I Wonder Where This Goes?

I entered the first grade in 1952 and graduated from high school in 1964; and I have to say that truly was a great time to be a kid growing up in America.  For one thing, life was much simpler back then.  A bicycle was just a bicycle … it didn’t need to be anything special.  As long as it had two wheels and it went forward when you pushed the pedals and it stopped when you reversed the pedals … then life was good.  Baseball could be played anywhere if the ground was relatively flat … and you didn’t need to worry about whose feelings might get hurt if you won and they lost.  In fact, that was one of the great things about it … it was just a bunch of kids who got together and picked their own teams and then tried to beat the “you know what” out of the other team.  It was great!

Another thing that was great was after school play time.  As soon as school was over every kid knew that they were totally free to do whatever they wanted until their mom yelled for them to come home for supper.  My dad used to have one rule in our house … he said that we kids could pretty much do whatever we wanted as long as the police didn’t bring us home.  I’m not saying that everything I ever did was pristinely pure … but the police never brought me home … not once in all my years of growing up.

And if after school play time was great … then summers were like heaven on earth.  Every day from the time you got up until mom called you home for supper it was pretty much go wherever you wanted to go and do whatever you wanted to do.  Sometimes that meant that life got a little bit scary, but then that also made life a little bit more worth living.  A case in point was a time that a friend of mine and I decided to explore our neighborhood drainage system.

As boys are wont to do sometimes, we were playing in a drainage ditch, when we looked up and noticed a 15” drainage pipe up above us.  One or the other of us wondered where it might lead to, so without much further thought we decided to climb in and explore.  As it turned out, the pipe didn’t lead us into a labyrinth of endless tunnels, but it did give us the opportunity to see what the streets around our neighborhood looked like from eye level.  The scary part didn’t show up until it was time to call it a day.

When we got to where we had entered the pipe, my friend who had been leading the way became afraid of the 4 ft drop off the end of the pipe.  The idea of having to dive head-first onto a pile of rocks did not interest him.  I said that I would go first instead, but this meant that in order to do so we would have to back up about 20 ft to get to a place where we could switch places.  Going forward in the small pipes had been a piece of cake, but it turned out that trying to back up inside the small pipes was not so easy.  There were times when I truly did wonder if we were ever going to live to see another day.  However, we did manage to eventually inch our way back, and I did eventually take the tumble out of the pipe, and we did eventually manage to get home in time for supper without being too much the worse for wear.

Believe it or not, I actually do have a point to make in this particular Ramblings … and it has to do with the simplicity of life.  As a kid, my life was fun growing up because we were allowed to be kids.  We didn’t need adults to organize our life for us.  We didn’t need adults to make sure our feelings didn’t get hurt.  We didn’t need adults to make sure everything we did was safe.  We learned how to make life work by being allowed to make mistakes and then being allowed to learn how to fix those mistakes.

One of the most wonderful things about being a Christian for me is the fact that my Christian life is very much like ordinary life was growing up.  My heavenly father loves me and wants me to have a happy and meaningful life.  And He has now given me the freedom to go out and try to learn how to live out my life as a follower of Jesus with childlike abandon.  He has given me His word which is filled with great things that are worth knowing and wonderful wisdom worth learning.  Through faith in Christ, I know that my sins are forgiven, and I know that when God finally calls me home for supper He will be waiting for me with open arms.  In the meantime, my job is simple … enjoy life within the rules that God has established … and invite as many other people as are interested to join me in living their lives for the glory of God.