Laura had ordered some jump ropes for our family. She said that she ordered them from a world-famous jump rope guy named Peter Nestler. He said that he made these himself. That did not really seem to help us jump any better. The cool thing is that he holds some kind of world record in jump roping and is a born-again Christian. Laura called and actually spoke to him one day and he was on his way to perform and speak at a youth mission camp. Whatever you can do well, God has a way for you to use that for His glory.
We had a blast jump roping. Maybe I should say we had a blast trying to jump rope. We got two long jump ropes and Laura said what we were doing is double dutch jump roping. I call it jump roping with two people turning the ropes. It's a lot harder than just jump roping with one jump rope by yourself. It took a while for us to get the hang of it. OK, it's going to take a while longer for us to get the hang of it. It is like anything new; it feels kind strange to do something that you either have never done or haven't done in a really long time. I wonder who you think did the best?
It was also kind of tiring for us. It is not something that we do a lot. With two jump ropes turning, you have to sort of double time it. Then, someone else is turning the ropes so you feel a bit out of control. You really don't have to jump long to get pretty winded. We jumped and laughed and encouraged each other for a while. It was a fun family evening.
As I thought about this tonight, what I thought about was how important the timing was in this kind of jump roping. It was hard for us to know when to run in and start jumping. If we could ever get 2 or 3 jumps, then we could jump a bit. Most of the time, we would get fouled up on the first or second jump. That's not exactly a stellar performance.
As followers of Jesus, timing is important to us as well. We need to obey God when God speaks. Sometimes we have an opportunity to share Christ with someone else and we put it off or make some kind of excuse. In our minds, we might (I have certainly) think that we'll have another opportunity to do this another time. We might, but we might not. Even if we do, that person's heart may not be as receptive to the message as it was when we first had that opportunity. It is a valuable lesson to learn to obey God when God speaks and not put Him off. In our minds, we think we are putting some task off. But if God is leading us to do that, we are really putting God off. That's never a good idea.
So, when God speaks, let's get jumping. By the way, Hannah Grace had the most jumps in a single turn tonight.
Jumping into the abundant life
Barry
3 things I thank God for today
1. Haiti mission meeting I went to today
2. The Birchfields who lead that ministry
3. The Schwindlings who are missionaries in Haiti
No comments:
Post a Comment