by Bo Sanchez
Face it.
You and I live in a scary world.
We’re scared of calamities. Storms. Earthquakes. Volcanoes. El Nino. Tsunami. Philippine Presidentiables.
We’re scared of diseases. Swine flu. SARS. Dengue. Cancer. Cellulite. Wrinkles.
We’re scared of criminals. Kidnappers. Hold-uppers. Akyat bahay gang. Dugo-dugo gang. Corrupt Politicians.
We’re scared of the economy. The fear of losing your job. The fear of your company closing down. The fear of having no money. And some people have the fear of having too much money. (Please email me right away. I can solve that problem for you.)
We’re afraid of the terrorists of the world. There’s North Korea. Abu Sayyaf. Al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden. Your mother-in-law.
I repeat: We live in a scary world.
Let me share with you how to enjoy God’s protection 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Ramon Revilla, The Incredibles, And Wolverine
Imagine if you were Ramon Revilla in his movies.
All you had to do is wear this special amulet and you’ll be impervious to the nuclear bomb. Ramon Revilla could face 400 Japanese soldiers shooting at him and he’ll just stand there, smiling. He’ll then fire his gun once at them and the 400 soldiers will fall to the ground.
For those who don’t know who Ramon Revilla is, let me modernize my example for you.
Imagine if you were Violet, the teenage girl in The Incredibles.
Imagine you too had the power to create a spherical force field.
A missile was launched at your direction? Turn on your force field.
A monster attacking you? Turn on your force field.
A seatmate beside you in the bus has body odor? Turn on your force field.
Imagine if you were Wolverine.
Your body can heal all wounds and broken bones in mere seconds. A train can run over you and you’ll fully recover—as though nothing happened to you—in 7 seconds flat. Then we would have no more fear.
God Wants To Protect You
I have great news for you.
These fantasies express the longings of the human heart. And I believe God gives us an even greater protection than the amulet of Ramon Revilla, the force field of Violet, and the healing powers of Wolverine.
How? God invites you to live in the circle of His love. And I believe that’s the safest place in this universe.
Why does God want to protect you?
Simply because He’s a parent.
And every parent wants to protect her child.
I have never heard a mother tell her three-year old child, “Happy Birthday, Suzy! For your 3rd birthday, I’m giving you 49 Ginzu kitchen knives.”
I have never heard a father tell his one-year old boy, “Junior, since you can now walk, I want you to cross South Super Hi-way all by yourself.”
I have never heard parents tell their 16-year old daughter, “Pamela, we want you to study abroad. You’ll study for 4 years in Afghanistan.”
Let me share with you stories from my home.
The Best Protection Is Teaching You To Protect Yourself
When my son Bene was a baby, he liked to swallow small stuff like coins. So whenever we needed money, all we had to do was turn him upside down and shake him hard until some coins fall out. Whatever fell was enough for our monthly grocery.
In order to protect him, we removed tiny objects around the house.
As a toddler, he would also bump into the sharp corners of the tables around the house. Do you know how crazy we were? I sawed off the sharp corners.
I’m not kidding. I simply chopped them off. Even if we had imported furniture. (Imported from Shoemart.)
But as our kids grew up, we realized that we won’t be able to protect them all the time. I couldn’t carry a saw in every restaurant my kids go to and start sawing off the sharp corners of their tables.
Can you imagine the shock of the waiter?
“Sir, what in the world are you doing?!”
“Shhh,” I tell him as I chop off their tables, “I’m protecting my child.”
At the end of the day, the best way to protect your child is to teach them how to protect themselves.
When a mother says to her child, “Before you cross the street, look to the right and look to the left…” she is protecting her child by giving her a simple rule.
What if the child says, “You’re so old fashioned. No, that crimps my style. I don’t want to look to the right and look to the left. When I cross the street, I want to look up and down.”
Do you think that child will reach his 18th birthday? Not likely.
In the same way, God protects you by calling you to live within the circle of His love. He knows that when you live according to His laws of love, you protect yourself from a whole gamut of danger.
Like the danger that Stephen Reynolds exposed himself to 20+ years ago…
Haunted By Past Mistakes
Three years ago, Stephen Reynolds was enjoying his life. He was 45-years old with a happy marriage and a wonderful 3-year old son.
But one morning, he had a hard time swallowing his food. And it went on for weeks, like a sore throat that never wanted to go away.
Soon, the pain got worse and he was taking painkillers just to be able to eat.
He finally went to a throat specialist. The doctor found a tumor at the base of his tongue and ordered a biopsy. The result?
Stephen had cancer of the throat, Stage 4.
He couldn’t believe it. He was only 45 years old. And he never smoked in his life. Wasn’t cancer of the throat supposed to be a result of chain-smoking and drinking heavily for 30 years straight?
Doctors told him a terrifying fact that very few people know. He learned that 25% of cancers of the throat are caused by sexually transmitted HPV or human papillomavirus. It’s the same virus that causes cervical cancers. So what was it doing in his throat? In his youth, he was sexually active and practiced oral sex with his girlfriends.
Doctors told him that twenty million Americans are now infected with HPV, many of them teenagers, and every year, 6 million more are added to this number.
Obviously, condoms cannot prevent the passing of this virus.
For Stephen, having cancer was terrible. But knowing that he may have passed on the virus to many other women was also terrible.
You can read his full story in Readers Digest (August 2008).
Why do I share you this story?
Avoiding 90% Of the Evil In This World
If you lived in God’s circle of love, being faithful to one person, living in sexual purity, you protect yourself from a whole army of sexually transmitted diseases. They don’t bother you.
Or how about smoking? If you love your body, you won’t smoke. If you don’t smoke, you protect your body from an avalanche of health problems, from yellow teeth, dark lips, weak lungs, bad breath, and cancer.
Or how about Materialism? If you love yourself instead of trying to gain love by buying stuff you can’t afford it, you’ll protect yourself from debts, stress, ulcers, and a meaningless life.
If you love God, love others, and love yourself, you protect yourself from 90% of the evil in the world. Isn’t that cool?
When God gives us His laws of love, He isn’t giving them because He doesn’t want you to have fun. The exact opposite is true. God is giving you these simple rules so that you’ll have the greatest fun in the world.
But what about the remaining 10% of evil in this world that you can’t control?
Does God protect you from them as well?
God’s Protection Isn’t A Bubble
God protects us, but He doesn’t overprotect us.
Good parents are wise enough not to protect their kids from every pain, hurt, struggle, or problem—or their kids won’t grow up.
And God wants us to grow up too.
John Travolta appeared in a movie a long time ago called Boy In The Bubble. This child’s body couldn’t fight any kind of germ. Once exposed to the slightest germs, he will die. So he lived inside a bubble all his life.
Some of us wish that God’s circle of love be like that bubble. We want God to protect us from all hurt, pain, danger, disease, and calamities.
We want God’s protection to be like Ramon Revilla’s amulet.
Or Violet’s force field.
Or Wolverine’s healing superpowers.
But God won’t do that. Instead, He’ll do something better.
One day, my friend, a mother of two small kids, asked me, “Bo, my kids get sick so often. You know me. I’m super clean. I clean our house with lysol, alcohol, holy water, you name it, I use it. When it’s raining, I make my kids wear raincoats; When it’s cold, I make them wear jackets. I give my kids vitamin A, B, C, W, X, Y, and Z.
They carry an alcogel bottle so they can clean their hands every five minutes. But they still get sick so often! And then I compare them to the kids of our labandera (laundry woman). They live in the slum area beside our village. Her kids run in the street under the rain, naked and barefoot. They sit on the mud, right beside a stinking open canal, playing with dirty tin cans and plastic bottles. And they don’t get sick!”
Hey, I’m not a doctor. I don’t know why her kids get sick often.
But I have a suspicion that if you protect your kids from all possible germs, they won’t become physically strong.
In the same way, if God will protect us from all hurts and problems, we won’t become spiritually strong as well.
Why God Doesn’t Protect Us From All Pain
I’d like to share with you a powerful love story from a friend of mine.
I’ve changed the names to protect his privacy.
Let’s call my friend Jack.
As a young man, Jack fell in love with his classmate, a beautiful and charming young woman. Let’s call her Rose.
Rose was Jack’s first love.
And Jack was very happy because Rose seemed to like him very much. They always had fun together. They’d spend time in school, ride the jeep, and watch the movies. Jack also visited her in her home and met her parents.
At once, Jack knew that her family was rich and his family was poor. But her parents were cordial to him, so he hoped that this was fine with them.
But a few months later, a new suitor appeared. A man from a rich family. Let’s call this guy Titanic. And immediately, it was very obvious to Jack that the parents of Rose liked this other suitor much more. They would talk to Titanic more. They would entertain him more.
Jack’s heart was crushed.
His hope to marry Rose was dashed to the ground.
Slowly, he drifted away from her. He stopped seeing the love of his life.
Six months later, Jack’s worst fears came true: He received a wedding invitation from Rose. She was going to marry Titanic.
Jack attended her wedding. He was late for the ceremony. When Rose saw him, she said, “You’re always late, Jack.”
“Why always?” he thought. It was the first time he was late. Instantly, he knew she was not referring to clock time, but to something else: He was late for her.
Jack watched Rose from the distance, beside Titanic her husband, and he felt a very deep pain in his heart.
Jack told me, “That day Bo, I realized that if you don’t have money, you’re treated as nothing.” The experience was so painful, he vowed to himself that he will become a wealthy man.
This happened 34 years ago.
Today, Jack is a billionaire.
He’s also happily married, has a beautiful family with wonderful kids.
Jack told me, “Bo, Rose doesn’t know it, but I am who I am because of her.”
Friend, God won’t prevent Titanics from happening in your life. Some of these Titanics will take away your Rose. And it will be exceedingly painful.
The Safest Place In The Universe
I can hear your questions loud and clear.
· “Why didn’t God protect my wife when she died of cancer last year?”
· “Why didn’t God protect my house from robbers last month?”
· “Why didn’t God protect my family in the earthquake of 1991?”
I too have my own question.
· “Why didn’t God protect me when I was molested as a child?”
After 30 years of prayer, deep study, extensive reflection, and discussions with my spiritual mentors, I’ve come to a very profound answer: I don’t know.
I really don’t!
But God knows.
And that’s enough for me.
God won’t protect you from all pain.
But He will allow the pain that can turn into a great blessing.
The Bible says, All things work for good to those who love God.
Friend, believe that He will turn your sorrow into joy.
He will turn your mourning into dancing.
Live within the circle of His love.
How? Love God, love others, and love yourself.
Because the safest place in this universe is the circle of God’s love.
May your dreams come true,
Bo Sanchez
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