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.

One of the more lovable guys on TV, I think, is the weatherman named Al Roker. He's even got a book about his battle with losing weight.

At one point Al was quoted as saying that he weighed in at 340 pounds at 5'8". Notice I said weighed in. That was past tense. After carrying around all those pounds for a while, one day he suddenly goes out to a gym and asked them to put him on a diet and an exercise program that will radically reduce his size. He lost 140 pounds.

And what was it that suddenly got him wanting to do something about weight that he'd carried around for a long time? His young daughter came up to him one day when he had his shirt off and she made the kind of blunt, off-the-cuff observation about how he looked that only a child can make in all innocence and get away with it. Well that was it! Hello gymnasium! Goodbye fat.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "My Child, My Mirror - When a Parent Looks Up."

Our word for today from the Word of God takes us way back to nearly the beginning of the human race to a man named Enoch. Now, God has some especially complimentary things to say about Enoch. In Genesis 5:21-24, he reveals a change that took place in this man's life that could change the course of your life too.

The Bible says, "When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah." Then it says, "After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God." Now, did you notice the math here? Not just the longer life they enjoyed back then. Enoch lived the first 65 years of his life with no mention of a relationship with God.

Then suddenly he starts walking with God, and continues to have this intimate relationship with his Creator through the rest of his life. What was the catalyst that changed Enoch? The same thing that changed an overweight TV personality - his child. After he became a father, it says, is when Enoch walked with God.

There's something about having a child that makes you start thinking about yourself in ways you've never thought of yourself before. They're mirrors to us. As a dad or a mom, trying to shape this life that we've been entrusted with, we begin to see things we may have never seen fully before. Like our own incompleteness, our inadequacies, our weaknesses that can now do serious damage to this vulnerable life in our hands.

Suddenly we consider looking up as we maybe have never have done before and saying, "Help!" Well, the good news is that God stands ready to answer our cry for help big time. In fact, He may have been waiting a long time for you to finally recognize that you are incomplete. You are inadequate and you've always been in need of what only He can do for you - a Savior.

Ultimately, our children show us the real weight we've been carrying all these years. They help us see the weight of our own self-centeredness, our unresolved issues, our dark side, our sin. We can never walk with a perfect God as long as we're carrying all this. And being a mom or dad shows us like nothing else how deep our need is for this personal relationship we were made for and how much we need a rescue.

In spite of our sin, God loves us and He wants to walk with you for the rest of your life. But that walk can only begin one place - at the cross where God's one and only Son died to pay the death penalty for what you and I deserve. We did the sinning, but Jesus did the dying. The Bible says, "You who were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ."

Your walk with God begins when you say, "Jesus, I'm putting all my trust in You to be my Savior from my sin." If you've never done that, let this be the day you say, "Jesus, I'm yours." I'd love to help you begin that relationship and that's why our website is there. It's ANewStory.com.

If you're a mom or dad, there are feet now following you wherever you walk. For their sake and for yours, be sure you're walking with God.