Firing Blanks For Jesus
Peter Kennedy has written:
Roy Robertson was a soldier at Pearl Harbor in 1941: 'My ship, the West Virginia, docked at Pearl Harbor on the evening of December 6, 1941. A couple of the fellows and I left the ship that night and attended a Bible study. About fifteen sailors sat in a circle on the floor. The leader asked us to each recite our favorite Scripture verse. In turn each sailor shared a verse and briefly commented on it.
I sat there in terror. I couldn't recall a single verse. I grew up in a Christian home, went to church three times a week, but ... I couldn't recall a single verse. Finally, I remembered one verse - John 3:16. I silently rehearsed it in my mind. The spotlight of attention grew closer as each sailor took his turn. It was up to the fellow next to me. He recited John 3:16. He took my verse! As he commented on it I sat there in stunned humiliation. In a few moments everyone would know that I could not recall from memory even a single verse. Later that night I went to bed thinking, "Robertson, you're a fake."
At 7:55 the next morning I was awakened by the ship alarm ordering us to battle stations. 360 planes of the Japanese Imperial Fleet were attacking our ship and the other military installations. My crew and I raced to our machine gun emplacement, but all we had was practice ammunition. So for the first fifteen minutes of the two-hour battle, we only fired blanks hoping to scare the Japanese airplanes.
As I stood there firing fake ammunition I thought, "Robertson, this is how your whole life has been - firing blanks for Christ." I made up my mind as Japanese bullets slammed into our ship, "If I escape with my life, I will get serious about following Jesus."
Roy Robertson did get serious. He became the first missionary of "The Navigators" and did a lot of work with Billy Graham as well.
Kennedy adds,
Are you growing mature in the Lord or are you firing blanks for Christ? Today in prayer, examine your walk with the Lord and seek to grow deeper in maturity with Him.
"I want to know Christ--yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death" (Philippians 3:10).
Sun v Shade
... Did you know that shade doesn’t make temperatures cooler. In fact, air temperature is actually the same in the sun or shade. It’s solar radiation hitting our bodies which makes it feel hotter. On average, solar radiation makes the air feel 10 -15 degrees warmer than it actually is.
This is why official air temperature is always measured in the shade. If the thermometer were placed in the sun, the solar radiation would heat up the thermometer and the resulting temperature would be measuring the warmed up thermometer and not the air around the thermometer. -- ABC News
In the heat of the day, we run to shade for shelter -- some measure of relief from the searing radiation that makes our bodies sweat and our skin burn.
However, the exact reverse is true when we are cold and shivering. We long to step out from the shade, in the hopes of capturing any measure of warmth from the sun's rays to warm our bodies and alleviate the chill.
Scripture is repleat with references to the metaphorical, protective wings of the Lord, spread over us to shield and protect. Often times, as we duck under for cover, we find instant relief from whatever drama, trial, or tragedy has befallen us.
Yet sometimes, we step under the shelter of the Lord's wings and we find no immediate relief. We find the cold and cruelty of our circumstances "feel" no different, no warmer there.
The Lord's protection is no instant panacea, defined quite literally as "a solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases." As often as not, the Lord's "protection" will take us through the cold hard trial, rather than around it.
Corrie ten Boom, a WWII concentration camp survivor, in her acclaimed book, The Hiding Place, described the pain of standing for hours, at attention before her Nazi captors, in the freezing cold of the pre-dawn hours, or huddled on the wooden bunks, sharing blankets and body heat against the crippling chill of the winter nights in captivity. Why was there no relief from her cold, hard trials? Where, in those moments, were the wings of God's protection?
They were spread wide over her, just as He promised!
Speaking of their times gathered around a small, smuggled bible, she would write,
Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the Word of God.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
I would look about us as Betsie read, watching the light leap from face to face. More than conquerors ... It was not a wish. It was a fact.
We knew it, we experienced it minute by minute--poor, hated, hungry. We are more than conquerors. Not 'we shall be.' We are!
Life in Ravensbruck took place on two separate levels, mutually impossible. One, the observable, external life, grew every day more horrible. The other, the life we lived with God, grew daily better, truth upon truth, glory upon glory."
Indeed, in the cruelest of firey trials or chilling challenges, His wings are spread over us. Though we often find no immediate relief for our circumstances, we can (and DO!) find relief for our souls!
"For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless" (Psalm 84:11, NIV).
"Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for in you my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills [his purpose] for me" (Psalm 57:1, ESV).
“Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the SHADOW of thy wings” (Psalm 17:8, NIV)
Don't Eat the Hot Wings
At work one day we were having a potluck and one of guys had brought his special recipe hot wings. His recipe was to blend the habanero chili peppers into a paste, mix it into a little Tabasco sauce, and bake it into the chicken wings.
So he called one of his buddies over saying, “You’ve got to try my hot wings and tell me what you think!”
His buddy grabbed a wing, stuck the whole thing in his mouth, and got about half way through pulling the bone out when the realization hit him that his mouth was on fire! Finally, after lots of water and stuffing anything other than those chicken wings into his mouth to try and put out the fire, he dried the tears in his eyes and got himself composed. Then you know what he did? He went looking for someone else to try those fiery chicken wings!
After the first couple of guys were fooled into eating those wings, with the same predictable results, enough people had gathered and witnessed their demise that they weren’t going to be able to fool anyone else. But then the strangest thing happened.
Guys who had seen for themselves what the others had gone through decided to try the wings for themselves! They were a little more cautious, not sticking the whole thing in their mouths, but kind of nibbling around the edges, yet the results were still pretty much the same. And it went on until all the chicken wings were gone!
You might think the moral of this story is “guys are stupid,” and given the facts, I would have a hard time arguing with you. But as all this was playing out, I started thinking how the spreading heat from those wings was just like the way sin spreads.
The one who made the sauce, knowing how hot it was and what would probably happen, still called out to his friend, “Hey, come on and try my chicken wings!” – He is like the false prophets spoken of in Matthew 24:11 seeking to mislead. "And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray" (NIV).
There are many people who will mislead you if you let them.
The one who first tried the wings and burned his mouth still called out for others to come and try them too – He is like the one who has fallen, and rather than picking himself up and putting up warning signs to keep others from the same fate, he calls out to see if he can get others to join him in his misery. As Proverbs 4:16 says, "For they [evil people] cannot sleep unless they have done wrong; they are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble" (ESV).
There are those who take pleasure in causing others to stumble.
And what about the ones who saw what was going on, but just had to try it for themselves? They are the ones who blindly follow the masses, even when they know they are going to suffer. And the result? Matthew 7:13 says that “… the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it” (NASB).
There are those who beckon to you to follow them on their road to destruction.
On that particular day I was one of the few who didn’t eat the chicken wings. But in my life, in the things that truly matter, that hasn’t always been the case. What about you?