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

Looking-Glass Self - What God Thinks About You

Sociologists have a theory of the looking-glass self: You become what the most important person in your life (e.g., wife, father, boss, etc.) thinks you are. 

How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible's astounding words about God's love for me, if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?

Brennan Manning told the story of an Irish priest, who on a walking tour of a rural parish, saw an old peasant kneeling by the side of the road, praying. 

Impressed, the priest said to the man, "You must be very close to God." 

The peasant looks up from his prayers, thinks a moment, and then smiles, "Yes, He's very fond of me."

(Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com Adapted from Phillip Yancey, What's So Amazing about Grace?)

Keeping A Promise - Tiger Phong and Tiger Woods

Earl Woods, the father of Tiger Woods, with a photo taken with his good friend, Colonel Tiger Phong.

In the latter days of the Vietnam War, an American Colonel named Earl Woods made a promise. Woods believed that his friend, a South Vietnamese colonel named Vuong Phong, had saved his life. In gratitude for that act, Woods promised to name his son after his friend, who was known as “Tiger.” Sports fans will immediately understand that the promise was kept. That son has immortalized his father’s friend, for most everyone has heard of Tiger Woods.

 J. Michael Shannon

-------------------------
Here is the story in detail,

On the last day of 1975, the day after Eldrick Woods was born, Tiger Woods was born when his father gazed into a maternity glass and saw both the future and the past.

"Don't worry, Woody," Colonel Phong told Earl in a hushed voice, "I've never lost an advisor yet."

"'I'm glad to hear it, Tiger," he whispered back, "but I damn sure don't want to be the first one."

Tiger Phong and Earl Woods were deep in Vietcong country, exactly where, only Phong knew. The two-jeep caravan of the two light colonels from Phan Thiet was a familiar convoy throughout Binh Thuan Province, where Phong was the Deputy Province Chief for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and Woods was more than just his U.S. advisor.

The Americans were pulling out. "I got to go," their commander said. Phong's troops were supposed to take over the fire base, but they were overdue. It was sort of a preview of the coming years.

"That's all right, we can defend it ourselves," Phong asserted.

"What?" Woods said.

"You take this cover, I'll take that. My driver can man the third flank, your driver the fourth."

"Tiger, this is ridiculous."

Phong smiled at his friend. Yes, war is certainly ridiculous.

Before taking his position, Woods retrieved an M-79 grenade-launcher from the jeep and set it down in a row with his M-16 rifle and .45-caliber pistol. For three hours, he sweated.

When the ARVN forces eventually showed up and Colonel Phong finished grinding their captain into a fine dry powder, Woods radioed for a helicopter.

The chopper hadn't flown 50 yards before they were under fire. The VC had been there all along. "Wham, wham, wham, wham, wham!" The rounds shot up through the floor of the helicopter directly between the two colonels. As they twirled out of range, Woods said, "Tiger, you crazy son of a bitch." Colonel Phong just laughed.

Later they had a drink in Earl's quarters, "The Blue Room," their mission central and private retreat. More than one drink. It was Phong who had organized the preposterous paint job -- ceiling included -- that gave the room its identity. It was Woods who nicknamed him "Tiger," an expression of admiration but also irony.

Not all of the South Vietnamese soldiers could be called tigers.

The two were closer than friends, brothers. When they weren't fighting side by side, they were playing tennis or tricks. Woods schooled Phong on the rudiments of jazz; Phong gave Woods philosophy. They laughed a tremendous lot, lest they cry a tremendous lot.

But this was a quiet night. Aretha Franklin was singing on the record player. Phong was retelling his dream of being a schoolteacher someday -- he looked like a schoolteacher already. The thing he wished most for his children was just an absence of helicopters.

Woods was thinking of that afternoon in the artillery field: When the Americans left, the Communists should have stormed. Why didn't they? He should be dead. Why wasn't he? Then, and forever, he told himself over and over, "There has to be a reason." 

(Tom Callahan)

God Stoops Down

An old (American) Indian chief constantly spoke of the Lord Jesus and what He meant to him. “Why do you talk so much about Jesus?” asked a friend. The old chief did not reply, but slowly, deliberately gathered some sticks and bits of grass. He made a circle of them. In the circle he placed a caterpillar. Still silent, he struck a match and lit the sticks and grass.

They watched the caterpillar. As the fire caught around the circle, the trapped caterpillar began to crawl around rapidly, seeking a way to escape. As the fire advanced, the helpless caterpillar raised its head as high as it could. If the creature could have spoken, it would have said, “My help can only come from above.”

Then the old chief stooped down. He extended his finger to the caterpillar which crawled up his finger to safety.
The serious chief said, “That was what the Lord Jesus did for me! I was lost in sin. My condition was hopeless. I was trapped. Then the Lord Jesus stooped down in love and mercy and He drew me out of the horrible pit of sin and shame. How can I help but love Him and talk of His wondrous love and care?”

Is attendance at a place of worship or membership with a Christian community necessary to a Christian way of life?

C. S. Lewis was once asked, "Is attendance at a place of worship or membership with a Christian community necessary to a Christian way of life?"

His answer was as follows: "That's a question which I cannot answer. My own experience is that when I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago, I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and I wouldn't go to the churches and Gospel Halls; and then later I found that it was the only way of flying your flag; and, of course, I found that this meant being a target. 

It is extraordinary how inconvenient to your family it becomes for you to get up early to go to Church. It doesn't matter so much if you get up early for anything else, but if you get up early to go to Church it's very selfish of you and you upset the house. If there is anything in the teaching of the New Testament which is in the nature of a command, it is that you are obliged to take the Sacrament, and you can't do it without going to Church. 

I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. 

I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren't fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit." 

God in the Dock, pp. 61-62.

Following the Call of God

Cooper was a career military officer, a flight surgeon. He had risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, soon to be commissioned full Colonel, when at age 40 he resigned to enter the field of wellness and preventive medicine.

It was a hard decision. His wife, Millie, was pregnant, and he had no financial backing for the new enterprise. A Dallas city father, a multimillionaire, denied Cooper his 1.2-million-dollar request.

“Stay in the Air Force another seven years,” he advised. “Don’t risk giving up your benefits.”

The reasons were mounting as to why Cooper should stay put. Yet when he and his wife prayed, they concurred that it was the Lord’s leading.

There was no lending agency willing to put up more than $100,000, since Cooper’s net worth was less than $25,000. But the young doctor persisted. Finally Joe McKinney, President of the Tyler Corporation, agreed to make a loan of $1.2 million.

I’m sure Joe McKinney feels a wave of satisfaction today when he thinks about the thousands, maybe millions, of people who have benefited from Cooper’s philosophy.

At that time, though, the obstacles for Cooper seemed to proliferate daily. Some respected Dallas doctors scoffed at his idea. He was called before the Dallas County Board of Censors to defend his position. Some medical men were pressing to restrict his practice, and even fractured the truth about him, claiming that he had been dishonorably discharged from military service and only had a Ph.D.

Had Cooper wanted to give up at this stage, he would have had no shortage of excuses. But he and his wife were certain that God had called them. So they prayed and persisted until the impossible was accomplished.

Their original vision had been for a modest office employing eight or ten people, but that goal was dramatically surpassed. Today his staff numbers 220. Adherents to Cooper’s wellness philosophy live and work in more than 50 nations. His books have sold more than 30 million copies in 41 languages and Braille.

The Cooper Clinic and Aerobics Center are the focal points of attention for medical, sports, and educational leaders from nations on every continent, including those behind the Iron Curtain. World leaders — among them medical men — come to him for their annual physical checkups. Only out of deference to their right to privacy do I refrain from naming some. Suffice it to say, hardly a day goes by when their names aren’t in the news.

Today Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper continues to embody this book’s formula — trust, organize, persist. He is a man of God, in a marriage made by God. His wife, Millie, shares his trust in God and his determination to see his goals achieved.

Talk about organization! I have never been to any offices where things run more smoothly or promptly. The entire operation is a model of organizational excellence.

Persistence? His annual budget today is more than ten times McKinney’s original investment.

Dr. Cooper’s is a big success story. It measures what can be done when somebody decides to trust, organize, and persist.

Of course his impossibility isn’t the same one you’re facing. But can you honestly say it was easier for Dr. Cooper than it is for you?

Do you really have any more right than he to make excuses?

Are you content to wallow in helplessness when other people, in situations as hard as yours, have managed to turn impossibility into possibility?

Most important, do you think Jesus was joking when He said all things are possible to you if you believe? No?

Then be careful what you call IMPOSSIBLE!

John Haggai

Reconciliation!

Shortly after the turn of the century, Japan invaded, conquered, and occupied Korea. Of all of their oppressors, Japan was the most ruthless. They overwhelmed the Koreans with a brutality that would sicken the strongest of stomachs. Their crimes against women and children were inhuman. Many Koreans live today with the physical and emotional scars from the Japanese occupation.

One group singled out for concentrated oppression was the Christians. When the Japanese army overpowered Korea one of the first things they did was board up the evangelical churches and eject most foreign missionaries. It has always fascinated me how people fail to learn from history. Conquering nations have consistently felt that shutting up churches would shut down Christianity. It didn't work in Rome when the church was established, and it hasn't worked since. Yet somehow the Japanese thought they would have a different success record.

The conquerors started by refusing to allow churches to meet and jailing many of the key Christian spokesmen. The oppression intensified as the Japanese military increased its profile in the South Pacific. The "Land of the Rising Sun" spread its influence through a reign of savage brutality. Anguish filled the hearts of the oppressed -- and kindled hatred deep in their souls. One pastor persistently entreated his local Japanese police chief for permission to meet for services. His nagging was finally accommodated, and the police chief offered to unlock his church ... for one meeting.

It didn't take long for word to travel. Committed Christians starving for an opportunity for unhindered worship quickly made their plans. Long before dawn on that promised Sunday, Korean families throughout a wide area made their way to the church. They passed the staring eyes of their Japanese captors, but nothing was going to steal their joy. As they closed the doors behind them they shut out the cares of oppression and shut in a burning spirit anxious to glorify their Lord.

The Korean church has always had a reputation as a singing church. Their voices of praise could not be concealed inside the little wooden frame sanctuary. Song after song rang through the open windows into the bright Sunday morning. For a handful of peasants listening nearby, the last two songs this congregation sang seemed suspended in time. It was during a stanza of "Nearer My God to Thee" that the Japanese police chief waiting outside gave the orders. The people toward the back of the church could hear them when they barricaded the doors, but no one realized that they had doused the church with kerosene until they smelled the smoke. The dried wooden skin of the small church quickly ignited. Fumes filled the structure as tongues of flame began to lick the baseboard on the interior walls.

There was an immediate rush for the windows. But momentary hope recoiled in horror as the men climbing out the windows came crashing back in -- their bodies ripped by a hail of bullets. The good pastor knew it was the end. With a calm that comes from confidence, he led his congregation in a hymn whose words served as a fitting farewell to earth and a loving salutation to heaven. The first few words were all the prompting the terrified worshipers needed. With smoke burning their eyes, they instantly joined as one to sing their hope and leave their legacy.

Their song became a serenade to the horrified and helpless witnesses outside. Their words also tugged at the hearts of the cruel men who oversaw this flaming execution of the innocent: Alas! and did my Savior bleed? and did my Sovereign die? Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?

Just before the roof collapsed they sang the last verse, their words an eternal testimony to their faith: But drops of grief can ne'er repay the debt of love I owe: Here, Lord, I give myself away 'Tis all that I can do! At the cross, at the cross Where I first saw the light, And the burden of my heart rolled away -- It was there by faith I received my sight, And now I am happy all the day.

The strains of music and wails of children were lost in a roar of flames. The elements that once formed bone and flesh mixed with the smoke and dissipated into the air. The bodies that once housed life fused with the charred rubble of a building that once housed a church. But the souls who left singing finished their chorus in the throne room of God. Clearing the incinerated remains was the easy part. Erasing the hate would take decades. For some of the relatives of the victims, this carnage was too much. Evil had stooped to a new low, and there seemed to be no way to curb their bitter loathing of the Japanese.

In the decades that followed, that bitterness was passed on to a new generation. The Japanese, although conquered, remained a hated enemy. The monument the Koreans built at the location of the fire not only memorialized the people who died, but stood as a mute reminder of their pain. Inner rest? How could rest coexist with a bitterness deep as marrow in the bones?

Suffering, of course, is a part of life. People hurt people. Almost all of us have experienced it at some time. Maybe you felt it when you came home to find that your spouse had abandoned you, or when your integrity was destroyed by a series of well-timed lies, or when your company was bled dry by a partner. It kills you inside. Bitterness clamps down on your soul like iron shackles.

The Korean people who found it too hard to forgive could not enjoy the "peace that passes all understanding." Hatred choked their joy. It wasn't until 1972 that any hope came. A group of Japanese pastors traveling through Korea came upon the memorial. When they read the details of the tragedy and the names of the spiritual brothers and sisters who had perished, they were overcome with shame. Their country had sinned, and even though none of them were personally involved (some were not even born at the time of the tragedy), they still felt a national guilt that could not be excused.

They returned to Japan committed to right a wrong. There was an immediate outpouring of love from their fellow believers. They raised ten million yen ($25,000). The money was transferred through proper channels and a beautiful white church building was erected on the sight of the tragedy.

When the dedication service for the new building was held, a delegation from Japan joined the relatives and special guests. Although their generosity was acknowledged and their attempts at making peace appreciated, the memories were still there. Hatred preserves pain. It keeps the wounds open and the hurts fresh. The Koreans' bitterness had festered for decades. Christian brothers or not, these Japanese were descendants of a ruthless enemy.

The speeches were made, the details of the tragedy recalled, and the names of the dead honored. It was time to bring the service to a close. Someone in charge of the agenda thought it would be appropriate to conclude with the same two songs that were sung the day the church was burned.

The song leader began the words to "Nearer My God to Thee." But something remarkable happened as the voices mingled on the familiar melody. As the memories of the past mixed with the truth of the song, resistance started to melt. The inspiration that gave hope to a doomed collection of churchgoers in a past generation gave hope once more.

The song leader closed the service with the hymn "At the Cross."

The normally stoic Japanese could not contain themselves. The tears that began to fill their eyes during the song suddenly gushed from deep inside. They turned to their Korean spiritual relatives and begged them to forgive. The guarded, calloused hearts of the Koreans were not quick to surrender. But the love of the Japanese believers -- unintimidated by decades of hatred -- tore at the Koreans' emotions:At the cross, at the cross Where I first saw the light, And the burden of my heart rolled away ...

One Korean turned toward a Japanese brother. Then another. And then the floodgates holding back a wave of emotion let go. The Koreans met their new Japanese friends in the middle. They clung to each other and wept. Japanese tears of repentance and Korean tears of forgiveness intermingled to bathe the site of an old nightmare.

Heaven had sent the gift of reconciliation to a little white church in Korea.

Tim Kimmel, Little House on the Freeway, pp. 56-61.