THE DUMB ONES END IN THE FRYING PAN!

I'm not the greatest fisherman, by that I mean I spend way more time fishing than catching. Years ago I was fishing a nice river up in northern California. I caught a few small pan sized trout placed them on a string and headed to the nearby town. Walking over a bridge toward the town I happened to look down into the clear water below and what should I see but four big, I mean "big" trout. They were facing upstream and slowly moving their tails ... and best of all they weren't moving. I ran back to my car and quickly got my fishing gear together and returned to the bridge full of high hopes. Boy, I wanted to get these babies. I carefully let down my baited hook right between them. They didn't seem interested, I changed bait but to no avail. I even placed my baited hook right in front of their mouths, and they still wouldn't bite.

I leaned over the rail and studied those big trout I wanted so badly. I didn't get a fish that afternoon but I did come away with a lesson I haven't forgotten.

What was the difference between the small fish I caught in the river and these big old trout under the bridge? These big old fish were big because they were old and they were old because they didn't take bait, or just maybe they spotted the hook or the thin blue line. One thing for sure, they didn't play the hook and line game. In a piscatorial sense, these guys were old because they were smart! The line of fish in my car would never get old because they were a few of many "hungry teens" ready to bite on anything.

Three cheers for experience!

Caution! Watch closely before you chase that dainty little morsel, there may be a hook and line attached o someone who wants you for all the wrong reasons!

BLIND TO DANGER:

Last night I was speaking to a group of about twenty teens in the rough "Red Light" district of Tijuana. Zona Norte is known to be a dangerous area of the city near the border fence. Even while I'm speaking, there are emergency vehicles streaming back and forth with sirens blasting. Drunks, drug addicts, prostitution, you name it and it's part of the Zone. Colorful, exciting and for some, deadly!

I was telling the boys some adventure stories about the Amazon jungle, and mentioned dangers like tigers, piranha fish, anaconda snakes even insects. They listened intently.

After I had talked a little about my world in the jungle, I asked them what dangers they faced in their world of Zona Norte. I wondered what kind of response I would get.

There was a long silence as the boys sat and thought about the dangers they faced in their world ... no one could come up with a danger.

It seems that the exotic carries quite an impact. The exotic and unknown come wrapped in a package of fear.

The dangers these boys face every day are so common to them that they don't count them as dangers.

Not that unusual is it?

RESPONSIBLE VS IRRESPONSIBLE!

I'll admit there's a danger in taking kids across the border into Mexico. Is our ministry irresponsible in taking work groups into Mexico to work with the poor? Many have questioned our wisdom in doing this. Some have called us irresponsible.

As I lifted Maria, a dying woman, and placed her in the back of my Volkswagen van, I might have been called irresponsible because she was dying of AIDS and her clothing was very wet with sweat. My bare arms were wet too. Are there times where being responsible in doing good is seen by others as being irresponsible?

Several years ago Efren pulled an unconscious man from a burning car and saved his life. The drivers door was jammed and the flames were hot and the gas tank was soon to explode. Efren thought this to be a responsible act. Others in the crowd I'm sure thought him to be unwise and irresponsible.

Is it irresponsible for a man to take his family and move from affluent and "safe" America to a foreign country full of very real dangers, simply to share the Gospel with a people enslaved by darkness. Responsible or irresponsible?

Is it responsible to trust God and His Word and act in faith?

Is it responsible to trust God and do His will wherever He sends you?

Can God protect His own? Does He?

These are hard and painful questions for the many weak and immature Christians here in comfortable America. Those Christians professing a faith they don't practice seem quick to judge those few who are out practicing their faith.

When it comes to preaching "trust God," the Evangelical Church in America does well, but when it comes to practicing that "trust," well, lets be honest; that's another thing ... the few Believers who practices that trust are often seen as being irresponsible.

As a Believer I'm asked by God to be responsible in doing His will even if my brethren see my actions as irresponsible.

So we'll continue to enter Tijuana, dodge the bullets and keep on ministering.

GOOD-BYE GOD, WE DON'T NEED YOU ANY MORE

How do you invite God to leave? We have an example In the book of Matthew. The story begins in the 8th. chapter and 28th verse. The people of the Gadarenes asked our Lord to leave their city. It was clear that they preferred the pigs! Pigs trumped liberating a slave from demonic control and changing future lives.

Our Lord was asked by the majority of the city to leave. When God is sent packing what or who replaces the vacuum? Any answer is a dangerous one. In the case of the Gadarenes, the pigs, their swill and filth returned. The demons remained to enslave the people. Once more the Gadarenes had their God-less status quo.

Will America take a lesson from the Gadarenes? Do we really want God out of America?

Will God bless America in absentia? I think not!

On one hand over eighty percent of Americans say they believe in God, on the other hand we and "God's" church stand silent while a determined minority of atheists slowly and successfully push God and His Christians out of the very America they created.

Starting with children in school, continuing on through the media and higher education, the atheist's Godless agenda gains credibility and momentum ... while we quietly watch.

While It's a puzzle now, it will be a disaster later.

Some of us feel a deep sorrow.

I fear for the future and I'm not alone. I long for the America that once was, and the God that made it great.