Holli, our middle child, roared into life like a runaway circus wagon. Before this brown-eyed bundle of activity, my wife, Darla, and I lived with the delusion that children arrived like Jell-O, waiting to be molded into productive and healthy adults by their wise and all-knowing parents. Holli disproved that.

We nicknamed her Girlbaby, but that moniker soon gave way to Spunk-bucket, a more meaningful description. At 2, Holli could open any childproof latch or bottle—and she did. She loved to take off her clothes and escape the confines of the house to run naked down the sidewalk, her mother in hot pursuit. And she ate whatever she could catch—she had her stomach pumped twice. Despite her wild and reckless personality, we loved Holli more than she could possibly know or understand. She was part of our family and part of us. And she was just like me.

As soon as she could wrap her chubby hand around my finger, we would go for walks around the house. Later, she would put her short toes on my size 13s and, like generations of fathers and daughters before us, we danced, a wide grin on her round face. I thought we would always dance.

But we would not. With adolescence, her nature darkened. She hated going to church, and said she hated us. Her friends all smoked, drank and used drugs, and eventually she did too. Her disposition and temper mirrored mine, so we usually collided with explosive consequences. Even so, I longed for her to return and dance with me.

The next six years became one long fight. Despite an early decision to follow Christ, Holli repeatedly ran away from home to escape our rules and values, and us. She rejected our love. She broke our hearts every day.

She broke God's heart too. When we run away from Him, we reject His love. When we reject Him, His heart breaks. It pains me to think of the times that I've most certainly broken His heart by selfishly pursuing my own way and rejecting His.

Holli pursued her own way. Her lifestyle choices dealt her some harsh blows, but her heavenly Father used them to make her more like Him.

Today, Holli is the kindest, most caring young woman I know. We're dancing again. I can't tell you how happy that makes me. I think God is happy too. After all, His heartfelt desire is to dance with His children.

"Everything about our lives," says Bill Bright, "is determined by our view of God." That truth vividly demonstrated itself in John Hollenbach's life after an unexpected encounter with a friend—Campus Crusade staff member John Trzcinski. John Trzcinski casually handed his friend a copy of Bill Bright's book, God: Discover His Character, and a card listing 13 of God's attributes and how they affect our lives.

Trzcinski didn't know that Hollenbach and his wife, Brenda, found themselves in a dark valley as a consequence of multiple stresses.

The very next day, John Hollenbach began memorizing the attributes. He started taking the card on his daily runs and meditating on what he read. "The truth just came off the card," he says. As a mature Christian, he knew these characteristics about God, but John says, "They became real to me." And living those truths revolutionized his and Brenda's marriage, their spiritual lives and their family.

These simple truths can leave dramatic impressions, if we just give them away.

To order cards, contact New Life Publications at www.newlifepubs.com or 1-800-235-7255.

"Do you see that?" some friends asked, squinting out at the ocean. I had just arrived at the beach, so I, too, peered out at the waves. I could see something floating a little past where people swam.

"What was that?" we asked each other. "A buoy? A piece of a boat? Surely not a person . . . was it?" We stood there, looking, indecisive. We called more people over, but no one could tell for sure. It didn't really seem to move—or did it? We thought we saw it go under the water, but maybe it just disappeared because of the waves. It was just too far away to tell.

As a lifeguard, I should have been the one jumping into the water. But I didn't have my swimsuit on, and I didn't want to jump fully clothed into the ocean without knowing for certain that someone was drowning.

Someone called the beach police, but by the time they showed up, most onlookers had wandered away, losing interest in this "unidentified floating object." I alone stood on the sand still staring out at the ocean. "There's no one reported missing," the policemen said, but as they left, one looked at me and said, "but if we see you again, you'd better be wet." The officer joked, but was partly serious. When lives are at stake, you don't stand on the shore wondering.

The same is true in evangelism. How many times have I let a conversation slide because I thought the person knew about Jesus, or because I assumed they had a vital faith? I didn't know about their lives, but I didn't have the guts to ask those hard questions—to jump in and find out. All too often I care only about myself, that I'll offend someone, that I'll get my clothes wet. The uncertainty of past opportunities haunts me. That summer at the beach, I never heard about anyone drowning, but I'll never know for sure.

It all started with a lapse of integrity, but it ended in tragedy. � Lisa and her husband lived a seemingly wonderful life. They were active in their church and had a young son. People in their church respected them because they tried to live by the rules in God's Word. But Lisa couldn't erase the feeling that her life was not complete and happy.

Then Lisa and her husband made a questionable financial decision. It seemed like just a small "bending of the rules." They went on with their daily life—with money in their pockets that wasn't rightfully theirs.

Over the next two years, the couple began relaxing other moral rules. Lisa discovered that her husband had begun an affair with an old girlfriend. Their 14-year marriage crumbled into divorce.

Lisa felt hurt and angry. Hadn't she lived a "good life"?

She reacted by turning her back on God. She quit going to church and began attracting a new circle of friends. For 10 years, she lived a life so rebellious to God that no one would have recognized that she ever called herself a Christian. Lisa was fed up with God's rules and religion.

Then one day, surprisingly, Lisa woke up with a desire to attend church. Although the change was not instantaneous, her life and attitudes made a 180-degree turn.

She discovered that before her divorce, she had attempted to follow God's laws merely as a set of rules, without a heart of love, but this did not automatically make her happy. But when she wholeheartedly responded to God's love for her, His commandments took on a different significance. They were not only easier, but also a joy. Obedience to God out of love, not merely obligation, brought her true happiness.

So, true happiness is not measured in rules; it is found in love for God. Jesus said, "'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment" (Matthew 22:37,38; New Living Translation).

But perhaps you are thinking, This is too hard to do. I could never obtain the perfection that the Ten Commandments demand.

That's because the Ten Commandments are impossible for any of us to keep. We are imperfect humans who fail to live up to God's standards in our own self-effort. There is a better way: using the Ten Commandments in the way God intended—as a gauge of our love for Him.

Gauges are terribly important to the operation of any plant. At 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, a deadly chain reaction erupted at Metropolitan Edison's Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pa. A valve flew open that allowed water to drain out of the reactor core. A small amount of radioactive gas escaped into the morning air.

Two long hours passed before plant personnel discovered the malfunction. Even then, the operators didn't know the location of the problem. The meltdown of a nuclear reactor was certain unless something was done.

Finally, at 4:00 p.m., plant personnel correctly diagnosed the problem and forced cooling water into the core. The meltdown had been averted. But the reactor had come within one hour of a meltdown!

Why didn't the personnel immediately recognize the danger or correctly diagnose the problem? Part of the problem was that employees didn't read the gauges correctly.

The thick metal sides of the boilers prevent anyone from seeing how much water and steam are building up inside. That's why the boilers have gauges on the outside. The gauge shows the water level in the boiler. When the gauge shows "half-full," the boiler is half-full; if "empty," so is the boiler.

This is similar to how the Ten Commandments work in our lives. How do you know you love God? If you believe you love Him, but you want to know for sure, look at the gauge. Your obedience to God's holy commandments is the true measure of your love for Him.

But it is only as we rely on God's power that we can truly attain the standard that He sets for us. I highly encourage you to memorize the Ten Commandments. Meditate on them and ask the Holy Spirit to help you obey them.

God's laws can liberate us, and give us purpose and passion for loving God with all our heart, soul and mind. Nothing in this world can match the joy and satisfaction of obeying and serving God in the way that pleases Him most.

"C'mon, vacuum, pick up!" I shouted over the whine of the dysfunctional machine I'd borrowed. But no matter how hard I pressed the vacuum head to the carpet, little stringies, pet hair and whatnot still clung defiantly to their fiefdom in the living room. And with the diminishing time that remained before company came, my anger escalated.

I shut the vacuum off to troubleshoot the situation. Somewhere on the wand I noticed a previously unseen switch. I turned it on, then turned on the main power. Voila! Suction. No more stringies. No more pet hair. No more nothing on that carpet. And I finished the job with plenty of time to spare.

As I sat down to catch my breath, I realized something: That switch on the vacuum wand symbolized the occasional condition of my Christian life. I sometimes feel unable to please God the way I know I should, oblivious to the fact that my power switch has been shut off by unconfessed sin. Thankfully, the Spirit of God graciously reminds me of that forgotten switch, and through a simple prayer of confession, His power returns.

While I admired that pristine carpet, I asked God to clean up the stringies and clinging crud that had accumulated in my heart that day. And I asked Him to help me pay closer attention to those power switches.