What a Change

Let me tell you about a friend of mine. We’ll call him Sam. Sam grew up in a small town in the Bible Belt, but the Bible Belt didn’t grow up in Sam. Early on, Sam started drinking, and soon progressed on to various drugs. As he has mentioned several times in public gatherings I’ve attended, he ended up with several sons, none of which bear his name.

As Sam became more and more involved with drugs, he eventually began dealing drugs. It didn’t take long before he was the major supplier for this small town in the Bible Belt. He was well known in town for his activities, and eventually ending up serving time. Not just once. Not just twice. His record finally showed seven felony convictions. Yet he continued dealing drugs, and using anything he could get his hands on – recreational drugs, horse tranquilizers, prescription drugs cleaning supplies. If he could get it into his veins, he was willing to try it.

He’s not sure how he managed to hold any job, but he worked fairly regularly in one of the manufacturing plants in his town. On his breaks he could always be found out back using pot. He didn’t really have much of a future.
But there was a little old lady there that kept telling him that she was praying for him (that sort of thing happens in the Bible Belt). She would also offer him tapes of sermons to listen to from time to time. While he might take the tapes occasionally, he never did listen to them.

Then one day, Sam did happen to listen to one. And the Lord broke through the fog. He gave up dealing drugs, joined the twelve-step programs for both alcoholics and for drug addicts. He recognized his condition, and decided to do something about it.

During his somewhat frequent trips to the courthouse he’d become acquainted with a young Christian woman. He joined the church and married her. He was in a situation where not many people in town would offer him a job (most townsfolk considered him an employment risk). So he started his own lawn business. Did fairly well, and soon had a number of employees. At least during the summer he had employees. Once fall came around, lawns no longer needed mowing, and Sam needed something to bring money in for the winter. He decided he might try working for a mall security company. He made a call to one in a city about an hour away.

A man answered, and Sam introduced himself and said he was interested in working as a security guard. The voice on the other end said, “You wouldn’t happen to be the Sam I know up in Bible Belt Town, would you?” Immediately feeling apprehensive, Sam replied, “Yes, sir. How do you know me?” Sam never forgot the answer.

“I put you in jail at least six times when you were growing up.” The owner of the security firm, unbeknownst to Sam, was the former police chief from the little town up in the Bible Belt. After some conversation, Sam was offered a job. Some months later, he began to realize that the company had better paying jobs running security for sites of the “night life.” But he would need to carry a gun for those jobs, and for that, he’d need a gun permit. That was something not normally given to convicted felons. But the former police chief spoke to the county judge up at Bible Belt Town. To Sam’s amazement, the judge expunged his record of all convictions. Sam got his permit, and worked the rough shifts for several years.

About six years ago Sam joined the men’s chorus I sing in. That is where I got to know him. About three years ago he gave up the security guard business, and was appointed animal control officer for his town. He did a great job taking care of strays, getting them back to their homes or getting them new homes. He went out of his way to keep from putting animals down. But this didn’t please the town fathers. They’d prefer it if he’ get rid of the dogs as soon as possible. But Sam insisted on keeping animals for the full two weeks allowed by law, and, if necessary, took them out to his own property while he continued to look for homes for them.

Ultimately, the town fathers gave Sam an ultimatum: start getting rid of the dogs or give up the job. This made Sam mad. He figured there was more than one way to fight City Hall. About four months ago, Sam quit as animal control officer. But on the first Tuesday of November 2008, Sam was elected mayor of that little town up in the Bible Belt.

There are two quick lessons I’d like to draw from this true story of Sam. First of all, if you’re a little old lady up in the Bible Belt and you’re praying for someone, don’t quit. Intercessory prayer sometimes is the only thing some people have going for them this side of heaven. Come to think of it, it doesn’t matter if you’re a little old lady, or not. If you’re praying for someone, keep it up.

Secondly, if you happen to read this, and you’re at the end of your rope, if you feel you’ve reached the place where you no longer have any future at all, remember that with God anything is possible. If the Lord can take the town’s major drug dealer, clean him up and set him up as the town’s mayor, the same God can do something for you. As it says in scripture (paraphrasing just a bit), “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the minds of man the wonderful things God has in store for them that love Him.”

As Sam might say, “Give the Lord the best you have as early as you can. Don’t wait until there’s only leftovers.”

Have a Great Day!

Dr. G

There ain't nothing free, and there's no "away"!

A number of years ago, while I was still a professor of Biology, I team-taught a class entitled “Life in the Balance.” It was an environmental awareness course in which we tried to look at the pros and cons of both sides of a number of environmental issues. Our purpose was to provide students with sufficient background to make informed decisions without our directly telling them what decisions to make. Because of differing life views, what is an acceptable cost to one person may be totally unacceptable to another.

One point that we tried to clarify was that, in the big picture, there is no “away”. In other words, just because I throw something away doesn’t mean it has gone away. In reality, it typically means, out of site, out of mind. Burying nuclear waste doesn’t eliminate nuclear waste. It simply puts it in a less annoying and, hopefully, safer place. But it is still there. Building a tall fence around an unsafe swimming hole doesn’t make it go away. Flushing excess fertilizer out of fields and down the river doesn’t eliminate the fertilizer. It only moves the problem: it is simply out of sight. Hiding a ghetto behind fancy office buildings doesn’t eliminate the ghetto or its poverty. When a large corporation buys out a faltering competitor, the competitors’ debts don’t go away. The larger corporation absorbs the debts, and charges them against their own profitability, and, ultimately, to either share-holders or customers. “Out of sight, out of mind” gets rid of things only as long as the mind doesn’t work.

A similar concept we tried to dispel was that “free” things exist. There is a law in the physical realm that states, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” In other words, everything has a consequence, a cost. And this holds true in every aspect of our everyday life. “Free” items offered on TV aren’t free. The manufacturer gets paid for them. The supplier gets paid. There is a cost paid by someone somewhere. In the movie “National Treasure,” the hero, in a tight spot, tells the head of the FBI detail, “I really don’t want to go to prison.” To which the FBI agents replies, “Someone’s got to go to prison.” It doesn’t matter what it is, someone pays the cost for “free” items. There are no free lunches, no free banking accounts, no free medical care (do we really think the doctors won’t get paid?). Even in basketball, there really aren’t any “free throws”, since the other team pays the cost with a foul charged to them.

Have you seen the ads by “credit” counseling companies? “Come to us, and we’ll eliminate your debts. You’ll be debt free!” But guess what! The creditors I owe end up paying my debt by charging higher prices to other costumers (like you, maybe), and I end up owing society a moral debt. There is no away; there is nothing free.

But wait a minute. Salvation is free! At least that’s what I’ve heard. I don’t have to pay anything. Jesus did it all. I know this is true. However, that which Jesus did pays my debt, a debt which I can never repay in twenty lifetimes. That is what the parable of the ungrateful servant is all about. It may be free to me, but it cost Him everything. In His grace, He freely forgives me all my debt. The only thing I owe Him now is my gratitude and undying love; to be a grateful accepting servant.

And what about the “There is no 'away'” idea when it comes to my sins? It says in the scripture that in the earth made new, there will be no sin. So my sins (and yours, if you have any) must no longer exist when we get to the other side. Is it possible that, with our sins, there really is an “away”? Since He’s the Creator God, He must supercede the laws of nature. If He knows how to call things into existence, He no doubt knows how to call them out of existence. He truly is an awesome God.

I learned early as a child that hiding peas under the edge of my plate didn’t make them go away. Someone had to “go to prison.”

Dr. G

I Don't See What's Wrong With...

I’m defective. I don’t recall for sure when I first discovered the problem, but I know that by the middle of my college years I knew it was there. Perhaps I made the discovery in General Biology lab. It may have been several years later when I became a lab instructor in Anatomy and Physiology. At any rate, I remember seeing Ishihara plates for the first time, and discovering that I was red-green colorblind. All that time in high school while I was identifying plants and animals, the problem was there. In spite of the fact that I enjoyed drawing and painting, I hadn’t noticed anything wrong. But sure enough, once I got those plates of Mr. Ishihara in my hands, there could be no doubt.

A few years later I had an amusing experience involving my colorblindness. I was in the process of applying to several universities for my doctoral program. For some reason, one of the schools required a physical examination, and that examination asked the doctor to evaluate my color vision. A year earlier I’d gone for a pre-induction physical for the Selective Service. I’d been able to correctly identify a pattern in only one of the twelve plates they showed me. In the doctor’s office a year later, upon coming to that question, the doctor proceeded to go around the room pointing to various objects to see if I could identify their colors. He wrote in the answer space: color vision normal.

Of course, looking directly at the colored object proved no problem. You see, red-green colorblindness involves an inability to pick out a pattern of dots of varying shades of red embedded in a field of dots of varying shades of green. If you put a red ball into my hand, I can see that it is red. Toss the same ball out into the middle of the lawn, and I probably won’t notice it if I scan the yard with my eyes. Unless I happen to look directly at a red bird sitting among green leaves, I won’t see it as red. I might see the shape, but won’t notice that it is red. I’m defective, and have been from birth. Until my body is made new when Christ comes for me, I just won’t be able to see the patterns on Mr. Ishihara’s plates.

One evening, a distinguished leader called upon Christ for an interview. The first response the Lord gave Nicodemus was that this member of the Jewish Sanhedrin needed to be born again. Of course, what Christ was referring to was a spiritual rebirth.

Have you ever heard anyone say, “I just can’t see what’s wrong with…”? The scriptures point out that spiritual things must be spiritually discerned. Since the fall of mankind, we’ve had vision problems when it comes to spiritual things. Just like my colorblindness will be with me till my body is made new, so our spiritual blindness will remain with us until our spirits are made new through the rebirth by the Spirit. Paul refers to this when he speaks of our becoming a new creation when we yield our lives to the Lord.

I can get along with my colorblindness, and have for many years. I can’t get along with my spiritual blindness; it’s a life and death matter.

By the way, does this tie go with this shirt?

Dr. G