First, thank you to all of you who responded to my post

To date there were over 467 comments on the post.  I had no idea that this issue would touch such a cord in the hearts of so many people.  I also had no idea how many people are living with the heartbreak of family and friends facing Alzheimer’s disease.

Because I am unable to respond individually to the hundreds of comments I received, I will address them here.  This will be my last post concerning Pat Robertson’s comments.

1. To those of you who have watched a loved one suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or dementia and to some of you who courageously shared that you have been diagnosed with one of these diseases:  Your honesty and courage inspires us all.  My prayers are with you.  Thank you for blessing us by sharing your story and helping us realize we are not alone.

2. To those who suggested that I had misunderstood Mr Robertson’s statement: I must respectfully disagree.  I read and re-read the entire transcript as it was sent by CBN in response to a letter written by Mark Robinson.  The letter, the transcript and CBN’s response can be found here….. OntarioPC    My readers can judge for themselves what Mr Robertson actually said.

3.  To those who suggested that my post was an attack on Pat Robertson:  I promise that was not my intention.  Considering what my dad had gone through, what the scriptures say about divorce and the solemn nature of  “till death do we part,” I was compelled to respond to Mr Robertson’s statement.  A public statement such as this invites a public response. I responded with our family’s story.

4.  To those who suggested that I had been influenced by the media:  I am sure the news media covered this, but I never saw it.  My response was based on the transcript of the show and CBN’s response to Mark Robinson’s letter.   I never intended to jump on any bandwagon.  I didn’t even know there was a bandwagon.

5.  To those who expressed sorrow and/or anger in response to Pat Robertson’s statement:  For the most part these were not enemies of Pat Robertson or CBN.  In fact, many of the responders were people who had been blessed over the years by CBN’s ministry.  I certainly understand your frustration and would ask that you pray that the valid aspects of CBN ministry will continue to touch lives.

6. To those who questioned Pat Robertson’s Salvation or wished him ill will:  I would ask that you reconsider that position for the same two reasons that caused you disagreed with his statement in the first place.

• Pat’s is a believer in Christ and his place in the Kingdom was assured on the Cross and sealed by the Holy spirit.  He is loved by the Father. He will be in heaven. He is my brother.  I am free to disagree with him but not to condemn him. If Mr Robertson has lost his salvation because of his errors of judgement or theology, then my sins and errors certainly condemn me as well.  Thank God, such is not the case!
• Pat Robertson deserves the same compassion we insist that he give those we sought to defend.  

Thank you for all your comments and I am grateful for the support shown toward those who cannot speak for themselves. With a only couple of exceptions the comments were thoughtful and without vitriol.  Yesterday I received a very gracious comment from a friend of Mr Robertson that I would like to share with you. In the face of the what I believe is justified critique of Mr Robertson’s statement, only one thing balances the scales and gives us all hope……. that thing is GRACE!

Pat Robertson’s friend Malcolm gave me permission to reprint his comment.  May the spirit of grace evidenced here be present even in the midst our strongest disagreements.

    When Pat Robertson stands before the Lord, God will say, “Pat, you said a lot of things right, and you said a few things wrong; you sometimes let the pondering of your mind escape through your lips before you had it worked out with me in prayer. This embarrassed those closest to you, and it angered a great many of your enemies.
But also let me say this to you: Thank you for giving your life to me as a young man. Thank you for heeding my call to walk away from what could have been a lucrative career in Law to enter the ministry and start a tiny little television studio in Tidewater Virginia when everybody thought you were crazy. Thank you for pioneering a Christian TV channel that was the first of its kind, and that I was able to bless and project it around the world in many different nations. And thank you, Pat, that because of your visionary spirit and heart of obedience, the 700 Club has been a tool in my hands to bring hundreds of thousands of people into My kingdom. Pat, I also want to thank you that you allowed me to birth Operation Blessing through you and your wonderful staff of sincere and committed people. Together with our supporters, we have given spiritual and natural aid to tens of thousands of devastated people worldwide.
So Pat, other than those few times you really stuck your foot in your mouth, I am happy to say you did most things well. You have been a good and faithful servant who stands or falls before Me alone, and before no other. Enter now, my son, into the joy of the Lord.”

I can only add… “Say those things for me too, Lord.  For me too!”

Today is Alzheimer’s day.  Please pray for a cure and for comfort to all who face this horrible disease.

Do you have friends or fans?

No matter what your occupation, this is a question that has a huge impact on your quality of life.  In order to answer that question you need to know difference between a fan and a friend.  Here are some hints.

Fans see you as networking potential ————— Friends see your potential
Fans love you for your performance ————-  A friend loves you for you.
Fans are fickle ————— Friends are forever.
Fans want  to see only your good side  ————–  A friend will protect your backside.
Fans demand that you entertain them —————– Friends just want your company.

Several years ago I came to the sad realization that I had almost no friends. I had thousands of fans, I had a successful career,  I had lots of stuff, but I had no real friends. I was a nomad.  I didn’t herd goats and pitch tents in the desert, but I walked through a desert of countless audiences, herding a dog and a pony and I never pitched my tent anywhere.  I had people all around me and I was still alone.  I remember telling my wife, Diane, that I was afraid when I died she wouldn’t be able to find six people who were willing to carry the box I was buried in.  
I had nightmares of her pulling the casket down the church steps alone;  thump, thump, thump, then dragging it to where “the big black SUV” waited.

I have good news!  I now have friends!

A few good friends!

So how did I  find friends in a desert of fans?   I assessed what would be required to develop  friendships and I purposefully changed my lifestyle to make it happen. 

 Here’s what I came up with.

Making friends requires an investment of time.
Time sharing meals
Time helping with projects
Time sitting by a hospital bed
Time laughing until the early hours of morning
Time talking until you fall asleep

Making friends requires taking risks
Trust someone with who you really are
Reveal your heart
Be accountable
Hold someone accountable
Debate issues you feel strongly about

Making friends requires that you practice grace
Grace to forgive
Grace to overlook imperfection
Grace to realize you will never find a perfect friend and you will never be a perfect friend.

The best way to gain solid friends is to be a solid friend.

A team of friends

I don’t have hundreds of close friends, but I have made sure I have at least six that are capable of lifting a box!

Sooo…… do you have friends or fans?  How did you get them?  

I look forward to your comments.

At eighteen, Ken found himself in the thick of battle defending the Philippines against the onslaught of Japanese attack. One day he lay behind a log and watched as enemy soldiers overran his position by the hundreds. Ken and a companion hid their rifles and surrendered. It marked the beginning of a three-and-a-half year nightmare. Ken became a prisoner of war.

The grim realities of prison camp quickly decimated Ken’s health. He’d survived the grueling Bataan death march only to be wracked with malaria and dysentery. In prison camp, the privilege of staying alive depended on a prisoner’s ability to work. Those gravely ill or incapable of labor were shot or perhaps buried alive. The young man’s weight dropped below one hundred pounds, but he struggled to make himself useful enough to avoid execution. It was no good; frail as he was, Ken fought a losing battle.

The war drew to a close and Japanese defeat became a looming certainty. As the captors’ prospects dwindled, their atrocities increased in number and intensity. The Japanese began executing prisoners at random.

One day, Ken found himself lying beneath a thatch roof hut with several other prisoners. As a Japanese officer shouted commands from the hut’s balcony, prisoners were dragged from the shelter in pairs to a nearby rice paddy. The bonds were cut from their hands, and they were summarily bayoneted to death or shot in the head.

Ken watched his friends dying two by two, knowing his time would come. As evening approached, the shrill voice of the Japanese officer shouted yet another command. Ken and his friend were wrenched from beneath the hut and dragged into the rice paddy. Kneeling in the mud, he waited in terror for the inevitable. There was another shout from the hut—then an explosion in his head. Ken fell forward into the filthy water.

He hadn’t been shot. He’d been struck with the butt of a rifle. The sun had gone down, and the Japanese didn’t conduct executions after sundown. As he regained his senses, Ken knew this would be his last night on earth. As sure as the sun would rise in the morning, the executions would continue.

Huddled sleeplessly that night, Ken’s life flashed before him. He saw the face of his mother. He recalled the admonitions of his father, a stern Nazarene evangelist. He thought of his brothers, some of them fighting for their country in theaters of war across Europe. Ken whispered his farewells.

He also remembered his sins. Every sin he’d committed, from minor indiscretion to shameful transgression, flashed before his eyes. Yet his guilt gave way. It vanished in a great wave of peace that rose up and flooded Ken’s soul. The faith he’d placed in Christ years ago, as a small boy, was suddenly present and potent. He was reminded of the price paid for each of those sins. He was forgiven.

By the time Ken watched the sun rise, a miracle had taken place. Facing certain death, he felt no fear. He’d made his peace with God, and he was emotionally overwhelmed with grace and forgiveness. The cool silence of dawn was shattered by the call of the executioner. Ken heard the approaching boots of the guards. They yanked him to his feet. Then they led him not to the rice paddy, but back to the prison sector.The executions had halted.

Ken would live to return from one of history’s bloodiest conflicts—by a few seconds. On the day of liberation, he was little more than a skeleton. Sick and half-starved, his weight was 85. He was so weak that he needed assistance to clear a two-inch board at the back of the truck bound for freedom.

This is a story I know by heart. Its hero is my father, Ken Davis Sr. And the most amazing element of the narrative is the placing of his emphasis in its telling. He focuses not on God saving him from the bayonets and bullets of enemy soldiers, but on God saving him from his sin. If God could forgive the sins that paraded before him that dark night, then not even the razor edge of a bayonet, or the brutal impact of a bullet, could separate him from that love.

My father had endured considerable physical abuse; malnutrition and malaria had taken their toll. The medics examined my father and concluded he would not live to old age. Certainly, they told him, he couldn’t have children

That was more than half a century ago. They underestimated my dad. He’s seventy-five now, and I’m one of the five children he didn’t have. I cling to one lesson from the fascinating stories of Dad’s POW experience. In those dark, horrible moments when death confronted him, my dad had an authentic supernatural encounter with grace. Peace overcame him; fear was cast out.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39).

My father was finally forever set free on April 18th 2006. He lives with the Lord he loved so much. A fellow hero who understands the price of freedom.

Story adapted from my book “Lighten Up” published by Zondervan