Facing Your Torpedoes!

Old Salamander
During the War of 1812, a ship called the Essex sailed to South America, where the precocious David Glasgow Farragut took a captured British ship into Santiago, Chile. His ship was defeated and sank after a cannon blast. He didn’t much care for his ship going down but he sure loved the Navy. 49 years later at the start of the Civil War, Farragut was now a 60-year-old naval Captain living in Virginia. A Southerner by birth, Farragut nonetheless pledged his allegiance to the Union and was given command of a heavy fleet. His orders were to open the Mississippi by taking New Orleans, which he did, and was made the first Rear Admiral in U.S. Naval history. He ran his ships into terrible cannon fire, survived and became known as "Old Salamander." A naval term of endearment for the crusty Admiral.

Sixteen months later, he took the last Confederate stronghold on the Gulf of Mexico in the battle of Mobile Bay. Ready to end the battle, he charged the heavily guarded bay entrance even though it was loaded with mines, then known as torpedoes. When they spotted the deadly explosives, Farragut pointed his saber towards the enemy and cried, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” The stuff of legends.

Heart Breakers
114 years later a Florida boy living in Los Angeles was trying to think of a good title for his latest recording project. It was not a good year for Tom Petty but things were about to get better. The pressure of the music business was getting to him. His Label ABC Records tried to sell his contract to MCA records without Tom and the Heartbreakers even knowing about it. He was angry at the whole system. He was defiant. He decided to go forward anyway, refusing to be victimized. The band pushed forward through every thing that threatened them and recorded a classic which he titled “Damn the Torpedoes!”

It was in that kind of mood; a mood that said, “things might blow up, but I’m going forward,” that Tom and fellow Heartbreaker Mike Campbell wrote a smash hit titled “Refugee.” It’s a song about refusing to lay in defeat and going full steam ahead.

“Somewhere, somehow somebody must have kicked you around someTell me why you wanna lay there and revel in your abandon.Listen, it don't make no difference to me. Everybody's got to fight to be freeYou see, you don't have to live like a refugee.”

Safe Havens
A refugee is somebody that doesn’t have a refuge, a sanctuary or a shelter. Refugees struggle to survive because they don’t have a place of protection.

Miraculous survivor stories tend to have something in common, a place of refuge.

A Japanese businessman survived the Hiroshima blast because he was working in a bank vault. An Indonesian woman survived 5 days at sea after the tsunami carried here away from her family. She did so by clutching a palm tree in the Indian Ocean and eating the fruit and bark of the tree she held on to. Don’t you just love a good survival story?
So does God.

God knows the importance of refuge. He doesn’t offer to build you one; He offers to be your refuge. In Psalms 57:1 David writes, “Be merciful to me oh God. For my soul trusts in you: And in the shadow of your wings I will make my refuge.”

Max Lucado, in his Thomas Nelson book, “Facing Your Giants” says it a lot better than I could. “Make God your refuge. Not your job, your spouse, your reputation, or your retirement account. Make God your refuge. Let Him, not Saul, encircle you. Let Him be the ceiling that breaks the beating sun, the walls that stop the wind, the foundation on which you stand”

Tom Petty says you don’t have to live like a refugee. Jesus says, “Come to me…”

Proverbs 18:10
“The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.”

For encouragement or info, please email me at FFTB@OpenDoorMinistries.org.

The Big Head

Don’t you love being a fan of somebody? I’m a big fan of a lot of people, in lots of different fields, some of them living but most of them gone. Davey Crocket, Sam Houston, Tom Petty, Spurgeon, William Tyndale.

I recently had the chance to listen to a guy who I instantly became a fan of. He was somebody that told stories about himself, and one really stood out.

HUMBLE PIE
When Rick Green was elected for the Texas State Senate he was only 26 years old. Yes he was a Christian and he knew better, but pride soon became a problem. By his own account he admits that he got the Big Head so bad that very quickly he looked more like the Jack in the box clown than the man his wife had married.

He didn’t want people to know how young and naive he was so he asked his doctor friends to give him all of their scientific American magazines and medical books. He perfectly situated text books and law documents so that when you stepped into his office you had to notice those titles. He hoped that folks would think he was a really smart guy.

On one of his first days in his new district office, a man walked in and up to his desk. Rick immediately picked up the phone and started acting like he was having a conversation. “No, I’m sorry I’m all booked up!” he said as he winked at the guy standing in front of him. “I would love to meet with you but I’ve got appointments every day of the week. How about a week from next Thursday...yeah that’s fine….ok Ill see you then, thank you.”

Rick green hung up the phone, took a deep breath, like he was exhausted, and addressed his visitor. “Can I help you, sir?”

The man looked disgusted and said. “No, I’m just here to hook up that there telephone.”

Eating Korn
Rick told this story about himself and added, “God sure knows how to humble a guy.”

God deals with Rick Green the way he deals with me. I can’t get away with nothing.

This last week my wife and I read a book called “Save Me From Myself”. It was written by Brian “Head” Welch, who is the former guitarist for the screaming band Korn. I am not a big fan of Korn at all but this book rocked my world. It’s the story of total transformation that comes when somebody gives their life to Jesus Christ. It’s a story about what happens when somebody really humbles himself.

Brian’s whole life went from “what was in it for him’ to “what was in him for everybody else”. He left the destructive world of self indulgence for service and the love of God. His orphanage in India and his personal testimony are making a difference that is worth drinking a cup of coffee to.

Brother Head doesn’t have the big head any more. Brian would agree with Rick. God sure knows how to humble a guy.

Humility heals. Humility helps. Humility is compatible with an awesome God that wants to heal and help. So when you are in need of healing, help or a touch from God himself, the Brewer recommends a healthy dose of humble pie. Preferably before it gets crammed down our throats.

Proverbs 11:2 “When pride comes, then comes shame; But with the humble is wisdom.”

Let me know your thoughts on this weeks “Brew” at FFTB@OpenDoorMinistries.org.