Daily Jewel

by Pastor Carnell, McAlester, OK
June 5, 2012

“Prepare before You have to Repair”
“Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. – Proverbs 6:6-8

An insurance salesman was asked to make a presentation to a group of teachers. He was in a rush to get the presentation together and much to his dismay, he discovered a couple of misspelled words in the handout he had prepared. To his credit, he was a fast thinker as well as a fast talker.
"We know how well teachers love to grade papers," he said. "so we placed some misspelled words on this page. The first teacher to find them wins a prize!"
Life itself is known to throw many unexpected things our way. How prepared are we spiritually to handle them?
No doubt we often have unexpected elements thrown at us—but how unexpected are they really? I think we too often fool ourselves when problems arise and we say, “I wasn’t ready for that.” Ready or not—life is about preparation and to be ready in any and every situation is the real truth of the matter.
I have always liked this particular verse for this very reason—the ant leaves very little to chance and does everything necessary to be prepared for what is to come.
I think it also brings home another idea—there is nothing wrong in preparing for the future but there is also something to be said about what it means to give each day its priority! To live in the moment and be ready for each moment really matters.
I have probably used this illustration before but I think it truly applies here: Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison.
He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience. One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!" "How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb. "I packed your parachute," the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it worked!"
Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."
Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said Good morning, how are you?' or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor." Plumb thought of the man hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know.
Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?" Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory-he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason. A day may come when you need those words of comfort and consolation. I like the words from Solomon from the book of Ecclesiastes here which I believe fits well into this message:
“Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.” – Ecclesiastes 11:1

And in conclusion, consider these words from our Lord and Savior:

“And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple,
I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward." – Matthew 10:42
Pastor J. T. Carnell