Hank Smith:                     00:03                   Welcome to followHIM Favorites. This is where John and I share a single story to go with each week’s Come, Follow Me lesson. John, the Fall of David. David and Bathsheba. This is the David who was able to overcome Goliath, but he falls here. Tell me what story you have.

John Bytheway:               00:18                   It hurts because he has points where he could go, oh, maybe I should have gone to war. Maybe I shouldn’t be up here on my leisure porch. Maybe I just shouldn’t be here. Maybe we can learn lots of lessons from that. I have a book at home called The Next Few Years Will Change Your Life by Travis Hansen. I think he’s an athletic director down at BYU now. Great guy. I’ll let him tell the story. I was a sophomore in high school. A time when many teens want to make friends, get a driver’s license, be seen in the latest fashions. I was no different. Some of the older guys had cool clothes, just the kind of gear other teens would love to have. A few of my friends learned these older guys stole this, and other clothing from the University Mall and sold what they didn’t keep.

                                           00:58                   My friends thought it was a cool thing to do and somewhere along the line I bought into the idea that it would be a thrill and went along for the ride. And then he said, you can see where this is going already. Walking into the mall, we came up with a plan. Somebody would be lookout, somebody else would distract the clerk. Another guy would steal the stuff. I had a bad feeling about this.

Hank Smith:                     01:19                   Nooo.

John Bytheway:               01:19                   As soon as we got to the store we decided to target. It also happened to be the most popular shop in the mall, place where the cool kids shopped. But I had this feeling it was not right. I didn’t belong there. I absolutely shouldn’t be part of it. Everything I had been taught all my life, everything I thought I was screamed at me to run away.

Hank Smith:                     01:38                   Oh, wow.

John Bytheway:               01:38                   I tried to think of excuses. My mom needed me, at a doctor’s appointment, anything to get me out of there. Sadly, I pushed these thoughts away, decided to go along with it. Two guys went to the dressing room, stuffed clothes under their clothes. The rest of us played lookout. They made a trip to the car, took the clothes out, returned, did it again. They came back for their third load. Things started getting rushed and chaotic. In another dressing room, two guys started stuffing my clothes with clothes.

                                           02:07                   When I came out of that dressing room, the clerk took one look at us and said, I’m calling the cops. I froze for a split second. The voice inside me said, run, but I froze. I was scared to death. My friend started walking fast, the clerk grabbed him and grabbed me. The police came and took us both to a room in the back of the store and began to ask questions. They asked me my name. I told them I was Frank something. It’s like, let me be Frank. Okay, Frank.

Hank Smith:                     02:33                   I’ll take it.

John Bytheway:               02:33                   They said I’d better use my real name or I’d be in more trouble. They knew it wasn’t my name because I wasn’t the first kid who tried that on them. The police took me outside, separated my friends, as I was walking to the police car in handcuffs, I passed by a member of my ward I knew very well. I tried to hide my handcuffs, but there was Brother Lyman.

                                           02:58                   He saw me, I was embarrassed, humiliated, taken to the police station, my dad came to pick me up. I felt awful. Why had I done this? I ended up with a parole officer. I had to do community service. I was grounded for a year. In fact, he says in high school, one of his nicknames was always grounded. And it doesn’t mean grounded in good, it means grounded at home. He came back to the manager. I’m sorry for what I did to you in your store. The manager appreciated I came in but had a warning for me. It was brave for you to come in. I hope you learned your lesson. It’s wrong to steal things. I can’t let you come back to the store again, not at least for six months. I’d been taught all my life to be honest with myself, others and the Lord.

                                           03:40                   I’d been taught not to rationalize and that lying and stealing were wrong. None of this ever would have happened had I made a pledge to myself to be honest long before this experience. When the temptation came and pressure from my friends mounted, I should have said no and walked away. Best advice I can give you is to make up your mind about how you will act before anything tempts you and then act on that promise to yourself.

Hank Smith:                     04:05                   Great story though.

John Bytheway:               04:06                   We can learn from it. We can learn from David. We can learn from Travis to say, if you ever have that feeling I shouldn’t be here, when do you exit? Right now.

Hank Smith:                     04:16                   Turn around, follow that prompting. And Travis is absolutely incredible, incredible basketball player and he’s friends with me on social media, which I, you know.

John Bytheway:               04:25                   Which he’s got to be a great person then.

Hank Smith:                     04:27                   He’s got to be a great guy.

John Bytheway:               04:29                   Thank you, Travis, for being willing to share this and willing to bless others with that story.

Hank Smith:                     04:35                   Yep. Someone listening is going, I have that feeling right now and I do not want to be hauled out in cuffs in front of Brother Lyman.

John Bytheway:               04:43                   Right. Brother Lyman is always watching.

Hank Smith:                     04:50                   Thanks, Travis, if you’re out there listening. Hey, we hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. We are with Dr. Shon Hopkin this week who shows us some things in the Old Testament I had never seen before. We hope you’ll join us there and then come back next week. We’ll do another followHIM Favorites.