RS007 Q&A with Dr Don, Pt.2

God has an encouraging word for you and me today, through the Bible-based teaching and preaching of Dr. Don Wilton, and a day of questions and answers. There's no doubt we have a lot of questions these days, but today we'll be going to God's Word to discover the answers to your questions. In just a few minutes, Dr. Don Wilton, our teacher here on The Encouraging Word, well-known author, pastor, evangelist, seminary professor, he's going to be opening God's Word with a good friend, Christy Henderson, who'll be sharing your questions that you've written in, you've texted in, you let us know you want Dr. Don to answer. And as we gain the insight from these answers, we'll draw ourselves closer to Christ by understanding God's Word even better. While we do so, know that we're available for you.

We'd love to connect on our website at www.tewonline.org, that's www.tewonline.org, or this phone number, 866-899-9673. And now, Dr. Don Wilton and Christy Henderson. Alright, well, Dr. Don, thank you so much for taking more time to answer some great questions from folks that have sent them in. You know what, I'm so happy to do this, Christy. And by the way, I'm number one full of questions, you know. I know and love the Lord, but boy, do I have a lot of questions, so thank you so much. Alright, are you ready?

I'm ready. Okay, first question, we're going way back to your childhood. Someone wants to know, what is your happiest childhood memory?

My happiest childhood memories, a bunch of them, but I'm going to honor this person, was the time my father and mother took us boys down the wild coast of Africa, which is where we lived, and this was hundreds of miles from anything. And we stopped six miles up this African river, got into a little boat and chugged down in between the crocodiles and everything else and down to this peninsula where there was a bluff, there was nothing else, there on the Indian Ocean. We stayed there for six weeks, five, six weeks, in a little tin shack when it rained. There was no electricity, nothing. There was no civilization, nothing. There were just some hard-boiled beds. We stayed there, my mom, my dad, my three brothers, all of us just right there. We ate out of cans, we got raided by wild animals. What kind of wild animals?

Everything. They would get in and get a hold. All our food was in cans.

They would just rip those cans open. We spent all our days just fishing and so on, and then one day, and I'll be quick with this, great memory. My grandfather was Captain Roderick Murdo MacDonald, Scotsman in the Admiralty, in Royal Navy, and in his retirement he sailed ships all around Africa up through the Suez Canal.

Early in the morning, in Africa, we suddenly hear, wah, wah, a ship's horn blowing, and boy, we jumped up out of our sleeping bags, went and stood on this huge bluff, and there was this huge ship coming straight to land like that. My mother looked at us and said, don't worry, it's Grandpa. Oh my goodness. It's Grandpa. Grandpa Mac. And I remember to this day, that huge ship coming, it stopped, it turned on a dime, and the bridge was on the back, and there was my grandfather in his full naval uniform, standing on the back, just waving at us, and then the ship went straight back out to sea. That's my grandfather. What a great memory. That is quite a memory.

Oh my goodness. Alright, well, tell us more about your time on the coast of Africa. You talked about fishing. Did you swim? Did you surf? I hear there's shark infested waters, and does it compare to U.S. beaches? Well, I mean, there's such beautiful beaches here in the United States, very much more like the California-Oregon coast. Very rugged, huge waves, world surfing championship. Now this is the home of the great white shark, Christy, and this is on the southern tip of Africa, where I grew up on the Upper East Coast in Zululand.

The warmer waters of the Benguela Current would come around the Cape of Good Hope. Yeah, and we grew up very out of doors. We had no television, grew up in Africa, very adventurous outdoors, a lot on the beaches, fishing for big game fish, a lot of swimming and learning how to surf and paddle ski.

We all did it to greater and lesser degrees, but a very, very fulfilling, very adventurous, very outdoorsy. Everything we did was out of doors, and that's how I grew up in the wilds of Africa and loved every minute. The difference in Africa when I was growing up, you had your town, but as soon as you got out of the town, there was nothing. You know, in America, you get out of town, here come the billboards and the little villagers and mile marker 21 and this little turn. You don't get that, you know, in Africa when I lived there, and I've been gone over 40 years, but you know, you could drive for miles and miles and miles and miles and all you see is wild animals. You know, you don't see billboards and gas stations and all that kind of stuff.

That's the difference in Africa. Beautiful place, beautiful people. Wild adventure on the coast there.

Yes, yes, yes. All right, well the next question is, what life lesson did you learn the hard way? I learned some pretty tough life lessons the hard way. One of them was when I was a boy, my father was a preacher, pastor of a church, and we lived in an area where there was no air conditioning, much like the New Orleans area, very heavy humidity. We didn't know what air conditioning was, and one day I looked at my friends and I said, you know, we've been missing something, and they said, why? I said, you know, there's a swimming pool right there in the middle of the church, and back in those days they had the baptismal pool right up where the pulpit is, and they would move all the floorboards and there would be this swimming pool. So here we are, sort of eight, nine year olds, and we decided one afternoon we were going to do it, and so we got it and we went in there, found a way to get into the church, and listen, that pulpit made the perfect diving board, the perfect diving board, and me and two or three of my buddies were bombing off the pulpit, water going everywhere, and all of a sudden I looked up and there was a pair of feet there, and I looked up into the face of the chairman of Dickens, and to this day I'll never forget the feeling, I was caught red-handed.

Do you know that I've always loved the people of the church, and I've always loved leaders in the church, and can I tell you the real reason why? That man never reported me to my dad. Really? Is that not the coolest man that ever lived? That's a pretty cool man.

Listen, if he had gone to my dad, I would have still been in jail on a remote island off the coast of Africa somewhere. Oh no. You understand what I'm saying? Right, right.

Lesson learned. Yeah, I was very mischievous, but you know life is an accumulation of lessons learned, and especially spiritually. And God uses those lessons to help you grow, right?

He absolutely does. Some of them are funny, some of them are very serious. Here's what I really pray for, and I pray for our listeners. Seriously, I'm praying for you. You know, you've got sons and daughters that are just struggling, or you've got a friend that's just struggling. Yeah, life teaches great lessons. I just pray that sons, daughters, your best friend, don't sin to the point that it damages them.

You understand what I'm saying? Sin can blind you, it can grind you, and it can destroy you. I've got a lot of friends who dabbled in sin and thought they could get away with it. And I've got some friends that got so badly hurt.

Yes, the Lord forgave them, but they lived with the scars of their sin all their life. So life lessons, yes, all right? My middle son Greg, who's now 40 years old, when he got his driver's license, he had a fender bender. I'll never forget it.

It was in Greenville, South Carolina, near the Hampton Mall. And I got called, come quickly, police are here. It was a little fender bender. It was the best thing that ever happened to him, because it was a fender bender.

He never got hurt, the other people never got hurt. All it did was cost me a little bit of money to replace the man's bumper. And I'm telling you, my son got a wake-up call about driving as a 16 or 15-year-old. I'm glad he had a fender bender. Pray that your kids have a fender bender. No, I didn't say that.

You've got to set the pace early so they know. All right, next question. All right, when you were dating Karen, how did you know that she was the one?

Oh, my duckling, man. I tell you, for me, I've got to confess. I came out of the army, went to church on a Sunday morning. All my friends had a heart attack, because they didn't even know I was a Christian. I went to church for one reason, Christy. The best-looking chicks in town went to church.

If you're wondering where that comes from, we called our girls the girls' chicks when I was growing up. And that was a term of great affection. And I sat up in the balcony, never sang a word, looked down, only saw the back of her, that beautiful hair, man. And I just was smitten.

I'm telling you, I even forgot the words to the next hymn. And so I tell people all the time, you know, I fell in love with my duckling instantly. I mean, instant. I knew it. She didn't quite see it that way, you know. And I think she, I tried to tell her this while she was head over heels. I know she was. She couldn't resist me. Now, she's not here to tell her side of the story, so we're taking your word for this, Dr.

Bond. But it took me about seven or eight months before she actually agreed to go out with me. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. So I tried. I mean, I came up with everything in the book. And she finally agreed, and we've been together ever since.

So you knew she was the one pretty much right away. I did. I did. All right. So what small act of kindness were you once shown that you will never forget?

Forgive the interruption. We'll be back with the answer to that question from Dr. Don Wilton in just a moment. But he wants me to remind you we're here for you, connecting 24 hours a day on our website at TEWonline.org. You'll find phone numbers and other ways to connect and know that we're ready to pray for you and encourage you. As a matter of fact, if you haven't signed up, do that today on our website for the daily encouraging word devotional from Dr. Don.

It comes out email-a-phonically every morning, or you can even sign up for a physical copy, all on our website at TEWonline.org. And you'll also find great resources like this book from Dr. Don. What an incredible privilege to be the friend and pastor of Dr. Billy Graham for so many years. That's why I have just written Saturdays with Billy. This is not a biography. It is my experience with this most precious man who has changed my life and the lives of thousands of people around the world.

You want to get a copy right now, Saturdays with Billy. Remember, all the details are on our website at TEWonline.org. Now back to the answer to that question. Dr. Don Wilton, what small act of kindness were you once shown that you will never forget? Yeah, I remember when Karen and I first arrived in the United States. And this is a long time ago. Okay, I'm talking about well over 40 years ago, Christy, so we came back. And we were in New Orleans and we woke up one morning about two weeks after we arrived in America.

And I'm not exaggerating. We didn't have enough money to buy a doughnut. Had no money.

And nobody else knew that. I had no money. We had no money. I had no job.

And we were getting ready to prepare for the ministry. And we sat there in this little room. I couldn't even buy Karen. I brought her all the way to America. I couldn't even buy her one doughnut.

I had no money. And I'm telling you, that got to me. There was a knock on our door. Opened the door and the man said, are you Don Wilton? I said, yes, I am.

He said, my name is John. I'm from Mississippi. Someone told me about you.

My wife and I are visiting New Orleans. Would you mind if we took you out to lunch today? I said, does the chicken have lips, you know? In my heart, lip for joy. We went out. We went to Western Sizzler Steakhouse. I got the number nine gun smoke, which if anybody doesn't know that, that is the whole half side of a cow. I had the biggest meal.

I was starving when we got back to the campus. And that man and his precious wife said goodbye. He left something in my hand. It was a one hundred dollar bill. Christy, I'd never seen a hundred dollar bill.

I'd just come from Africa. You might as well have given me a million dollars. Karen looked at me.

She said, good. You know that couple down in that other place there? They're from the Philippines.

They've got nothing. God gave us that to give to them. I looked at her and said to her, are you crazy woman?

What are you talking about? God gave us this. She said, no, no. We promised God everything we have is designed to bless others with.

And it starts right now. I grumbled, went down there. They weren't there. Had to slip that hundred dollars under their door, came back to our little apartment, opened the door and there was an envelope under our door. Just a random envelope. When I opened the door and saw that envelope, picked it up, somebody else had come by and put two hundred dollars under our door.

To this day I don't know who they are. And that was the day, Christy, that Karen and I got on our knees. And we said, Lord, everything we have is yours. Everything we have belongs to you.

You've just given us the greatest word we could ever get. It was the kindest thing that ever happened to me. Now I can tell you multiple kindnesses. I mean I'm surrounded by kind people.

But that was what started it. And what it produced in me and Karen was a real effort to try and be kind to other people. And I have always been succeeded. My greatest disappointments are the numbers of times I must have disappointed the Lord. But that was an act of kindness that gets to my heart and I've never forgotten it.

That's amazing. And it's amazing how God uses people to encourage others and to build others in their spiritual faith, you know, in their faith. To be kind to one another. What did God say? People came to him and said, what's the greatest commandment? He said, love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

Did you get that? That's important. That's what Jesus said. I'm just telling you, that's gold. It is.

It really is. Alright, so we have another question here. What do you think was Paul's thorn in the flesh and do we all have one? First of all, in terms of Paul, nobody knows.

Because the Bible doesn't tell us that. So with a smile on my face, I've heard some pretty good suggestions. I really have. I've heard speculations and well, it's this and it's that and it's the next thing. I'm going to tell you my speculation, which means it's not in the Bible.

I'm just telling you. Paul's whole testimony is how his life was radically changed. Was his thorn in the flesh was just this ugly little nerve thing in him that constantly reminded him of how good he had it when he was in the popular crowd? Was his thorn in the flesh the numbers of times when he was being beaten up and chased out of town after town, shipwrecked, starving, that his thorn in the flesh was saying, you know, is this worth it?

I mean, I'm doing all of this for Jesus? Do we have doubts like that? Maybe that was his thorn in the flesh.

So there's a lot of speculation. As to whether we all have thorns in the flesh, I really believe we do. I believe that every human being in the flesh has an Achilles heel, has sometimes for some people it's very little. It's a propensity to ward something that's not honouring to God. Now that may be an emotion. It may be anger.

It may be snapping back. It may be jealousy. It may be covetousness.

It may be selfishness, maybe hoarding. It may be a spirit of criticism. You know, I know people who, lovely people, they've always got to be criticising.

Just like, yeah, can't help it. They always point out that's a thorn in the flesh, right? A thorn in the flesh is these traits that we have in our fleshliness.

I would encourage our people, you love the Lord and I know that you love the Lord, do business with God. Identify your points of weakness. What is it that keeps tripping you up? What causes you to snap like this? What is your gravitational pull? What do you find just so hard to resist? You know, you love the Lord and He's delivered you and He set you free and yet you always find yourself being pulled. You know, I can't tell you how many times I've gone on diet.

If I told you I'd be as skinny as a rake, okay, up one minute, down the next, I'm constantly trying. There are some foods, folks, that I love that are not really the best for me to eat. I'm just being quite honest with you here, but man, do I love them, okay? I know every time I eat them that I'm going to kind of regret it.

Am I fair enough saying that? I love it, but I wish I hadn't eaten that, all right? Thorns in the flesh are like that. It's that part of your life and there may be several of them. You never have, you don't like yourself when you behave like that, do you? You don't like yourself, but it's like it just pops out. That's your thorn in the flesh. How to get victory? Confess that to the Lord, bring it into mind, identify it, write it down, deal with it, and God will give you the victory over it. Wow, a good answer there for sure.

Okay, here's another good one. What have been your biggest parenting challenges from the days your children lived at home, so from preschool to high school, and now as they're adults? What are the challenges that you face as a parent? Multiple challenges, because every child is unique.

They live under the same roof. In our home, they were in a Christian home, but just because you're born in a garage doesn't make you a motor car. And I came to understand because that was my life. We did everything we possibly could to teach, to help, to guide, to have a lot of fun, but boy, our kids faced every kind of challenge. Our hands sometimes were worn out, holding onto the reins, so to speak, and the challenge of parenting, and it's multiple, and there are a lot of child development specialists who would give a much better answer than me. The challenge of parenting is to celebrate the uniqueness of each one of your children, and then to tap into that uniqueness, and to channel that uniqueness in a right way that brings dignity and respect to the uniqueness of those children through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, which as they become teenagers, that becomes harder and harder, because teenagers are making a general statement. Their mom's looking at me right now saying, my kids never did that. Did I use the word unique? You know, I tease my wife Karen all the time.

I always tell her how perfect she's been all her life. But anyway, another subject. Here's the bottom line. They begin to pull back, and eventually, I'm using a terrible word, most teenagers, a lot of teenagers, not most, most teenagers get to the point where they want to just divorce their parents. It's like, let's cut this thing loose. I need some space and I need some air. So the challenge is, at those divorce points, those cut-off points, that cry for independence, that I don't need to hear any more of this. I'm big enough, I'm mature enough, and I know everything. Now, of course, no children and teenagers, they all know everything.

They know it all, they've been there, and the least person to tell them would be mom or dad. So the challenge of that is to be able to pull back without ever letting go, and funneling into that the absolute trust of God. Don't lose sight of trusting God in the difficulty and the challenge of raising up and rearing up the uniqueness of individual children. And always remember, you train up a child, when they're old, they will not depart from it.

By the way, that doesn't refer to age. What it refers to is the process of time in God's economy, God's in control, and He's going to honor you for it, and He will bless you. The last thing we want people to do is to stay independent from Christ. Tell us more about how we can invite Jesus into our world.

Now, Christy, that's the point. I'm a Christian man, and we've been talking and answering questions about it, and the bottom line is that I know Jesus. I'm a Christian man. I'm not a perfect man. I'm a forgiven man.

I'm a dad, a grandfather. I can tell you numerous things that I could do better, but I know Jesus. I want to invite you to give your heart to Jesus.

Would you do that? How about praying this prayer with me today? Dear God, I know that you love me, and I believe that Jesus died for me on a cross. Right now, I repent of my sin, and by faith I receive you, Jesus, into my heart and into my life. I love the fact that you prayed that prayer because God was listening to you, and you and I have become brother and sister in Christ.

Isn't that great? Brother and brother in Christ. We are part of the family of God, and I welcome you.

We are on standby to welcome you into the family of God. Christ makes the difference. He's a game changer. He's a life changer.

He gives us life. Perhaps moments ago, you were praying along with Dr. Wilton to give your life to Christ or rededicate your life to Jesus, or perhaps you have questions now that need to be answered. We stand ready to connect with you at this phone number, 866-899-WORD. Now, we'll answer that phone 24 hours a day. It'll route to one of us happy to talk or listen or pray or connect you with some wonderful resources that'll help you grow in your life.

As a matter of fact, if you just prayed to give your life to Jesus, whether it's for the first time or rededicating your life, Dr. Don has some wonderful free resources he wants you to have. Just need to call us. 866-899-WORD is the phone number jotted down. It's available 24 hours a day. That's 866-899-9673, or meet us online at tewonline.org.

That's tewonline.org. And before we get away, closing thoughts from our pastor and chief encourager here at The Encouraging Word. This is Dr. Don Wilton. Okay, just before you go today, I just want you to know how much I love you. You mean so much to me, and I just want you to know that with all of the things that we've talked about and the way in which God is speaking to your heart right now, we are The Encouraging Word, and we are available to you 24-7, morning, noon, night, or day. You can call a friend, one of my friends, right now, and they will encourage you, pray with you, listen to you.

Isn't it great to have people around us who really care about us? You are not alone. God bless you and be encouraged.

Indeed, you are not alone. God promises never to leave you or forsake you, and as a part of our ministry, we stand ready 24 hours a day to pray with you, to encourage you, at the other end of this phone number, 866-899-WORD. We encourage you to jot the number down, store it in your cell, make us a contact, 866-899-9673. We'll always connect with one of us, happy to talk or listen or pray, or connect with great resources like you heard about. The book from Dr. Wilton about Saturdays with Billy, or there's another fresh book called The Origin of Everything, written by his son, Dr. Wilton's son, Dr. Greg Wilton. All the details are on our website at www.tewonline.org. Until next time, take care.