Over the years, one of my areas of giftedness has been in the area of sleeping. Well, I mean, the Bible says you do whatever you do with all your heart, right? And that should apply to sleeping. Right? Now, I'd give our kids a time to be in, but I didn't always remain conscious that long. And they could ring the doorbell because they forgot their key, they could stomp upstairs, they could stomp over our bed, for that matter, and I would probably barely stir. Oh, but not my wife. Oh, no, no! I think there's something about the way many mothers are wired. They sleep real light - if at all - until everybody's home safe. It's a mother thing. They just can't rest until all the kids are in.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Are the Children All In?"

Even though you're all grown up now, your mother might still be like that today. Or you had a mother who was like that. You see, you may have been blessed with a mom who was a praying mother, who wanted or who wants more than anything else for her kids to be in - in God's family...including you.

Our word for today from the Word of God is from an encounter Jesus had with a hurting mother. It's about the miracle He did for her. It's in Luke 7:12-15. "As Jesus approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out - the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, His heart went out to her and He said, 'Don't cry.' Then He went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, 'Young man, I say to you, get up!' The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his Mother." Oh, man! What great words!

Well, He's still doing that today. Jesus is doing something supernatural to give a son or a daughter back to a mother, not with a physical resurrection, but with a spiritual rescue. In fact, it may be that the prayers of your mother for you have kept God in pursuit of you all these years. More than anything else on earth, she has wanted for you to know the Savior whose love changed her life.

My wife's grandfather, Bill Hadley, was a great guy with a deadly weakness - he was an alcoholic. Alcohol cost him his job, his family, his freedom, and his hope. One night he was making his way down State Street in Chicago to end his life in Lake Michigan. We never knew until recently the prayers that saved him that night.

We found this old photograph of the man his mother called Will. And on the back is this inscription in her handwriting: "This new year 1908. Oh, God, bring him back into the fold. Oh, Will, every night when I read my Bible, I look at your picture and ask God to give you grace to keep you from falling and to fill your heart with His love. You may see this after I am gone from this world and know that I never ceased to pray for you, Mother."

Will never did see that inscription until after his mother was gone. But the power of her prayers reached beyond her grave. That night he was going to end his life, he walked by an old rescue mission and heard a song his mother used to sing. He wandered in and he ended up giving his broken life to Jesus Christ. He never touched alcohol again, and he spent the rest of his life living for that Savior that had meant so much to his mother.

There may be - or there may have been - a dear mother who never gave up praying for you to know Jesus as your Savior. He died for every sin you've ever committed. He waits to forgive you and give you eternal life in heaven. Isn't it finally time for you to open your heart to Jesus?

Let the battle be over right now. As John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace prayed, "My Mother's God saved me." I've put some great information at our website so you can be sure you belong to Him. Go to ANewStory.com.

This is all about a mother who prayed for you. But it's more importantly about a Savior who died for you. It will be your mother's question in heaven some day, "Are the children all in?" I hope you will be.

They call it the shark tunnel. Yeah, that has to make you think twice about going in. It's an attraction, if you want to call it an attraction, at some of the aquariums and theme parks in America.

The tourists walk through this tunnel that's surrounded by glass above them and on both sides there's water all around them. And on the other side in that water are huge sharks swimming menacingly in their tank, and occasionally bumping into the glass. I think just about everyone has this primeval fear of sharks. Now I can't speak for everyone, but I do. And suddenly there they were all around me, and I was paying to see them - one wall between me and those monsters! But that wall made all the difference.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How the Bible Builds a Wall Between You and the Sharks."

When David writes his seventeenth Psalm, he is under attack; or so it feels as you begin to read it. He's asking for safety, for protection for his reputation, and you can tell as you read this psalm that he's feeling the urge to strike back. In a sense, the sharks are circling around him.

Now we go to our word for today from the word of God in Psalm 17, and I'll begin reading at verse 3. He says to the Lord, "Though you probe my heart and examine me at night, though you test me you'll find nothing. I have resolved that my mouth will not sin. As for the deeds of men, by the word of Your lips, I have kept myself from the ways of the violent." Now, David's saying here, "I feel like responding in the same way I've been treated, lashing out, striking back. And all that's keeping me from responding sinfully is," what he calls, "the word from your lips, Lord." Well, I can relate to that.

We don't just have sharks around us; we've got sharks inside us. You know what yours is. Maybe it's that temper that seldom if ever does anything that's really right. Maybe it's wrong thoughts about the opposite sex that keep trying to take over your mind, or the capacity you have for put downs, for criticism, negativity, for cutting sarcasm. Maybe it's that dark feeling of depression that you know very easily could win in your life.

Oh, we've got different sharks, but we all have them. And there's one wall that holds them back, that keeps the evil from winning, and it's the words that come from God. When a sinful response wells up inside, you've got to have something supernatural to suppress it with like that glass wall that holds back the sharks. That's the gut-level, practical reason why we must not start a day without taking a bath in God's Word. During the day I know that my wall between the sharks that swim around inside me - that sin that wants to take over - and the guy that I want to be and that God wants me to be, that wall starts to crack.

So as each new day begins, you open God's Word and you apply it to your struggles, your weaknesses, your failures. I need to rebuild my biblical wall every new day. It's also vital that key verses become a part of you; part of your personality. That means committing to memory verses that directly address your shark. For example, if you struggle with your temper winning, then you memorize Ephesians 4:26 and 27 about not letting the sun go down on your anger. And James 1:20, "The wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God."

So many days my time in the Word, and the Word that I've put in me, have literally been the margin of difference. You read it to get it "from His lips" as if God is sitting in the chair across from you, saying it to you directly. That's what David said.

So, when you feel the sharks inside you starting to attack, you use the wall of God's words to hold them back.

Many of my friends in law enforcement don't really know what they're doing. On any given day, that is. Because no two days are the same. Their days are made up of responding to situations they can't predict. There's this voice that goes with them in their patrol car. It's the dispatcher. They will tell them where a crime or emergency is unfolding and dispatch them to go there. Suddenly, a situation becomes their assignment. Sounds a lot like following Jesus.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Situation...Your Assignment."

You might call God's Holy Spirit "heaven's Dispatcher." There's something God wants done and He uses your situation to position you to do it. One of Jesus' disciples, Philip, found himself hearing from heaven's Dispatcher - with an unusual assignment. Philip had been dispatched to a city in Samaria to introduce the people there to Jesus. The results were amazing. Demons cast out, the lame and paralyzed healed and many turning to Jesus.

And that's when the Dispatcher suddenly - and curiously - changed Philip's situation. It's in our word for today from the Word of God in Acts 8, beginning with verse 26. "Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, 'Go south to the road - the desert road." Leave the revival to go to the desert? Really? He went!

"So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official." The man was sitting in a chariot reading from the Book of Isaiah." Now the Dispatcher says, "Go to that chariot and stay near it." Philip does it. "Philip heard the man reading Isaiah." Eventually the man invited Philip to come up in his chariot to explain what he's reading. Ultimately, it says, Philip told him the good news about Jesus." The Ethiopian official comes to Jesus. And Philip, following the urgings of heaven's Dispatcher, is part of sending the Gospel to Africa through this influential man.

This is the kind of supernatural availability God wants you to look for and live for. I was on a trip with my son and family a couple weeks ago. Our situation: stopping at a truck stop for gas. Well my son went in the store and met a very frustrated truck driver who could not get his truck started. He had asked around to find some jumper cables - finally he found some. But he had struck out getting anyone who would help him use them to start his truck. I think my son was listening to the Dispatcher when he said he'd give it a try.

Well, they tried for 15 or 20 minutes. Nothing. The driver said, "You've done all you could. Thank you." At which point, Doug said, "Do you mind if I pray with you?" And Doug prayed for this young driver, in a prayer that expressed how much Jesus loved him. Then one more try. Nope.

As we got ready to pull away, suddenly that engine leaped to life with one deliriously happy driver shouting, "It started! It started!" That day, that truck driver had an encounter with Jesus. Because a believer realized a dead truck and a hurting driver were a divinely ordained situation. And his situation was his assignment.

It is for you, too. We just finished a video series that includes so many examples of this. It's called Your Hope Story. Believers positioned by their business... their cancer... their piano teaching... their tennis... their loss of a loved one - believers who realize that they are always Christ's ambassador. Wherever He assigns them.

So are you. Your days take on a new, eternal meaning... a new excitement - when you realize your situation is your assignment. That places you right in the middle of a life God wants to touch. Through you.