A Hole In The Heart
One day in 1995 Wayne Huizenga,
Jr. received a call from a friend bearing an unusual invitation, the
opportunity to sail from South Carolina to South Florida aboard a nuclear
submarine. During the three-day voyage
Wayne, Jr. met and became acquainted with Captain Brad Fleetwood McDonald.
“He became an important influence in my life,”
described Wayne, Jr. “He had patience
that was beyond belief and he had incredible wisdom. And he didn’t seem to be searching like I
was. I saw a calm and a peace in him I
had not seen in anyone else.”
Wayne,
Jr. and Captain Fleetwood became good friends.
In his interview for I Am Second
Wayne, Jr. described their friendship. “He took me on his submarine so I started taking him out on my fishing
boat. We traveled to Venezuela, Costa
Rica, Panama, the Virgin Islands, and wherever.
And as time went on I began to notice that he always had his Bible with
him. He never pushed it in my face but
he always had it with him.”
Wayne, Jr. realized that if he wanted to learn
more about leadership there was no better person to ask than a man who
commanded 120 sailors beneath the ocean for six months at a time. “I’d ask him about conflict resolution, about
how he led the guys, how he would help them to grow as individuals and he
always referenced his Bible,” Wayne, Jr. narrated in his I Am Second interview. “It
was incredible. He’d read me a few Bible
verses and then he’d explain them to me. And, the more time we spent together, the more
I realized how different he was from me. You know, he was a sailor, but he didn’t drink
like a sailor, he didn’t swear like a sailor. I did. And
he had this incredible peace about him that was unlike any that I’d ever seen
in all the people that I had met through Wayne, Sr. It was a peace that was worldly, and yet he
was so incredibly humble. One day I got
up my courage and I asked him, “You know, Captain Brad, why are we so different
and how do I become more like you? What
do I need to do?”
Captain McDonald answered that he
used the Bible as a guide for his life, reading it daily, and that he enjoyed a
personal relationship with God.
“He always referred me to the
Bible,” Wayne, Jr. told the Secrets Of
Success camera. “He’d quote
scripture to me and say, ‘This is what the Old Testament says about how to live
your life. This is where I go when I
have questions and this is where I get my peace from because God resides inside
of me’.”
Captain McDonald emphatically told
Wayne, Jr., “You have a hole in your heart.”
He explained that mankind is made in God’s image and that the hole in Wayne,
Jr.’s heart is where God is supposed to reside.
At first Wayne, Jr. was able to
understand only some of what his friend was telling him, but he kept asking
questions. Captain McDonald explained
that the hole in Wayne, Jr.’s heart consumed everything he tried to put in
it. All of the things Wayne, Jr.
hungered for - the business deals, new boats or cars, and all the travel to
more exotic locales - that black hole in his heart consumed it all.
Captain McDonald made it clear
that the hole would never be filled with all of those worldly things; it could
only be filled with God.
In his I Am Second video Wayne,
Jr. said, “I thought, ‘Could that be it?
Could it be that easy?’ All these
things I’ve been chasing, all these places I’ve been going, could it be a
relationship with God?’”
With Captain McDonald’s influence,
Wayne and Fonda found a church they liked and began attending.
© 2012 Philip Kassel
No comments:
Post a Comment