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REAL POWER: MAXING OUT ON GOD'S LOVE |
DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT
We were driving south on a nine-day
trip into the vast sands of the Empty Quarter of the Arabian
Peninsula. The Empty Quarter is one of the largest sand desert in the
world. We were about two hundred kilometers off-road into the desert
when we met several trucks heading north.
We are always a bit nervous when we
meet strangers in deep desert because we never know if they might be
well-armed smugglers from Yemen. Everyone you meet in the Empty
Quarter carries weapons. Even the bedouins travel with Kalishnakov
automatic weapons. When you look in their pick-up trucks, you see
their weapons laying on the floor ready for action.
Our unexpected rendezvous turned out
to be nothing more than a pleasant encounter with bedouins on a
hunting expedition. The back of their truck contained a cargo of
falcons and saluki dogs.
They stopped their trucks, and we
stopped ours. We spent an hour talking with them, and they showed us
their Saker falcons. They put a big leather glove on our arm and let
us hold their birds of prey. Then they took the hood off the falcon’s
head and released it. It amazed us the bird didn’t fly away. It
circled and came back to its perch, content to have the hood placed
back over its head.
Falcons are carnivorous hunters that
feed on other species of birds. In order to capture a falcon,
bedouins tie a long string to the leg of a pigeon. They attach the
string to a heavy rock so the pigeon can’t fly away. Once they locate
a wild falcon, they release the pigeon into the air. The falcon
swiftly attacks and kills the pigeon. The bedouins drive the falcon
off its kill before it can devour the pigeon.
Downwind of the kill, the bedouins
dig a hole in the ground, and they hide in the hole. They cover the
hole and themselves with foliage so they can no longer be seen by the
falcon. In their hands they hold a string attached to the legs of the
dead pigeon.
When the falcon no longer sees the
men on the ground, it swoops down and starts eating the pigeon. The
bedouin pulls on the string and slowly drags the pigeon’s body over to
the hole in which he is hiding. The falcon walks along eating the
pigeon carcass until it’s next to the hole. The bedouin suddenly
reaches out and grabs the falcon by its legs to capture it. He then
puts a hood over the falcon’s head to make it become quiet. He spends
the next several weeks taming and training the bird.
During the training period, the
bedouin never separates himself from the falcon. He carries it with
him on his wrist and feeds it there as well. The falcon sleeps on a
perch next to the bedouin’s head. He is always stroking it, speaking
to it, and hooding and unhooding it. A skillful handler can train
some falcons in as short as a week, but most require several weeks to
be able to hunt with the bird without it flying away and not
returning.
When a bedouin hunts with a falcon,
he releases it, and follows the falcon to its kill. He recovers the
falcon at the kill, places it back on its perch, and puts the hood
back over its head.
It’s hard to believe you can take a
wild bird of prey, and within a short period radically alter its
behavior so it doesn’t fly away when released. A few weeks
previously, the falcon was free to soar in the sky and took care of
its own needs without anyone’s help. It was a fierce bird of prey,
but now it sits contentedly in total darkness with a hood over its
head.
Tamed falcons remind me of people.
When people are born, God gives them the heart and wings of an eagle.
Soaring is their domain. Nevertheless, by the time they are twenty
years old, they are captured, tamed, and trained for life. Their days
of flying like an eagle are over.
I have known hundreds of people who
flew like an eagle when they were young, but now they are captured,
tamed, and trained. They sit on their perch with a hood over their
head, and have forgotten they are eagles. They are trapped in
alcoholism, drug abuse, promiscuity, abusive relationships,
destructive addictions, and mediocrity.
You can learn a great deal from
studying the trapping, taming, and training of falcons.
1.
First, a falcon is lured into
the trap using bait that exploits the falcon’s instinctive behavior.
2.
Second, a falcon is lured into
the trap one step at a time, not realizing each step takes it closer
to captivity.
3.
Third, the falcon doesn’t
realize the trap is there until it’s too late.
4.
Fourth, the falcon quickly
forgets it could soar in freedom once a hood is over its head and it’s
being fed by hand.
5.
Fifth, the falcon becomes so
accustomed to captivity that even when given freedom of flight, it
returns to its perch to remain in captivity. Its memory of freedom to
roam the skies is gone. It has forgotten what it’s like to soar as
the master of its fate and captain of its soul. It doesn’t remember
what it was like to be a falcon that was free.
THE LURE OF INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOR
People have a strong need to look and
act like other people. That’s why fashion designers are able to
market brand name clothes and shoes at outrageous prices. You can get
a pair of generic basketball shoes for a bargain price on sale, or you
can buy shoes marketed by an NBA superstar for ten times as much. You
pay ten times the price to have the status of wearing overpriced shoes
that make you a member of an elite group.
Overpaying for basketball shoes by a
factor of five or ten times will not ruin your life; it will only
empty your pocketbook. Unfortunately, the need for acceptance extends
far beyond the type of shoes you wear.
If your friends drink alcohol and use
drugs, you feel pressure to do the same. If they get drunk on the
weekend, you will be expected to follow suit. If they smoke
marijuana, you have to do it too. If they snort cocaine, it won’t be
long before you feel the pressure to join in the “fun”. If they take
uppers or downers, soon you will be doing the same. If your friends
engage in promiscuous behavior in which their hormones are more
powerful than their brains, it won’t be long before you turn off your
brain and fall into the same trap.
It’s normal to want to be part of the
group and to have hormones that affect your behavior. Nevertheless,
you have to be careful to not allow instinctive drives to lure you
into a trap from which there is no easy escape.
The best way to avoid this trap is to
immediately turn your back on and walk away from temptations that can
ruin your life. If you let peer pressure and hormones dominate your
life, in a short time you will find yourself trapped in behaviors that
are bad for you and morally wrong as well.
YOU ARE LURED INTO THE TRAP ONE STEP
AT A TIME
You don’t need a million dollars and
a degree in engineering from MIT to design a perfect trap guaranteed
to ruin lives. Most traps are exceedingly simple to create and
deploy. A simple trap works best. All you need to do is entice the
victim into the trap a millimeter at a time. It will take time to
capture him, but time isn’t important when you are in the business of
destroying lives. You have all the time you need to do the dastardly
deed.
When I was in medical school, I
learned that one out of eight people who drink alcohol develop an
addiction to it and become an alcoholic. I never met a person who
became an alcoholic after taking only one drink. It took thousands of
drinks to make it happen. While it’s true the first drink started the
problem, it was those thousands of other drinks that moved them step
by step toward alcoholism. They became an alcoholic in a series of
imperceptibly small steps. When they finally are a confirmed
alcoholic, they deny they have a problem. They have a hood on their
head that makes them deny their addiction.
You will never become addicted to
marijuana if you never light up a marijuana cigarette. You will never
become addicted to cocaine and other narcotics if you never start
using them. Chemical addictions happen one day at a time in
imperceptibly small steps until you are trapped.
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Excerpt:
REAL POWER - MAXING OUT ON GOD'S LOVE
David J. Abbott M.D.
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RED SEA CHRONICLES DVD
When Dr. Dave isn't working as a flying doctor for the Indian Health
Service, He is sailing around the world on his sailboat. Find
out what it's like to sail on the ocean of your dreams by watching
Captain Dave's DVD.
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