Passing Judgement of God

© 2020. Bill Murphy   

Floyd was an unarmed soldier in wartime.  He was a medic.  Floyd did not believe in killing, yet he served his country by helping to save the lives of others.

     Floyd’s unit was pinned down by enemy fire, and several of his buddies lay wounded just ahead.  Although without means of defending himself, he charged forward, to administer aid to this wounded buddies, and to help them back to safety.

     Then Floyd too was hit, but he ignored his own wound.  Reached his bleeding buddy, he dragged the man to safety.  Then Floyd charged forward again, and again he was it by enemy fire.  Yet he continued to limp forward, to his fallen comrade, and dragged him also back to safety.

      Floyd repeated this feat the third time, before the battle was over.  He’d rescued three of his friends, while being wounded himself in his arm, shoulder, and leg. 

      The simple truth is that Floyd RECEIVED three wounds, wounds which would has stopped many a man.  But Floyd didn’t ACCEPT these wounds, instead he ignored them, and charged back into the fray over and over again.  And here lies the huge difference between the two commonly used words ‘accept’ and ‘recieve.’ 

ACCEPT: To receive, but with a consent, with favor, or with approval.

RECIEVE: To take, as something that is offered, given, committed, sent, paid, etc.; to be given something.  To take possession of.

     True, ‘accept’ and ‘recieve’ mean almost the same thing, but the big difference between the two is that to ‘accept’ requires a VALUE JUDGEMENT.  Floyd recieved the enemy bullets into his flesh.  He didn’t want them, they were inflicted upon him by the enemy.  But after these wounds had been received, Floyd made a value judgement: to be counted among the fallen wounded and fall down himself… or to ignore the painful fact that he too was wounded, and continue on in his original mission of rescue.  He chose not to accept the wounds which he had recieved, and he pressed on. 

     Leaving the horrors of war and the pain of the battlefield, lets go to a far more peaceful place, perhaps one of the most peaceful places on earth, the house of God, the church.

     The service is ending, and there is a call for all who will, to come forward and surrender their hearts to The Lord.

      Can we save ourselves?  No, of course not!  Do we know what our future holds?  Hardly!  But God does.  Who hold the power to heal?  It is not within our hands, but in Gods.  Who is the Alpha, the Omega, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Lords?  He is, of course!

      That said, how then can I, as weak and helpless and hopless as I am, be in any position to pass judgement upon God?  What gives me the ability and right to place God in the scales of judgement, and weigh Him as to His ability to save my soul?  I have neither right nor power to weigh Him as being ACCEPTABLE or not.

     Remember: acceptance is the same thing as recieving but with a major codicile: to ‘accept’ requires a value judgement! 

     ACCEPT/RECIEVE.  What’s the big deal?  The same pastors who asks us to ‘accept’ the Lord have no problem understanding the difference between tithing and giving.  

     My point in this is to simply say that perhaps it’s best to use the correct words, to better express what we truly mean.  How would you feel, after telling someone, “I love you,” to have them tell you in return, “I like you too.”?

Perhaps God’s not too happy about being judged if He’s ‘acceptable’ or not.

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THE AIRPLANE I ALMOST OWNED

© 2020 Bill Murphy

I almost owned a real airplane once!  Well, half interest in one anyway.  

I was in college at the time, and a classmate/good friend from the Mississippi Delta was a liscensed pilot.  I’d flown several times myself, and loved it! But I was always a passenger.  I wanted to fly with the stick in my own two hands.

The MS Delta, where my college pal hailed from, is a hotbed of aviation, mostly agricultural crop dusters. And those pilots most always have at least one ‘light plane’ of their own.  That said, my friend returned to school after a weekend visit at home.  He was absolutely bubbling over with joy!  He’d found an afortable airplane that we could buy!

The aircraft he’d found was a well-worn single engine, open-cockpit, WWII trainer, a Fairchild PT-19. It sat TWO. Perfect!  

According to my friend, it was in ‘pretty good’ shape, and was worth far more than the $1,200 the owner was asking.  Now this was in the early 1960s, way before the days of cellphones, much less pagers.  It would have taken a lot of get a call to me over the weekend.  My friend asked the owner if he could have permission to fly the plane to the small county airport just a few miles from our college, but it was a ‘no.’  The ‘running lights’ on the plane had an electrical short, and to fly it after dark would have been both dangerous, and illegal.  And it was fast approaching nightfall.  The next day was out, as my friend had a test early the next morning, and had to head back to school that night.  “Will you hold it for me?” my friend asked.  The guy said that he’d ‘try.’

Now this was sixty years ago.  I was newly married, in school, and on a limited budget.  My half, $600 might as well have been $6,000.  But I told him to count me in!  I’d come up with the money somehow.

My pal left for home as soon as he possibly could that week, and went straight to the airfield.  The plane was gone!  Someone had cash in hand, and had sweetened the pot to boot.  Sorry.  Maybe next time. 

Fast forward about 10 years, to June, 2nd 1972.  Jackson, MS heard shocking news.  A local newscaster from WAPT-TV, Dick Thames, was killed while filming a segment intended for the nightly news.  It appeared that the aircraft experienced structural failure while in the air.  

He was a passenger in a ventage WWII training aircraft… a Fairchild PT-19.

Was it possible?  Could this have been the the very aircraft that my friend and I missed out on?   I’ll never know.  

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