Yesterday, we lost a good anchor of Fox news and this is my thought on this subject

8 For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! 9 For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.
10 Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Ephesians 5:8-10

 What happened to Fox news anchor Bill O'Reilly needs to be put into proper context. Over the course of many years, money was paid out to many women whose claims were that he sexually harassed them and destroyed their careers in the process. If this were not so, then legal counsel would have stood by him and those rumors eventually disappearing.

 What happened to O'Reilly wasn't something that just happened. It started out as a simple thought, a thought that objectified woman, not as a person created by God, but as an object created for a satisfaction of men.

In 1949, after a full day of ministry, Reverend Billy Graham returned to his hotel room to find a naked woman in his room. Rather than yield to the temptation of lust, he fled and from that night he self-imposed a rule, now commonly referred to as the Billy Graham rule, that basically said that he would never be alone with an unmarried woman. 

I believe most men develop trouble in this area when they do not develop accountability in their life. I know someone at work whose husband has met with several other men over the course of several decades for prayer, recitation of memory verses along with their struggles with life. In turn, those men held each of their marriages up to the Lord asking Him to keep their love for their wives strong and temptation at bay. 

Evangelist Billy Graham had a policy to never be in the same room alone with a woman or eat out with a woman.  He did this because of his love for his wife, Ruth Graham. He knew the power of sin and didn't  want to have to answer to the questions of impropriety and have his reputation destroyed.

If we could rewind the tape of Bill O'Reilly's life and asked if he had the same policy that  Reverend Billy Graham had when traveling for business, whether those incidents might not have occurred.  Unfortunately, most married men fail to see how vulnerable they really are in the face of sin when they momentarily let their guard down and justify that dinner with a female business/ministry associate as  'just friends enjoying a meal'. 

Vice President Mike Pence once again brought to light the Billy Graham rule.

Vice President Mike Pence did it the right way when like Reverend Billy Graham, allowed himself to be accountable.  He, like Reverend Graham, never eats or travels alone with an unmarried woman.  http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865676774/Why-won7t-Mike-Pence-eat-alone-with-a-woman-who-is-not-his-wife.html

As men, we need to examine our hearts and consider implementing the 'Billy Graham' rule as a safeguard for our marriages. I would suspect if someone had taken Bill O'Reilly aside and brought him into a men's accountability group where they would study scripture and hold each other accountable that none of what we read in the press this week would have happened.


I found this 1996 Promise Keeper's video that features Ravi Zacharias as he urges men to pursue the call to holiness and does it teaching us from the book of Daniel.

We must pray for Bill O'Reilly that God will transform his life so that, one day, his voice may be heard again.

The power of forgiveness through a story of a friend..

This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Matthew 26:28

A friend at work pulled me aside and shared with me a God story that once again reminded me why it is important to forgive than seeking vengeance for a wrong. This friend's husband recently lost his 80 something mom when she bled out on the surgeon's table in what was suppose to have been a routine angioplasty procedure. It seems the doctor doing the procedure ran into some calcified deposits that caused his needle to divert to the right causing a puncture to the heart that caused his mother to bleed out.

A simple procedure gone eerily wrong.

This procedure is done thousands of times, rather successfully, but in this one case complications caused the patient's death.

The world teaches us that justice must be served to those who are harm. Our legal firms spend billions to encourage people to hire attorneys to seek monetary damages in wrongful death situations. But God teaches us that forgiveness is the better route to go when things go wrong in life.

What this man did illustrates why forgiveness is the better direction to go with our grief.

One morning, after seeing his own doctor he was walking through the hallway on his way out when he heard his mom's doctors name. He asked the nurse at the nurse's station whether that was Dr. so and so and her response was, " it was and would you like to talk with him?" He said yes.

When this doctor came out to talk with him, the first thing he told him was how grateful he was that he was his mom's surgeon and that he knew that this doctor did the very best job he could and it wasn't the outcome that either of them wanted and despite of that outcome he was glad that he was the doctor performing this procedure.

This doctor told him how much his words meant to him because he was for the first time contemplating leaving the medical profession because of his mom's death. He said that he has always prided himself with the skill of performing this angioplasties procedure so well that hospitals will fly him in just  to perform this procedure on complex cases.

This friend could have done what thousands of other people have done and hired a wrongful death attorney but as a Christian, he knew that forgiveness was the better direction to pursue- better for this doctor who did the best he could given the circumstances, better for him and better for his family.

Our God gave us a vivid example of forgiveness when he took all of mankind's sin and nailed it to the cross of calvary and in Jesus final words as he laid on the cross bleeding He uttered those words "It's finished" as a reminder that he died for all of  our sin's and because of what Christ did for us we will one day see heaven.

There is power in forgiveness!

24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:24-25

Today will be a hard day for families and friends of Legacy Christian academy in Andover, Minnesota. Today they will say goodbye to a daughter, a fellow student, and friend.

It's been a difficult week trying to comprehend why a good God would take a life way too soon, or why pain becomes part of the forever 'fabric' of those who knew them?

God truly understands the pain of his sufferers. It was Easter week when his son, Jesus, gave up his life so that all may come into God's presence. When Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane we read these words from Luke 22:41-47, " He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground."

After my daughter passed away unexpectedly in 2007 ( she was also a Legacy student), I too experienced moments where I had dreams with angels comforting me with hope while I quietly suffering and occasionally drowning in my grief. In time, I came to understand my Savior as one who loved me and understood my agony. I realized that God fulfilled the promise laid out in scriptures he would make a way for everyone to know Him when Jesus suffered and died for our sin's on the cross of Calvary and when he rose again from the dead, appeared to many before ascending to the very place that will be rightfully ours one day as we take our final breath.

As we say goodbye to this daughter, sister and fellow student, let us not remember the way she died, but the way she lived her life and who she is now in the presence of Jesus in her new heavenly body surrounded by all of the other saints of heaven, cheering the rest of us on to never give up, to always encourage each other.

Let us also embrace our pain and lean into our Savior and trust Him that he knows how to help us process this unceasing pain that simply won't quit.

This is the moment I encourage everyone to start a grief journal. Write down what you're feeling from day to day, and as you write be open to the teachings of God as he uniquely reveals his love to you. Just as an angel appeared to Jesus in the garden, Jesus will reveal his presence to you through dreams, through angels, through loving and encouraging words from others around you.

In time, the pain will lessen at a timetable unique to you and as you heal from the emotional wounds you will find God using you in the lives of others suffering their own pain from loss.