We always have options.

Regular or de-caf. Hot or cold. Dine in or drive through. Married or single. The side by sides could go on ad infinitum. So what is all this about? Glad you asked, or at least I hope you asked otherwise this could get rather boring. Growing up I was blessed to have a really normal childhood. No big deal, right, well it is if you grew up a preacher’s kid. You might not know this but, P.K.’s are notorious for turning out something less than “angels”. The reason I say that I had a normal childhood is due largely to my parents choosing to make that happen.

You see, if you were the kid of an important person, you might have had people come up to you from time to time and tell you the obvious. “You shouldn’t do that, your dad is the police chief.” Or, “What will people say, you mom and dad are important in this community.” I hope you get the idea. Well I did not have to live in that “fish bowl” type of environment. My parents chose to let the leadership of whatever church they started or were serving at the time, that there kids would be kids and that they were to let the “Preachers Kids” be kids as well.

I think they made a wise choice. The kicker is that everyday we make choices from the get go. Wake up or hit the snooze button. Shower, shave either or both! You get my drift? Some choices are definitely more important than others. The choice we all have to make is what will we do with Jesus? There is not another decision that comes close in importance.

Let me take you down a short rabbit trailin my youth. My kids say that I am notorious for my wandering rabbit trails. Stick around, the scenery is interesting most of the time. I guess I was about six or seven years old and dad was down in Corpus Christi at Firefighter school. Being the oldest, I was the “man of the house” when dad was gone.

I took my job very seriously one day and was going to protect mom and my brother and sister from this terrible danger. I was patrolling our yard with my trusty cap pistol and my broomstick horse, and came across this HUGE, FEROCIOUS, KID EATING, DOG EATING, CALL THE NATIONAL GUARD SIZE 8 inch, dead garden snake. I quickly jumped off my trusty broomstick steed, fired off at least twenty rounds from my cap pistol and then decided it was time to put this monster away for good.

I went into the garage, found the largest pair of channel lock pliers, marched out to the deadly creature and had to choose what to do now. Well, as the man of the house, I did not want this beast in my yard. I figured that the neighbor across the street should dispose of it since I was sure it had come from their yard anyhow. (What do you think of the scenery so far?)

So I figured that this icky thing should be picked up with these big pliers, that way I would not have to touch it. So I picked it up and just then the story of David and Goliath came to mind. I was David and this enormous (8 inch) snake was Goliath. Now instead of using a sling and chucking a rock at the snake, I went one better. I would use those pliers as a sling and toss said snake across the street and into the neighbor’s yard. I had no idea how to do this other than I had once seen a guy throw a discus. So I had pliers in hand, snake in pliers, and started to spin around until I thought I would be sick.

I quickly regained my thoughts and focused on the other side of the street and let go. The next sounds I heard were broken glass and the pliers falling on the road. You see, I did not make the wisest choice. The crime scene looked as follows. The pliers were on the ground next to our family V.W. bug. The snake was laying close to my feet and I was hip deep in trouble.

Dad still had a week or so left in school and I must tell you that was one of the longest weeks of my life. I am sure I aged over a month in that week. The thing was I could do nothing to “fix” the mess I was in. I had exaggerated the danger and totally over reacted. This is sort of how we handle matters of eternity. We minimize the danger, over exaggerate how “good” we are and say that “when we see God, we will plead our case then and tell Him what a good person we were.” What a load of doughnuts. Light and fluffy and sounds good, but full of holes.

The standard is perfection and I am not that, neither are you. So what do we do now. Well you see when God created us He gave us free will, the ability to make choices. Well when Dad got home he too had a choice to make. Find another kid that was a little brighter and put me up for adoption? Fix the car and take it out of the next twenty years of my allowance? Fix the car and pretend nothing had happened, thereby teaching me nothing.

Well I am happy to tell you that I was and am still the firstborn, I did get many opportunities to earn extra money so I could help pay for the windshield. A little side rabbit trail. How does that work. I do something stupid that costs my parents money, they make extra work for me to do around the house, then they pay me money out of their pocket so I can help pay for the extra expense I caused them? Wow, I guess that is how grace works!

Grace, I have heard it explained that G.R.A.C.E. is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Think about it, I will be back with another Inside Out soon.

If you have any comments, Papa’s Pipeline has a new e-mail address. papaspipeline@gmail.com.  Your fellow servant in HIS Service

Tim Meyer