First Times
All of us experience first times. There was that first kiss, the first visit to the mountains or the seashore, the first time you drove a car, your first date. Life is full of firsts. My wife remembers the first green persimmon she ever ate (she didn’t finish it though). I remember my first black eye, which came shortly after I persuaded my wife to eat her first green persimmon.
I even remember my first hamburger. I was nine years old, and my family had gone on a vacation to New Orleans. On the way back we talked my dad into stopping at a burger joint and buying us all hamburgers. The reason I remember this was because he was flabbergasted that the hamburgers costs $.35 each. We didn’t have much money in those days, so as I ate mine I felt like I was a king-a burger king! I bet I was the first kid in the neighborhood that had ever spent that much money on a burger.
I remember my first “F” in school, soon to be followed by another one. I was on a roll. I think the first one had something to do with it being spring and I was in love. I had no excuse for the other one, but it was the last one I ever got. Did I mention it was in physics?
I remember owning my first Jeep. It was used, but buying it was a dream come true. Soon after I bought the Jeep we took a trip to the mountains and I drove it down a dirt road, across a creek and up onto a muddy stretch of road. It was the moment of truth. There in front of me was a mud hole about twenty feet long. Now the thing about mud holes is that it is impossible to determine how deep they are by looking at them. I once had a bad experience with a mud hole. When I was a teenager my dad let me take the car one night over to my neighbor’s house (we lived in the country so houses were a good distance away from each other), but before I left, he told me that I had better not get stuck. You guessed it. I got stuck so bad that they had to bring a tractor to get me out. So I hate mud holes.
Let me interject something here. If you have never owned a Jeep, or other formidable 4X4, then you can’t appreciate the feeling one gets from sitting up higher than everyone else and the sense of power that comes from being able to go anywhere and do anything you want. I must say that it tends to make one a little arrogant. You also can’t appreciate the humiliation of having to call a tow truck if you get your 4X4 stuck in a mud hole! And there before me lay my potential Waterloo.
I tried to talk my way out of it, but my wife had begrudgingly watched me spend all of our money on this machine and she wasn’t about to let me get out of this. And she fought dirty! “Why in the world did we spend all that money for this Jeep if we can’t at least go through a little bit of mud!” she exclaimed. It didn’t help matters a bit that her dad who lived in the Everglades only had a 2X4 and he went everywhere in it.
At this point, I wisely spoke up and convinced her that it would be imprudent to get stuck unnecessarily out here in the backwoods of north Georgia and be stranded in the same area where they filmed Deliverance (you remember what happened to that one guy don’t you). So, finding a long pole, I decided to check the depth of the hole and the firmness of the mud underneath the murky water.
Standing at the edge of the water with my ten foot long stick in one hand and holding on to a tree with the other, I jabbed it into the water, expecting to see it sink out of sight. When it stopped abruptly at two inches, I thought I had hit a submerged rock. I tried another spot and again it only went about two inches under the surface. The entire mud hole was only two inches deep! Wisdom is vindicated by its children! (It always helps for a preacher to quote Scripture in such cases).
I just met a young lady who has the most beautiful smile. She has come on a short term mission trip to Poland. She is in her twenties, works at a bank in Texarkana, and is distracting all of my young men. I have never seen so many guys in la la land. Anyway, she is experiencing many firsts on this trip. She cut her first tomato, peeled her first cucumber, and rode on her first train. One morning she announced that she just heard a quail. Had she ever heard a quail? No! Then how did she know it was a quail??? (By the way, it wasn’t.) Is she embarrassed? I don’t think so. Are we kidding her about all this? You betcha! But you know, she is living life to its fullest. She is going for all the gusto. She is not going to allow a little thing like, “I’ve never done that before,” get in her way.
Chopping tomatoes, onions, peeled cucumber. Quail, flown out of US., ridden on a train,
May I ask you a question? Have you experienced any “firsts” in your life recently. Once we get past a certain age, we become comfortable with where we are and try not to upset the apple cart. We didn’t like being embarrassed as a teenager and we definitely don’t want to relive those embarrassments again.
But isn’t this a boring way to live! Shouldn’t we be out there rock climbing, wrestling with alligators, or skydiving. (I am sorry but I can’t attempt any of those things. I have weak knees!) Of course, there are milder ways to get out of our quagmire of routine.
I remember a movie I saw last Christmas called Skipping Christmas. There was a scene at the end of the movie in which Tim Allen wanted to give away his cruise tickets to an older couple across the street. This couple thought of every reason they could that would make it impossible for them to go. There was nothing scary about a cruise, they just didn’t want to make the effort to break out of the monotony.
Isn’t it that way with us Christians sometimes? We see how God has blessed our friends who have gone on a short term mission trip, or an excursion to The Holy Land. Perhaps a group has gotten involved in lay ministry and invited us to participate, but we hold back. We have never done that before. It would be a first, and it frightens us a little.
Come on. Be young again. Take the plunge. It takes faith to do something for the first time. The building blocks of confidence are first times. Don’t let a mud hole prevent you from reaching your destiny.
© Copyright 2005 by Paul Whitley. All rights reserved.
I even remember my first hamburger. I was nine years old, and my family had gone on a vacation to New Orleans. On the way back we talked my dad into stopping at a burger joint and buying us all hamburgers. The reason I remember this was because he was flabbergasted that the hamburgers costs $.35 each. We didn’t have much money in those days, so as I ate mine I felt like I was a king-a burger king! I bet I was the first kid in the neighborhood that had ever spent that much money on a burger.
I remember my first “F” in school, soon to be followed by another one. I was on a roll. I think the first one had something to do with it being spring and I was in love. I had no excuse for the other one, but it was the last one I ever got. Did I mention it was in physics?
I remember owning my first Jeep. It was used, but buying it was a dream come true. Soon after I bought the Jeep we took a trip to the mountains and I drove it down a dirt road, across a creek and up onto a muddy stretch of road. It was the moment of truth. There in front of me was a mud hole about twenty feet long. Now the thing about mud holes is that it is impossible to determine how deep they are by looking at them. I once had a bad experience with a mud hole. When I was a teenager my dad let me take the car one night over to my neighbor’s house (we lived in the country so houses were a good distance away from each other), but before I left, he told me that I had better not get stuck. You guessed it. I got stuck so bad that they had to bring a tractor to get me out. So I hate mud holes.
Let me interject something here. If you have never owned a Jeep, or other formidable 4X4, then you can’t appreciate the feeling one gets from sitting up higher than everyone else and the sense of power that comes from being able to go anywhere and do anything you want. I must say that it tends to make one a little arrogant. You also can’t appreciate the humiliation of having to call a tow truck if you get your 4X4 stuck in a mud hole! And there before me lay my potential Waterloo.
I tried to talk my way out of it, but my wife had begrudgingly watched me spend all of our money on this machine and she wasn’t about to let me get out of this. And she fought dirty! “Why in the world did we spend all that money for this Jeep if we can’t at least go through a little bit of mud!” she exclaimed. It didn’t help matters a bit that her dad who lived in the Everglades only had a 2X4 and he went everywhere in it.
At this point, I wisely spoke up and convinced her that it would be imprudent to get stuck unnecessarily out here in the backwoods of north Georgia and be stranded in the same area where they filmed Deliverance (you remember what happened to that one guy don’t you). So, finding a long pole, I decided to check the depth of the hole and the firmness of the mud underneath the murky water.
Standing at the edge of the water with my ten foot long stick in one hand and holding on to a tree with the other, I jabbed it into the water, expecting to see it sink out of sight. When it stopped abruptly at two inches, I thought I had hit a submerged rock. I tried another spot and again it only went about two inches under the surface. The entire mud hole was only two inches deep! Wisdom is vindicated by its children! (It always helps for a preacher to quote Scripture in such cases).
I just met a young lady who has the most beautiful smile. She has come on a short term mission trip to Poland. She is in her twenties, works at a bank in Texarkana, and is distracting all of my young men. I have never seen so many guys in la la land. Anyway, she is experiencing many firsts on this trip. She cut her first tomato, peeled her first cucumber, and rode on her first train. One morning she announced that she just heard a quail. Had she ever heard a quail? No! Then how did she know it was a quail??? (By the way, it wasn’t.) Is she embarrassed? I don’t think so. Are we kidding her about all this? You betcha! But you know, she is living life to its fullest. She is going for all the gusto. She is not going to allow a little thing like, “I’ve never done that before,” get in her way.
Chopping tomatoes, onions, peeled cucumber. Quail, flown out of US., ridden on a train,
May I ask you a question? Have you experienced any “firsts” in your life recently. Once we get past a certain age, we become comfortable with where we are and try not to upset the apple cart. We didn’t like being embarrassed as a teenager and we definitely don’t want to relive those embarrassments again.
But isn’t this a boring way to live! Shouldn’t we be out there rock climbing, wrestling with alligators, or skydiving. (I am sorry but I can’t attempt any of those things. I have weak knees!) Of course, there are milder ways to get out of our quagmire of routine.
I remember a movie I saw last Christmas called Skipping Christmas. There was a scene at the end of the movie in which Tim Allen wanted to give away his cruise tickets to an older couple across the street. This couple thought of every reason they could that would make it impossible for them to go. There was nothing scary about a cruise, they just didn’t want to make the effort to break out of the monotony.
Isn’t it that way with us Christians sometimes? We see how God has blessed our friends who have gone on a short term mission trip, or an excursion to The Holy Land. Perhaps a group has gotten involved in lay ministry and invited us to participate, but we hold back. We have never done that before. It would be a first, and it frightens us a little.
Come on. Be young again. Take the plunge. It takes faith to do something for the first time. The building blocks of confidence are first times. Don’t let a mud hole prevent you from reaching your destiny.
© Copyright 2005 by Paul Whitley. All rights reserved.
posted by GrandFather at 9:54 AM
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