Proverbs was probably not meant to be read at the
pace of four chapters per day, or even one chapter, but rather at the rate of
maybe one proverb per day. It is very hard if not impossible to meditate on
proverbs en masse.
Therefore, I would like to focus my comments on just
one proverb out of the four chapters read today. It is Proverbs 16:7, “When a
man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
This was a very important proverb to my father, Jim Vaus.
He grew up as a preacher’s kid and like many PKs before and since, my dad knew
how to talk the talk even when he was not walking the walk. He got involved in
crime at a young age, committing armed robbery while still a teenager. He spent
eighteen months in jail and at a work camp for that offense. After that, he was
drafted into the army during World War II. He rose to the rank of captain but
soon thereafter faced a court martial where he was convicted of
misappropriation of government property and misuse of priorities. He was
sentenced to ten years in a federal penitentiary. He spent two of those years
at McNeil Island in Washington State, after which he received a pardon from
President Truman. He was ordered back into the army to lecture on his expertise
of electronics. After receiving an honorable discharge, he returned home to Los
Angeles where he set up his own electronics engineering company. Before long,
he was using his electronics knowledge for wiretapping, both for the police
department and in the service of a private detective.
Through my father’s work in wiretapping he came
to the attention of Mickey Cohen, the “celebrity gangster” later depicted in
films like Gangster Squad. Cohen
asked my father to remove a wiretapping device from his home, which my father
did. That led to other jobs. Eventually Cohen paid him enough, for electronic
surveillance and protection during the Battle of the Sunset Strip, that my
father gave up his other jobs.
Through Cohen, my father met a man he would know
only as St. Louis Andy. This man wanted my father to develop an electronic
system whereby they could withhold horserace results coming over the
Continental Wire Service. Dad did develop that gadget for Andy, withholding
news over the wire service for 90 seconds, just long enough for Andy’s men to
place bets offtrack on horses they already knew had won races in some other
part of the country. They set up shop first in Arizona, controlling race
results coming into Southern California. They were very successful.
Then my father was to meet Andy in St. Louis on
November 10, 1949, to set up his system and control illegal off track betting
in the entire western half of the United States. However, my father never made
that meeting, because on November 6, he happened to attend a tent meeting in
downtown LA where a young Billy Graham was preaching.
That night, Graham quoted the words of Jesus,
“What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
Then during the invitation Graham said something to the affect of: “I have
sensed that there is a man in this audience tonight who has heard this message
many times before, but he has never given his life to Christ, and this may be
his last opportunity.”
My father felt like God was speaking to him. He
went forward and knelt in the sawdust praying, “God, if you’ll mean business
with me, I’ll mean business with you.”
One of the first people my father told of his
commitment to Christ was Mickey. Cohen, amazingly, respected Dad for his
decision to quit organized crime. They remained friends for the rest of Cohen’s
life.
That was not the case with St. Louis Andy. When
Dad told Andy that he would not be in St. Louis, Andy showed up at my parents’
home with a bunch of his bodyguards.
That is when Proverbs 16:7 became so meaningful
to my father. At a time when he should have been wracked with worry, his mind
and heart were at peace, trusting in the Lord to work out the whole situation.
Amazingly, when my father refused to go with
Andy, the gangster and his henchmen turned and walked away. That day, Proverbs
16:7 became a living reality for my father. Of course, that is the only way anything
in the Bible really becomes meaningful—when we put it to the test.
You can read the rest of the story in my book, My Father Was a Gangster. You can learn
more here: http://willvaus.com/my_father_was_a_gangster.
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