“Solid Ground” Mark FinleyLate one night a father received the one phone call that parents dread the most, the one we all pray never comes.
It was the highway patrol. A vehicle carrying four teenagers had spun out of control at high speed and rammed into a barrier. All the passengers had been killed. The officer on the phone said, “We believe your daughter may have been on of the victims.”
Ashen-faced, the father drove to the hospital it identify the body of his beautiful girl, snuffed out in the prime of life. As he sat there in the emergency room with his head in his hands, grieving and shocked, he heard a police officer mention that alcohol was probably the culprit in this accident. Several broken whiskey bottles had been found in the wreckage beside the mangled bodies.
Now the father had a focus for his frenzied anguish. He rose up in a rage and threatened to kill whoever had provided the four young people with liquor. He would find the guilty party, whatever it took!
Back home, overwhelmed by grief and rage, he stumbled into the kitchen and opened the cupboard where he kept his own supply of alcohol. There he found a note in his daughter’s handwriting. His heart leaped to his throat. The note read, “Dad, we’re taking along some of your liquor – I know you won’t mind”.
The people around us adsorb how we live much more than what we say. Our lifestyle influences them more than our words. Our walk impacts them more than our talk. When our life is consistent with our words, it makes a difference in the lives of other. Jesus’ words had such an impact because His teachings were consistent with how He lived. His life matched His words, the crowds could utter, “No man ever spoke like this man!” (John 7:46) because there was never a man who lived like He lived. There was no gap between what Jesus said and how He lived. Skeptics may debate an idea, but they cannot deny God’s power in the awesome testimony of a changed life. When those closest to us see Christ’s love revealed in all our actions, they too will stand in awe of how great He is.
