Let Love Guide Your Way

The Romper Room Channel

Most truckers out there have a fond name for channel 19 on their CB radio. They call it the "Romper Room Channel." Tune in around a big truck stop at night and you will think you have entered the Twilight Zone after monitoring it for 20 minutes. It's like listening to a group of small children with adult voices ranting, joking, and saying whatever comes into their heads to be silly or just stay awake. One night in Fresno, CA comes to mind. I pulled into a truck stop and got on the CB to ask for local directions to my morning delivery. I never got the chance. Some local called The Big Ace was on his "alligator" radio walking all over the other drivers' transmissions just to stir up trouble. When he wasn't talking, the other drivers walked over themselves trying to respond to his insults. This was just the entertainment The Big Ace was looking for. All night long, every thirty seconds in the distance was a repeating message from another local calling out, "Watermelon!" One of the things I used to love to do was play a recording of the Tarzan yell every time a "CB Rambo" started slinging mud. It usually broke up the arguments with laughter.

Now and then, someone would get on the CB and try to convert those "godless truckers" with good intent, but not always with great results. I remember engaging a "Hellfire and Brimstone" preacher in Illinois who was attempting to share the Gospel on channel 19. When a tired trucker threw an insult his way, he went into a rant about how all of us where going to burn in hell. I got on the mike and said, "Hey, brother! You're not going to convert anyone talking like that. You are scaring away the customers, so to speak." He just tried to justify himself and told me I was going to hell, too! I explained who I was and merely told him that "buttonholing" people and angry ranting was counter productive to what he was trying to accomplish. This just mystified him. How could a fellow Christian not like what he was doing for Christ? I was out of range before I could convince him of the truth. I knew then that if you scared someone to salvation, they would only run to Jesus for Gehenna Fire Insurance. Salvation is not about that alone. It is about changing from within and becoming part of the Body of Christ. It's like an old truck being bought at a salvage yard and being restored to factory new or better. It's about agape love being installed as the moral compass on the dash.

Another driver in Des Moines, IA was talking to a female driver about sin over the CB one night. He quoted the Scripture out of Romans 3:10: As it is written, "There is no one righteous, not even one;" She came back with, "How can God accuse an innocent child of sin?" He had no answer. I quickly asked if I could respond to that one. They both were eager to hear what this old driver had to say. My response gave them both something to think about.

Anyone who has small children will likely tell you this. If you put two toddlers in a room full of toys, given time they will end up fighting over one toy. If you tell a child not to do something that is wrong and they get caught doing it, they will likely lie to your face. Did we teach them to lie? Most of us would say no. This is a defense mechanism children use to try and escape the consequences of their actions. These are illustrations of the sin nature within us. You might say they do not know any better. I would say, "Precisely!" Children have to be taught right from wrong like they have to be taught how to tie their shoes. They have to learn how to relate to others by the Golden Rule rather than living an entirely egocentric existence. If children don't learn positive social skills by the age of accountability, they are likely to become criminals.

Marriage Is Sacred

One reason marriage is considered a sacrament in the church is that it reveals the mystery of our relationship to God. We love our children, but that doesn't mean we always love what they do. In the same way, God does not enjoy watching us do harm to ourselves or each other. Life is a gift meant to be enjoyed by all. The reason there is evil in this world is because we allow it by our own ignorance of it. We have yet to learn how to rid ourselves of it. "The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." Ayn Rand

Most adults understand that children go through stages of development. An older sibling may say of the younger, "My little brother is stupid." An adult would know that both siblings have a lot to learn and that they are both simply at different stages in their development. We do not stop developing as human beings once we reach adulthood. The author Gail Sheehy wrote a good book that was published in 1995 called New Passages; Mapping Your Life Across Time. In it she writes, "Imagine the day you turn 45 as the infancy of another life." Human beings continue to develop in different stages until the day we die.

I Am An Old Man And I Am A Child

From a child's perspective, I am a very old man. From my mother's perspective, I am still her little boy. From God's perspective, we are all young children with a lot to learn. God is eternal and perfect. Jesus said, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48 NIV Is that possible? I would say it depends on how teachable we are. God must know that we are all at different stages of development. The Scripture thus implies that the human soul is eternal and death is merely a doorway to another stage of life. However, in this temporal existence there is no reason why we can't get over ourselves and pursue perfection by first getting a more complete understanding of agape love. The first step toward knowledge is to know that we know very little. I especially liked what Dr. Francis Collins said at the end of the Charlie Rose show on May 13th. If the knowledge of the universe were put on the top of a table, each one of us would draw a little circle upon it representing our sphere of personal knowledge.

Like most teenagers, I thought I knew everything at that stage of my life. Had I listened to the wisdom of my elders then, I may have avoided many foolish mistakes. What I didn't know I learned the hard way by The Law Of Attraction. In simple terms, what goes around comes around. I had many times in my life asked the question, "Why me?" The answer always came down to a flaw in my "stinking thinking," as a former pastor of mine, Randy Morrison, used to say. I was in a stage that Dr. Joe Vitale and Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith, of The Secret movie, would call Victimhood or Stage One in our mental and spiritual development.

I blamed strange circumstances or other people for my misfortunes. I even, at one point, blamed God for the worst things. How could He allow that to happen to me!?! I eventually came back around by the grace of God to realize that there was no one to blame but myself. When The Secret movie came out, I knew that this was it. The concept had never been explained in quite this way before. In church, we were taught that if you prayed and believed for something and it didn't come to pass, you didn't have enough faith. There is more to it than that. In our subconscious minds, we often have counter productive ideas that prevent us from the life we desire. They are called counter intentions.

Dr. Vitale recently admitted that The Secret movie was mainly designed to introduce the concept of The Law Of Attraction as Stage Two or Empowerment. In his interview with Mark Joyner online, he went on to explain Stage Three and Four. This interview addressed some of the problems I did have with the movie in an eloquent way. I would encourage everyone to see this interview before it's gone. You may also sign up for a free newsletter at Simpleology.com.