The Welcome Valley Reader
Exciting People
I felt honored the day
a little boy waved at me. He was sitting by his back door on a nice spring
morning. I was across the alley running a forklift for the lumber company for
which I had recently started working. Presumably, he would have waved at any
adult whose attention he could claim, but then, I was a little boy once too. A
man driving a forklift is exciting to a preschooler.
Driving a forklift
comes across as less exciting to the man driving it. True, this former little
boy still enjoys playing with his grown-up toy, but exciting it isn't. After all, I used to wave at
police cars and airplanes. There were some really thrilling possibilities out
there, and they beat doing hard physical work for moderate wages in a small-town
lumberyard.
And yet, my tiring
workaday life was exciting to a little boy. I don’t know for sure what he
thought, but his wave made me feel just a bit like a hero.
Somebody else was
watching me that day--Somebody a lot bigger than a little boy or a disappointed
lumber handler. God was watching. Now, God knows a lot more about me than even I
do. He knows my failings. He knows my disappointments and questions. I’m no hero
in His presence. In fact, it would be a relief to learn that my Christian life
even reaches the mediocre mark on His scale. But be that as it may, God’s record
is that He loves me.
Think of it. Yes, we
know. He sent His Son to die for ordinary failing people. He promises to be with
us, imperfect though we are. He offers to take care of our sins for the asking.
He promises a home with Him in Heaven. We know all that. But He also says that
the hairs of our heads are all numbered. Or, to think in everyday terms, when
God looks down at me on my employer’s battered old forklift, He likes what He
sees. He doesn’t wave, but He watches and is happy.
That’s enough to
make a guy look up into the heavens and wave long and hard.
This essay is in the public domain and may be copied and distributed freely.
How to Have a Relationship with God
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