.

Here is the tricky part.  It’s not even the arrival at the goal that is so satisfying.  It’s not the looking back and reminiscing about a goal that is satisfying.  It is the meaningful goal you are currently working toward that brings the most satisfaction.

If you are not currently working toward a meaningful goal, I think that is where you will find your source of dissatisfaction.

A life with no goals will feel aimless and meaningless.  So, what are your goals?  What goals are you currently working toward?

And here’s another thing.  It can’t be just any goal.  It needs to be a meaningful goal.  For example, if your goal is to be the flashiest dresser where you go each day, that will not bring much satisfaction because it is basically a meaningless goal.

Satisfaction comes when our goals involve giving…giving ourselves away for a good cause. 

“It is in giving that we receive.”

If your goals involve giving to yourself, or doing things for yourself, or buying things for yourself, or trying to make yourself look good…..these goals will not bring deep and lasting satisfaction. 

Maybe this doesn’t sound like a very weighty topic.  But I think dissatisfaction is a plague in America.  We talk about depression.  We talk about crime.  We talk about broken homes and marriages and families.  We talk about taking pills to make us feel better about things.  A root of all of this is plain old dissatisfaction.  To solve the problem, we need to get to the root of it.

As a Christian, I believe God created us with specific talents, and that He has a plan for putting those talents to work.  We all need to find out what God wants us to do, then do it with all our heart. 

If you are not sure specifically what God wants you to do, you can certainly discover generally what God wants you to do through the Bible.  Then ask Him to lead you as you set out to apply His word in specific ways.

In other words, through prayer and Bible study, pick a worthy goal, (and while you’re at it, make it a big one!) then go for it. 

Then just watch as your dissatisfaction melts away in the heat and hustle of working toward a meaningful goal.

(As heard on Wave 94.1 FM)

dougapple@wave94.com

www.wave94.com

A Sperm and an Egg

Our youngest daughter is a freshman in high school.

My wife said this week that as she dropped her off she thought, “What is my baby doing at this great big school?  And look at her talking to people.  What happened to my baby?!”

It’s funny, really, because it seems like just yesterday we were a young couple in love.  Children were a distant thought, something that might happen someday. 

But you know how it goes.  Put a sperm and an egg together and behold! - The miracle of life. 

The joining of the sperm and egg – two separate entities that suddenly become one completely new entity.  Two separate DNA codes that join together and create a completely new DNA code. 

It’s the miracle of life, and it happens when the sperm and the egg get together.

There was a time in human history when we knew nothing about “sperms” and “eggs.”  We just knew about babies. 

But we are an intelligent, thinking people.  We want to know how things work.  So scientists and doctors studied the process and found out about sperms and eggs, and even DNA. 

And now here’s the crazy part.  Because we know about sperms and eggs and DNA we declare that we know how it works.

That’s about like a 10 year old saying that because he knows how to score a touchdown in Madden 08 that he knows how an Xbox works.

The fact that a sperm and an egg join together to create a new human life is astounding.  Just because it is common does not mean it is not astounding. 

First there was my wife and I, a young couple in love, from two separate families in two separate towns.  Jump ahead a few years and we have a family of our own, with four new people who basically came out of nowhere.  Don’t tell me that’s not astounding.  And since they all became teenagers I would describe it as stupefying!

Now here’s the thing.  Like I said, we are an intelligent, thinking people.  We know that as soon as a sperm and an egg come together, a new being is formed immediately, with its own unique DNA.

That is now a child.  Oh, it doesn’t look like it will a year from now, but then again, they look different every year.  Just look at those school pictures.

And now with modern science we can even see pictures of them before they are born.  With all that science has revealed to us, and with the fact that we are an intelligent, thinking people, how on earth is it that we think abortion is even remotely okay?

Is there any question at all that at the point of conception a new, completely separate and unique life has been formed?  Just like any baby, now all it needs is to be cared for and it will grow.

To purposely put an end to that new life is simply barbaric.

And here is how stupid we are.  Because the baby is small, and the life is taken behind the walls of the womb, we want to act like a life has not been taken at all.

Are we that ignorant?  Tell me we are not that ignorant.

Now what about this?  What about the so-called unwanted child? 

You know what?  I don’t know that many people, yet I am surrounded by people who have adopted children.

Today is my brother’s 39^th birthday.  My parents adopted him when he was very little.  He grew up to serve our country in the United State Marine Corps.  And now he is a paramedic, a true unsung hero.  My only brother.  Thank God he was not aborted.

Years ago my wife and I attended a small church.  I don’t think we hit triple digits even on Easter Sunday.  Yet in the short time we were there, two childless couples adopted so-called unwanted children.

For a while I led a midweek home Bible study.  During that time two of our families adopted so-called unwanted children from Guatemala.

In our short time in Tallahassee I have met many people who have adopted children, including one family who has adopted, get this, five children! 

There are couples everywhere who want to adopt children.  They have to put up with waiting lists and sometimes ridiculous expenses, and they do it anyway.  I know a couple who adopted a crack baby.  The odds were against him from the beginning, and he died before making it to adulthood.  It brought great sorrow, and many trials, but they did it anyway because they had a great love.  A great love for a so-called unwanted child.

This thing of legalized abortion is idiocy.  An intelligent, thinking people should have a better plan.  Adoptions should be easier to get, and abortions should be impossible to get.

How is it that we are more passionate about a football player’s cruelty to little dogs than we are about the cruelty to little people in the womb?

If there is a God, and if He judges people for such things, surely, surely we are lining ourselves up for something awful.

As a so-called intelligent people, this is something we better think about.

(As featured on Wave 94.1 FM and www.wave94.com)

 

What Can We Do About Crime?

What can we do about crime? 

I guess it’s like everything else, we don’t think about it until it happens to us.  We don’t want to think about it.

Thinking about crime means thinking about criminals, and these are people we don’t want to think about because they are bad people who cause trouble and pain.  And, gee, I guess as long as they aren’t causing pain and trouble for me, it’s just too worrisome to even let it enter my mind.

But criminals are committing crimes every day, and if we have the capability, then we have the responsibility to do something about it. 

In physical health, which is better, preventative care or emergency care?  How does the old saying go?  “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Today let’s talk about what we can do to prevent crimes from being committed.  I’m not talking about security systems or putting up razor wire around your house.  Today I want to go to the root of it all, and here is where my thinking began.

One day I was driving through a bad neighborhood.  I thought, “Here they are, the criminals.”  Then I thought, “You know, I drove through this same neighborhood 20 years ago, and for some reason, in my mind, it’s exactly the same people, but, of course, it isn’t. 

Twenty years ago they were children or babies or not even born yet.  And now they are just hanging out, looking for trouble, and finding it.  They are filling our jails and prisons around the country.  But just a few years ago they were little innocent babies.  Then they were toddlers and kindergarteners and silly second-graders, and somewhere they veered off onto the path of becoming a criminal, a person willing to break the law, a person willing to steal from you, or hurt you or destroy your property.

And while they were on their journey from a newborn to a thug, where were we?  Did we love them?  Did we care for them?  Did we spend time with them?  Did we listen to them?  Nope.  We were busy.  We had cars to wash and lawns to mow and rooms to redecorate and movies to watch and CDs to buy and closets to fill and sports to be played and tests to be studied for and careers to nurture and restaurants to support and even churches to build. 

And we ignore the little kids from the rough neighborhood or the difficult family situations.  We are too busy.  We have too much going on in our full little lives.  Too many things to take care of.  Too many material possessions to maintain and clean and polish.  “Sure, go ahead and build more jails.  Just keep them out of my neighborhood.”

And Jesus opens His mouth, but words don’t come out…

I love this old story, but it’s always worth retelling, about the little boy on a beach covered with star fish that had washed up on shore.  He was throwing them back into the water, and someone asked him why.  He said, “I’m saving their life.”  “But look at all these star fish.  You can’t possibly help them all.”  “No,” he said, preparing to throw another star fish back into the water, “but I can help this one.”

No, you can’t help everyone.  You can’t change the world.  But you can change someone’s world.  And if a future criminal is diverted from that path, you are also saving the heartache of their future victims. 

Maybe it’s time to stop polishing our stuff and reach out to someone in a rough situation.  You never know the future pain you’ll be sparing someone from, maybe even you.

(As heard on Wave 94.1 FM)

dougapple@wave94.com

www.wave94.com

 

 

You Can't See Everything

You can’t see everything.

I remember as a young child the first time that truth really hit me.  I have no idea how old I was, or who told me, but one day I got it….the fact that air is something. 

I remember learning in science class about diffusion, how a bad odor, for example, will spread out among air particles.  It can fill a room, but then it will “go away” as it diffuses…and you can’t really see any of this process.

I remember learning about how sugar dissolves into your tea.  Where does it go?  You can’t see the sugar anymore.  But you know it’s there because you can taste it.

Of course as we get older and learn more, it takes more to fascinate us. 

I remember seeing a documentary on television, and it said that snakes see things we don’t see…something about them actually “seeing” heat, such as a mouse that is completely hidden in the shadows.  It showed the mouse through human eyes, and you couldn’t see it at all.  Then it showed supposedly what the snake was seeing, and there it was, not hidden at all!  I was amazed! 

The first time I heard of night vision goggles, I was in awe.  The felt the same the first time I heard about X-rays, and CAT scans and MRI’s. 

I remember as a child watching a man use a metal detector.  It would beep, and he would dig a quarter out of the ground!  “Wow, get me one of those miracle machines!”

As a kid I had two little horsies with magnets on the bottom, a black horse and a white horse.  When you moved them close together, they would miraculously begin to rock, even though no one was touching them!

I remember one story in the Bible that really made me see the world in a different way.

Second Kings 6 talks about Elisha and his servant.  One morning the servant went out early and discovered that the city was surrounded by an enemy army.  He ran back to Elisha. 

Elisha said, “Don’t be afraid.  We have more on our side than they do.”  Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes to see.” 

Suddenly God opened that servant’s eyes to see what normal eyes can’t see.  Like an X-ray can see your bones, like a snake can see a mouse, all of a sudden the servant could see beyond the physical realm, into the spiritual realm.  And what did he see? – “the hills full of horses and chariots of fire…”

Think about that.  Is it true?  If you believe the Bible, then it must be true.  And if you don’t believe the Bible, there is still something within you, a sixth sense that tells you that there is more to this existence than our physical senses reveal to us.

Have you ever read “This Present Darkness” by Frank Peretti?  It’s a novel, but it will open your eyes to the possibilities of what might be happening all around in the spiritual world.

In the spiritual realm, there are dangers.  There are battles.  There are warriors fighting for us and against us.  The Bible tells us so.  Yet we spend our days myopically focused only on what we can see, and we think we are in control.  We are about as in control as that mouse hiding in the shadows. 

Stop and ponder this thought for a while:  “You can’t see everything.”

(As heard on Wave 94.1 FM)

dougapple@wave94.com

www.wave94.com

Think Before You Speak

I love e-mail.

I like it because you can communicate with people at your own pace.

You can take time to think about what you want to say.  You can reply today or tomorrow or whenever.  No rush.

And you never have to wonder if someone is free when you e-mail them.  You just e-mail them whenever you want, then whenever they are free, they can read it.  Then they can respond at their leisure.

And it’s so fast and simple (if you know how to type).  Just clickety-click and Send.

You can even spell check and grammar check.  You know…look smarter than you really are.

And before you hit Send you can read it over.  I’ve seen some of your e-mails.  You should read it over.

See, when we write, we ask ourselves, “What do I want to say?”

But we shouldn’t stop there.  Before we send it we should read it over and ask, “How will they take this?”

That’s an important question.  “How will they take this?”

It’s important, but it’s easy.  Just read through your e-mail and try to put yourself in their shoes.  How will they take it?

The great thing about e-mail is that you have a second chance.  You can rewrite it until you are satisfied they will take it the way you mean it.

It’s not so easy with live conversation.

See, when you write something, you can always delete it.  But when you say something, it’s just out there.  Our words are like confetti in the wind.  Once we speak them, we can never get them back. 

I have seen this happen many times in my life.  I can be jabbering away, then suddenly I sense the other person “darken.”  Even on the phone I’ve felt it.  They just cool off.  Gary Smalley would say “Their flower closes.”  It’s like I verbally meandered off into a mine field and blew myself up.

I’ve tried to learn my lessons over the years, but in the rapid back-and-forth of a conversation it’s hard to say everything in just the right way – and by that I mean in a way that the other person takes it the way you mean it.

It’s hard because it’s awkward if you stop and think before you speak.  We think we have to keep the conversation going, bam-bam, back-and-forth.  But it’s in that exact scenario that we end up saying something ignorant.

Come on, raise your hand if you’ve ever said something ignorant.

Proverbs 29:20 says it plainly.  And I like the King James Version – it sounds more “proverbial.”  Here it is:  “Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words?  There is more hope of a fool than of him.”

I have always been hasty with words.  It’s a gift!  You can talk yourself out of a lot of trouble when you are hasty with words.  But you also talk yourself into a lot of trouble!

So if a man with hasty words is more hopeless than a fool, what should we do?

Think before we speak. 

It’s simple, really.  But here’s what we do.  When we are talking to someone, we are ready to start talking even before they are done!  We are so itching to talk that we interrupt them. 

So the first step is to actually stop and hear them out.  Listen closely.  Try to discern exactly what they are trying to say.  Not their exact words, because none of us are perfect in our word choice, especially in casual conversation.  So listen, and ask yourself, “From what all I know about this person, what are they really trying to tell me?”

Then, after you have heard them out, and after you have taken a couple seconds to think about it, then you can speak.

So it’s a three step process.  Listen, think, and only then, speak.

Anything quicker and people will gawk and point and say, “Oh yeh, right there, I ‘seest thou a man hasty in his words!’”

(As featured on Wave 94.1 FM)

dougapple@wave94.com

www.wave94.com

George Foreman's Incredible Story

You might know George Foreman as the Foreman Grill guy.

Or you might know him as the former world heavyweight boxing champion.

But now there is a new book that shows a very different side of George Foreman.

It’s called, “God In My Corner:  A Spiritual Memoir.”

In it Foreman admits he was mean.  He beat people up long before he was a boxer.  Boxing simply made his violent streak lucrative.  He used it to lift himself out of poverty.  He was a self-made man who thought religion was for the poor and old ladies.  The last thing he was interested in was God.

Of course it’s easy to say that…until you have your own encounter with God.

In 1977, Foreman lost a close fight to Jimmy Young in Puerto Rico.  But what happened in the locker room afterward radically changed his life.

Foreman said he was pacing back and forth in the locker room, still pumped up from the fight, when all of a sudden a voice interrupted his thoughts.  It said, “If you believe in God, why are you afraid to die?”

Foreman said he continued to pace back and forth, but felt like death was staring him in the face.  He said, “By now I was crying.  I decided I wanted to make a deal with God.  What does a mere human being own that he can use to barter with God?  ‘I’m still George Foreman,’ I thought.  ‘I can still box.  I can give money to charities.  I can…’”

The voice thundered, “I don’t want your money. I want YOU!”

Foreman collapsed to the floor.

“Instantly I was transported into a deep, dark void, like a bottomless pit.  I knew I was dead, and this wasn’t heaven.  Sorrow beyond description engulfed my soul.  The place reeked with the putrid smell of death.  It was utter darkness.”

“I truly thought this was the end of my life,” Foreman said, “And I saw – too late – that I had missed what life was meant to be about.  I was furious that I had fallen for the devil’s lies.  I screamed, “I don’t care if this is death.  I still believe there’s a God.”

“Instantly, what seemed like a gigantic hand reached down and snatched me out of that terrifying place.  Immediately I was back inside my body in the dressing room.”

The men in the locker room had lifted Foreman’s body onto a table and were gathered around him. 

Next he saw something that amazed him - blood running down his forehead, and his own hands were bleeding.  Foreman said, “He’s bleeding where they crucified Him.”

He said the others didn’t see the blood, and just looked at him like he was crazy.  But he said that God was revealing to him that Jesus really did bleed and die for him.

Still lying on the training table, Foreman said, “I suddenly sat straight up and yelled at the top of my voice, “JESUS CHRIST IS COMING ALIVE IN ME!”

Everyone looked like they had seen a ghost.  Foreman said something stirred deep inside him, and he couldn’t control what he was saying.  He started reciting Bible verses, even though he had never learned them. 

He said, “For most of my life, I had been ruled by anger and hatred.  Now, every hostile emotion had been drained out of me, and a spigot of God’s love had been turned on inside me, filling me up, and overflowing out of me.”

“I jumped off the table and hugged everyone in the room, telling them that I loved them.  In all those years together, I had never told any of my closest associates that I loved them.  Now I couldn’t stop expressing how much I loved them.”

“Then I heard myself speaking words that I had never before used,” said Foreman.  “I shouted, ‘Hallelujah, I’m clean!  HALLUJAH, I’VE BEEN BORN AGAIN!  I’ve got to tell the whole world about this!’”

Foreman said, “I wouldn’t stop talking about Jesus, and no one could shut me up.  Now I was praising the name of Jesus, the name my acquaintances had only heard me use in profanity.  As for me, I had never felt that wonderful in all my life!  For the first time in my life, I could honestly say I was at peace.”

“All of my hate – and I had hated a lot of people – was gone.  God’s love flowed through me to others.  Every attitude and emotion in me had flip-flopped.  It was nothing short of a miracle.”

In the book, Foreman explained how he contacted those he had hated and made amends.  He also discussed his initial reluctance to be viewed as a religious nut, but then concluded this way.

“Finding Jesus Christ was the best thing that ever happened to me, and my life gets better every day.  I’m not going to let anything destroy me testimony and the great relationship with God that I have experienced.  I will keep telling my story until I’m unable to say it anymore.”

I had to leave parts of the story out for time’s sake, so I recommend you read it for yourself.  You’ll find it in the new book, “God In My Corner:  A Spiritual Memoir” by grill maker and former world heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman.

(As heard on Wave 94.1 FM)

dougapple@wave94.com

www.wave94.com

Ed & Petunia

You are the jailer.

You may or may not be the Barney Fife type, but there you are, the keeper of the keys.

You have only one prisoner, a big fellow named Ed.  He has a Hell’s Angels reputation, but there he sits, lethargic, causing you no trouble at all, a model prisoner.

In time you forget about Ed’s nasty reputation.  It’s just the two of you there at the old jail, so you talk about things.  You give your buddy Ed a glass of lemonade now and then, even though he’s only supposed to have water.  Sometimes you even slip into his cell and play cards.

As days turn into weeks, and weeks into months, you wonder why Ed is locked up at all.  He never gives you any trouble, and he seems perfectly harmless.

Then one day, in the middle of a card game, you smell something.  Ed smells it, too. 

It’s perfume. 

You go back to the game, but Ed is distracted.  You see a look in Ed’s eyes that you’ve never seen before.  You decide it’s time to slip out of the cell and check things out.

You step out front in time to see someone coming down the road, a woman. 

Petunia. 

Yes, you’ve heard about Petunia.  The Sheriff told you to watch for her, and at all costs keep her away from Ed. 

Well, there she is, so now what?  Should you run her off?  She seems harmless enough, unarmed, not even a cake with a file in it.

As Petunia approaches, you hear noises back inside the jail.  The native is restless.

What does she want?  She wants to visit Ed.  You tell her she can’t, but she’s a sweet-talker. 

From behind you Ed is calling out to Petunia.  Now she’s calling back to him, “I’ll be right there, Honey.  I just need to talk to this fine jailer.”

“Petunia, I can’t let you go in there.”

“Now what’s the harm in me seeing Ed?”

“Well…”

Ed shouts, “Come on, you can let her in, the sheriff will never know.”

“That’s right,” says Petunia, “And besides, the sheriff is kinda sweet on me.  That’s why he doesn’t want me to see Ed.”

With that new information, you decide one little visit won’t hurt.  But as soon as Ed and Petunia get in close proximity, Ed becomes the Hell’s Angel you had heard about.  And what’s this?  He took the keys from you while you were playing cards, and now he’s unlocking his cell. 

Ed and Petunia embrace and begin to leave.  You try to intervene, but Ed surprises you with an elbow to the nose so fierce that blood splatters and you collapse. 

The last thing you see is Ed and Petunia walking out arm in arm, and taking with them your job, your reputation, and everything you had worked so hard for over the years.

And now…the story explained.

Ed stands for “evil desire.”  Evil desire is found within every human being. 

Petunia is short for Opportunity. 

We are the jailer, responsible for keeping those two from getting together. 

What we must do is keep Ed away from Petunia – which means we must keep our evil desire away from opportunity. 

The evil desire within us tends to sit there quietly and not cause much trouble – until opportunity comes along.  But when the right opportunity shows up, look out.  It will drive the evil desire within us crazy, just like Ed when Petunia came along.

You probably know what your weaknesses are, which evil desires are likely to cause you trouble.  What you must do is stay far away from opportunities to carry out those desires. 

For example, if you do things on the computer that are sinful, you better think about getting that computer out of the house.  You can’t allow evil desire and opportunity to be together.  When you do, evil desire will always get the best of you.  Ed, in the presence of Petunia, becomes uncontrollable.

The story of Ed and Petunia is a fresh way to look at temptation.  James 1:14 says we are each tempted when we are dragged away by our own evil desires and enticed.

Remember in the story, when you were the jailer?  You let Petunia get close to Ed, and you ended up a bloody mess.  That’s what happens when we allow our evil desires to come close to opportunities.  Our evil desires will get the best of us, and our life will end up a bloody mess.  And if we don’t stop it, our evil desires will cost us our job, our reputation, everything we’ve worked so hard for.

So take a look at your life and identify the Ed’s.  Then make it a point, do whatever you have to do, to keep Ed far away from Petunia.

(As heard on Wave 94.1 FM)

dougapple@wave94.com

www.wave94.com