Fences

#524

The sports world has been rocked this week by just one small incident, one small Achilles tendon, but in the foot of one of the world's greatest sports stars. David Beckham, who began his soccer career in Manchester England at age 17 and who now plays with the LA Galaxy with a 32.5 million dollar 5 year contract is on the sidelines. One of the most famous profiles in the sports world, married to one of the Spice Girls, thought he had the world and all the world had to offer, looks, fame, money, celebrity. One small move, one quick second, and it all ended just as he was about to jump the fence into the World Cup meet in South Africa.

On the farm, I was constantly seeing fences at various places and often asked my father or grandfather why the fence had been put there. You never take down an old fence until you establish why it was put up in the first place. Why have a Bible, why have a Constitution, why have statutes of law, government, rules and regulations? Why not play any game without a rule book? The most popular teacher in any school is the coach, he has rules, he has uniforms, he expects sportsmanship. Why not just allow people to drive any way they want, fast as they desire, drunk or sober? Life is a matter of observing fences.

Prepare for the fences of life. It is a pitiful child who grows up without any discipline or training. I knew one professor of medicine at Chapel Hill, father of two sons. He and his wife did not believe in any restraints, any rules at all. By the time these two boys were teenagers, they were not fit to live in a civilized world. Once, I was having a meal with a professor at a restaurant in Boston. He was acquainted with a couple who were seated near us, with their one child. This child was running around the restaurant, jerking off food from tables and generally antagonizing and pestering everyone in the restaurant. He said, “these parents are both PhD'd psychologists. They do not believe in exercising any restraints on their children. They want their children to be freedom loving, undaunted by anything which might subdue their imagination.”

Prepare for the unexpecteds, disease, vehicle tragedy, house fire, strangulation from food, a criminal choosing your house for a crime of passion affecting you, your wife, your child. Most people live in this world thinking that nothing bad will ever happen to them. Prepare for the unexpecteds in finances. As a long time banker and securities dealer told me long ago, “you can prepare for anything in the stock market except the unexpecteds. The market will go up in bad times, it will go up in good times, but it will not do anything but go down in times of doubt”. We are now experiencing a time of doubt in this nation and this world as never before in my lifetime. Prepare for reaping the penalties of immorality, the sewing of wild oats, the enticements of an affair. We always think we can get by with something, but usually our immoral, lawless acts will come back to haunt us. When God forgives, God forgets but he does not allow us to forget. It is only through his forgiveness and the fact that he has forgiven us for so much that we have the compassion to forgive others.

Often, when our doubts and fears cause us to get away from the narrow way and we think we want to live the ways of the world for a while we find getting away is not easy...God has a way of drawing us right back within his circle of security.

Very personal, becoming blind at such an early age, I thought I had the option of disbelief for a while. I threw out the line tethered to my fence, that the playing field was not level...that if God wanted me and loved me he would cut me some slack. It does not work that way. I might have been through with him, but he was not through with me. I have never missed saying in a graduation address or any other speaking engagement, although I failed God many times, God never failed me and he has a way of keeping me just where he wants me even if it means the cocoon of blind isolation. So it is with you. Your skin may not be the color you would prefer. Your IQ may not be what you would prefer. Your looks may not be what you would prefer. You are what you are and God has always used many imperfect people to do his work. If only everyone could be beautiful, healthy, wealthy, and wise. God chose you to do the best you can with what you have. His only requirement is just one word, trust. The middle verse in God's word is in the 118th Psalm, “trust in the Lord and put no confidence in men”.There are 1189 chapters in the bible and this is the middle verse of the middle chapter. Everything on either side of that verse proves to you and to me that trusting God and putting no confidence in men is your only way of life.

Prepare to be disappointed with your fellow man...even your family...even your closest friends. Here we are at the ides of March...mid march. Caesar was slain by one he least suspected. The great exploits of Julius Caesar mark history and the Roman empire. We imagine him now, crossing the Hellespont with hand made cages full of African animals never before seen in Europe. One giraffe was walked all the way from Rome to Paris with people lined up on either side just to see this remarkable animal. I remember, once in Africa, as the sun was going down, a number of giraffes crossing the bush in front of my Land Rover, their long necks and stately bodies. The prophet warned Caesar but Caesar did not suspect his friends and hence Mark Antony's great funeral oration.

Today, many men put on their socks in the morning and a mortician takes them off at night. Money, power, prestige, celebrity will not buy you one extra second. In our fast moving cars, we pass cemeteries and funeral homes every day and yet I have never met a man who thought he was going to die, and most patients think they will get well. God has given us the fence of love of life and no person tries to take it down. How wonderful it would be to know a preacher, priest, or even family member who would have enough love for one nearing death or even one, as far as we know, far from away from death insist on preparing one another for the taking down of that fence.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. (Jer 29:11)

Two thirds of all couples who live together are not married. 50% of all high school girls have STDs. 68% of all children are reared in fatherless homes. 75% of all children reared in “church going homes” leave the church entirely after going to college. The recidivism rate of prisoners is between 50 and 60 percent. 75% of all prisoners are black. 52% of all black babies are aborted. Ride through any American city or look over the top of any American city from a hill and you will see a church on almost every block. It is evident that the fences we have built and that our forefathers built have not worked. The enemy has invaded without firing a shot, without poisoning the well, without taking a prisoner and we are it.