People that have lived long enough to receive their congratulatory 100th birthday anniversary wishes from our Commander in Chief can tell you how much any number of things have changed over the years, especially the various methodologies employed to speedily deliver a message one to another.
Since the first “marathon”, people have been looking for ways to get the message out faster and faster. The telegram was eventually replaced by the mailgram (always a dumb idea in my estimation). Now we’re up to cell phones, text messaging and the like. Sometimes, a combination of old-fashioned telephone and police radio transmissions team up for spectacular results too.
It was late winter, 1978. I was on a weekend trip to Schiller Park, Illinois, with our junior college Circle K group (college chapter of Kiwanis International). We were meeting for a regional convention at the Howard Johnson. We befriended many an interesting person during the visit, and found it had a lot to do with another group that was meeting at the hotel at the time, an EST Seminar.
An acronym for Erhard Seminar Training (a.k.a. Est Standard Training), the participants would meet for 60 hours over the course of two 30 hour weekend sessions. The course had as its goal, the motivation to see peoples’ lives change for the better—especially those that were grappling with self-esteem issues, or those generally doing battle with the world. Word had it to be a very expensive endeavor for the participants, who were under strict control of the leader(s), in order that their thinking might be reshaped.
As a psychology student, I was very interested in eavesdropping on the sessions when not in Circle K meetings (or the pool). The verbiage and tone of the instructors seemed to be at the very least, harsh—but what caught my attention, and the attention of a hotel operator—was the verbal thrashing that one of the Seminar workers was giving an elderly lady that could have easily passed for Tweety’s owner.
Apparently, because she had committed the grievous error of eventually going to the bathroom after having been told several times that she could not leave to do so, she stood outside the ballroom, being told she could not come back for the rest of the seminar, and that none of the thousands of dollars she’d spent would be returned.
The loud voice of the instructor and the sobbing of the elderly lady carried from where they were to the hotel desk. The attendant sent the security guard over to talk with the man, except the man did not seem terribly interested in civil discourse. Things became more and more heated—so much so that I decided to walk outside to literally get a breath of fresh air. It wasn’t a full minute later that nine police cars showed up—two with galloping police dog German Shepherds in tow, two with shotguns at the ready, the others with revolvers out of their respective holsters—I nearly got knocked over.
Apparently what happened is that in the heat of the “discussion”, in a moment of panic the hotel operator said, “Officer needs assistance” instead of “Security officer needs assistance.” I was instantly in love and awe with how passionately one law enforcement officer would come to the aid of another thought to be in distress.
That’s the way it is with God and you.
God hurries to help you when you call upon Him for the help. He sends out His reinforcements to assist and drives your enemies away. You stay—they flee. Your enemies become filled with your former dread, as you become filled with the contentment of God.
b(Les)sings
Psalm 70
New King James Version (NKJV)
–To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. To bring to remembrance.
1 Make haste, O God, to deliver me!
Make haste to help me, O LORD!
2 Let them be ashamed and confounded
Who seek my life;
Let them be turned back[a] and confused
Who desire my hurt.
3 Let them be turned back because of their shame,
Who say, “Aha, aha!”
4 Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;
And let those who love Your salvation say continually,
“Let God be magnified!”
5 But I am poor and needy;
Make haste to me, O God!
You are my help and my deliverer;
O LORD, do not delay.
Make haste to help me, O LORD!
2 Let them be ashamed and confounded
Who seek my life;
Let them be turned back[a] and confused
Who desire my hurt.
3 Let them be turned back because of their shame,
Who say, “Aha, aha!”
4 Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;
And let those who love Your salvation say continually,
“Let God be magnified!”
5 But I am poor and needy;
Make haste to me, O God!
You are my help and my deliverer;
O LORD, do not delay.
Footnotes:
- Psalm 70:2 Following Masoretic Text, Septuagint, Targum, and Vulgate; some Hebrew manuscripts and Syriac read be appalled (compare 40:15).
No comments:
Post a Comment