Guardrails

Guardrails

            The poet John Greenleaf Whittier said, "When faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead." Any man who throws his life away, who takes that great slide towards the bottom, passes warning sign posts along the way. The thrill of this writers life has been, and continues to be, knowing and recognizing the uncommon man. Most of them, their names never appear in print.  But, they are well known by God and their fellow man.

            Such was a fellow army medical officer, Doctor David Boyd who I got to know very well because we shared many values of life. Such as overcoming what the world considers poverty, working our way through many years of school, learning to manage money well, to know the thrill-satisfaction of accomplishment.

            Many years after our army days were over, our taking orders from men of lesser nobility in the military, I was attending a convention in New Orleans, Louisiana. I knew he practiced in a nearby city, I called, made arrangements to visit him. He lived in an impressive-antebellum home. An empty nest since his two children had married and moved on and his wife had died from cancer. Walking into a spacious den in the rear of the house, over the fireplace was a spectacular gold frame. The frame was at least five inches wide all around, gold plated, at least three feet wide and five feet tall.  In the frame was a portrait of a very plain women, grey dress, white hair, in a bun. Her hands showed hard work, no signs of manicure. No jewelry, no makeup, and yet the artist had caught something in the eyes of this very plain women...kindness. I heard Arch Bishop Fulton Sheen say one time when asked to give three words that could change the world, "Simple- kindness, kindness, kindness."

            My friend, the Dr. said, "That is a portrait of my mother, to whom I owe everything. We lived on the wrong side of the tracks in our town, my father had promised me that I would go to college and then, unexpectedly, he died. There was barely enough money to burry him.  I will never forget my mother saying, keep studying-working hard and I will make sure that you go to college. She continued working her job at a local plant, cooking-sewing-cleaning for the public at night and weekends. And when it came time for me to go to college, by her savings, my working, I managed to get through my eight years-internship-residency. But, she taught me the important things of life during our years together. Most important-my Christian faith and the grace of giving. The tithe is the Lord's whether you give it or not and our offerings always came first. We never spent one dime on anything that was not important. We kept a daily log of everything we spent, every activity and God knew that our lives were completely yielded to him."

            There is the new beginning for the believer, repentance-baptism-Lord's table. You do not take from your commitment to a new life, "You just keep adding to it."

            We were talking at length about something we had discussed many times in the army: The fact, and it is a fact, that unless blessed with an inheritance which you did not earn, the secret to financial success is keeping up with everything you spend. You can not invest the money you have spent. Nickels make dollars and dollars take care of themselves. Even Einstein said, "Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it.”

            So many have asked this blind veteran, "How did you accumulate your money?" I started at zero, blind, hard work, frugal living. It has never bothered me that people called me stingy. In college, (worked my way through eight years, job at night, classes during the day, selling Bibles door to door in the summer) called by my friends, "Iron pockets" because I never spent one dime unless necessary. The greatest secret, a daily record of every cent you spend. God's record that I have given from his generosity to me to his need. Of course for God to be God he needs nothing but with one tree in the garden of Eden, he established his rights and the fact that we cannot have it all. I would  rather have what is left from what is given to him, blessed, than what is left from the full 100%, cursed. YOU CAN NOT OUT GIVE GOD.

            Life is a matter of discipline. Character demands discipline. A blessed lifestyle of accomplishment demands nutritious food, abstinence from toxic medications, rest and exercise.

            Think of the BRUTAL world where the Virgin Mary, Joseph and even Jesus lived.

            We think things are bad at the end of 2012, and they are. Jobs are gone and they are not coming back. Every agency-system-entitlement is broke. We are an entangled third world type failure of government...controlled by a dictator, propped up by a state controlled news media, heading down a CLIFF of disaster and most citizens are unaware of the impending catastrophe.

            God in his mercy spoke and nothingness became something-ness. "In the fullness of time" (Galatians 4:4), God sent his son, putting on a tent of human flesh, to dwell among us. None of us would be saved through his perfect life. It is because of his resurrection, faith to faith, our faith in him, his faith in the father, that those of us called, predestined, through the new birth, having his righteousness in us, can face 2013 or anything else with serenity and security. It is not a matter of "playing church", rather the knowledge that "Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4). When we know God's message to us, through his word, we will put up the guardrails of the Christian life.