Follow Your Bubbles

"I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." Psalm 119:11 (NIV).

Vern Treat tells about a scuba diver who said that when you're in deep water, you're encircled by light, so there's no way you can tell which way is up because the water diffuses the light. You're also totally weightless, so you have no sense of gravity. The only way you can tell which way to get out of the water is to go the direction the bubbles are going.

Surrounded in an aura of light and weightless, it's very easy to lose all sense of direction and get disoriented. You may sense that this way is up even though your air bubbles are going sideways. You may be so convinced that your perception is true that you decide to ignore your bubbles and go the way you think is up.

One of the first things we were told when learning to scuba-dive, Trent said, was to always trust your bubbles—to always follow your bubbles. No matter how you feel, no matter what you think, your bubbles are always right.

Life can be like that at times too. If we base the rules of life on our feelings, perception or what we think, we can be very easily led astray. The philosophy, "If it feels good it must be right," is a dangerous guide to follow because our feelings can play all sorts of tricks on us. If something is wrong, it is wrong regardless of how we feel or what we think. True, it's important that we don't deny or repress our feelings, because we can learn to trust them; but what we can't always trust is our interpretation of them.

The only safe guide to follow when it comes to the rules of life is to trust God and His Word, the Bible. Therein lie the "bubbles of life" to follow. These "bubbles" are always right. Always!

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank You for Your Word, the Bible, and for giving us principles for healthy living and loving. Give me a great appreciation and love for Your Word, and the desire to hide it in my heart so I won't sin against You. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus's name. Amen.

Dick Innes

Trusting The Voice

A young pilot had just passed the point of no return when the weather changed for the worse. Visibility dropped to a matter of feet as fog descended to the earth. 

Putting total trust in the cockpit instruments was a new experience to him, for the ink was still wet on the certificate verifying that he was qualified for instrument flying. 

The landing worried him the most. His destination was a crowded metropolitan airport he wasn't familiar with. 

In a few minutes he would be in radio contact with the tower. Until then, he was alone with his thoughts. 

His instructor had practically forced him to memorize the rulebook. He didn't care for it at the time, but now he was thankful. 

Finally he heard the voice of the air traffic controller."I'm going to put you on a holding pattern," the controller radioed. Great! thought the pilot. 

However, he knew that his safe landing was in the hands of this person. He had to draw upon his previous instructions and training, and trust the voice of an air traffic controller he couldn't see. 

Aware that this was no time for pride, he informed the controller, "This is not a seasoned pro up here. I would appreciate any help you could give me." 

"You've got it!" he heard back. 

For the next 45 minutes, the controller gently guided the pilot through the blinding fog. 

As course and altitude corrections came periodically, the young pilot realized the controller was guiding him around obstacles and away from potential collisions. 

With the words of the rulebook firmly placed in his mind, and with the gentle voice of the controller, he landed safely at last. 

The Holy Spirit guides us through the maze of life much like that air traffic controller. 

The controller assumed that the young pilot understood the instructions of the flight manual. His guidance was based on that. 

Such is the case with the Holy Spirit: He can guide us if we have knowledge of God's Word and His will established in our minds. 

Hugging For Safety

In the fall of the year, Linda, a young woman, was traveling alone up the rutted and rugged highway from Alberta to the Yukon. Linda didn't know you don't travel to Whitehorse alone in a rundown Honda Civic, so she set off where only four-wheel drives normally venture. The first evening she found a room in the mountains near a summit and asked for a 5 A.M. wake-up call so she could get an early start. She couldn't understand why the clerk looked surprised at that request, but as she awoke to early- morning fog shrouding the mountain tops, she understood. Not wanting to look foolish, she got up and went to breakfast. Two truckers invited Linda to join them, and since the place was so small, she felt obliged. "Where are you headed?" one of the truckers asked. 'Whitehorse'

"In that little Civic? No way! This pass is dangerous in weather like this." "Well, I'm determined to try," was Linda's gutsy, if not very informed, response. "Then I guess we're just going to have to hug you," the trucker suggested. Linda drew back. "There's no way I'm going to let you touch me!"

"Not like THAT!" the truckers chuckled. "We'll put one truck in front of you and one in the rear. In that way, we'll get you through the mountains." All that foggy morning Linda followed the two red dots in front of her and had the reassurance of a big escort behind as they made their way safely through the mountains. Caught in the fog in our dangerous passage through life, we need to be "hugged." With fellow Christians who know the way and can lead safely ahead of us, and with others behind, gently encouraging us along, we, too, can pass safely.

Don Graham.

Would You Swap Places With This Rich Guy?

A young man named Steve Walker walked into Zig Ziglar's office years ago. A friend of his had flown him down from Toronto because he wanted Steve to see Zig. He thought Steve needed a change.

Turns out Steve left for work at six in the morning, and he got home every night between ten and eleven. That was six days a week. On Sundays he was so exhausted he slept all day.

He had no family life. He was so tired he had run off the road two or three times driving back and forth the 20 or 30 miles he had to go to his job. His wife was threatening to divorce him. Everything in this guy's life was falling apart - the whole nine yards.

Steve's friend had forewarned Zig of all this, and when Zig met with Steve, he discovered his boss was the person he looked up to the most.

"Why is that?" Zig asked him.

"Most successful man I've ever seen."

"Okay,” Zig said, "let's look at your boss. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to give your boss a plus or a minus grade on all the questions I'm going to ask you."

"Okay."

He asked, "Steve, how happy is your boss?"

Steve thought a minute. "I never really thought about it until now, but I don't think he's happy at all."

"Well, we'll give him a minus on that, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Why do you say you don't think he's happy?"

"Well, uh, number one, I've never heard him laugh. He seldom smiles, and besides that he has ulcers."

"Well, let's see now, that tells me something about his health. Do we give him a plus or minus on that?"

"Oh, that looks like a minus."

Zig said, "If he's got ulcers, that tells me something about his peace of mind. Do we give him a plus or a minus?"

"I'd say another minus."

"Okay," Zig continued. "How prosperous is your boss?"

He said, "Man, he's got money running out of his ears. That's why he's my role model."

"I guess we give him a big old plus on that one."

"Absolutely!" said Steve.

Zig said, "How secure is he?"

"Well, he's as secure as money can make you."

"We had some billionaire brothers here in Dallas who went bankrupt. How does your boss compare?"

"He doesn't have that kind of money."

"We had an industrialist here who was worth half a billion. Does he have that kind of money?"

"No way."

"We had another one, a former governor worth a hundred million at one time. He's bankrupt. How does your boss compare?"

Steve said, "Oh, man, he doesn't have that kind of money."

"Well, I don't want to give him a plus, I don't want to give him a minus. What about a question mark? Would that be fair?"

"I never thought I would say this," he said, "but that would be more than fair."

"How many friends does your boss have?"

Steve pondered for a moment. "Really, I don't think he has any. I'm not his friend; I just admire him because he's so successful. To tell you the truth, the guy's somewhat of a jerk."

"Well, we're sure going to give him a minus on that, aren't we?"

He sighed, "Once again, yes."

Zig said, "Tell me about his family."

"Well, his wife's divorcing him."

"Then we have to give him a minus for that."

"Yes we do. I can't believe it! He's getting a minus on everything."

"How much hope does he have for the future?"

"Well, before I started talking to you, I thought he had lots. But now I don't think he has any real hope."

"Well," Zig said, "another minus."

"Yep."

"Steve, let me ask you a question. Of the eight things everybody wants, your boss gets a minus on six, a plus on one, and a question mark on one. Knowing what you know, would you swap places with him?"

The Bubbles Are Always Right

I learned that when a diver was deep under water, he could lose all sense of direction. He becomes weightless-no sense of gravity-and swimming without a natural source of light causes him to become disoriented and swim sideways, thinking that he is rising to the top. 

In fact, a diver can become so convinced that his perception is correct that he continues to swim in the wrong direction until he eventually runs out of air and drowns. My friend then said that the only way to keep this from happening is to follow the direction of your air bubbles. "No matter how you feel, or what your brain may tell you," he said, "the bubbles are always right." 

The world today is like a group of scuba divers: disoriented and void of direction. Absolutely convinced that their perception of right and wrong is correct, they ignore the warnings, while the bubbles of truth tell them otherwise. Instead, they willfully folloew the directions of other disoriented expert divers who say, "Live like this . . . believe like this . . . think this way . . . go that way"-and all the while their tanks are running out of oxygen.

The Word of God has been given to us that we may have direction for living. As Christians, we have no excuse for moving through life disoriented; the verses in Scripture are like the air bubbles from a diver—they show the way up.

Make sure you’re swimming in the right direction . . . just follow the “bubbles”! 

 

Stephen Davey