Risky Love

As you know, I love a good story and the Bible is full of them. This time the story is about a man called “Artful Eddie”. He was a lick lawyer, one of the best, ad his time was the Roaring Twenties. He was a crony of al Capone, a Chicago gangster. Eddie fixed dog races by overfeeding seven dogs and betting on the eighth. He had it all- wealth, status and style.

It is recorded that, “Eddie had spent his life with the despicable.” But Eddie was a father. “He had smelled the stench of the underground long enough.” He now wanted to give his son a

name he could be proud of but to do it Eddie had to be willing to risk it all so his son would have a clean slate.

Artful Eddie did not live to see his dream come true. Eddie had turned himself in to the police. He decided to squeal on Al Capone! He knew what could happen but his son’s future was worth it. “Eddie squealed, the mob remembered and two shotgun blasts silenced him forever.”

We know people who have not given their lives to Christ. You might be one of those or you could be one who just struggles in your walk. If you have a family are you willing to risk a love like Eddie’s? Do you desire to see your children have a bright future knowing there is One who never leaves or forsakes? Are you willing to put the past aside and look to God for the future?

Back to Eddie’s story- was his risky choice what he dreamed? If Eddie had lived to see his son Butch grow up, would he have been proud? Butch won an appointment to Annapolis. He was commissioned as a WWII Navy pilot. His son downed five bombers in the Pacific night and saved hundreds of crewmen on the carrier Lexington. The old name was cleared when his son received the Congressional Medal of Honor.

When people say the name O’Hare in Chicago, they don’t think gangsters, they think aviation heroism. Think about Eddie’s willingness to change his son’s future when you fly into the airport named after the son of gangster gone good-O’Hare Airport.

The Bible is full of people who turned to Jesus to change their lives: the jailer in Acts, Cornelius and his house, the slave in Philemon, etc. Jesus did it all because He knew we were worth it all! Is your family worth it all for you?

Sharon White