Clay in the Hands

I grew up on the seat of a dirt bike – well not literally of course.  But riding was a big part of my summer days as a kid.  We lived on the edge of town and we had found a huge pit about 5 miles out into the pasture from our house.  So we spent untold hours out in that pit on our dirt bikes.  One Sunday afternoon in the pit will never be erased from my memory.

I was about 9 or 10 years old and was riding my Yamaha YZ 80.  I loved that motorcycle.  My dad had gone with us and we made our way to the pit.  There were trails all the way around the lip of this big hole in the ground and of course trails going in and out of the pit as well.  On the north end of the pit was a flat area among mounds of dirt that had been pulled from the hole and left for who knows what.  It made a great place to sit and rest and so that is what several people were doing.  I made my way to the area.  I approached the area from the mounds of dirt and just as I got there, I realized that there was a 4 foot drop from where I was and where I wanted to be.  I panicked.  I could have stopped and turned around and gone back another way or I might could have accelerated and possibly kept the front end of the motorcycle up so as not to crash.  But instead I froze – I didn’t commit to either approach.  I coasted over the ledge, and for what seemed like the next hour and a half, fell the four feet, the motorcycle  landing on the front wheel and my chest landing on the handle bars.  I couldn’t breathe for what seemed like an eternity.

I learned a couple of lessons that day.  One, it helps to know the trail.  Two, landing on the handle bars is painful and embarrassing.  But the biggest lesson of the day was that being non-committal can get you hurt.

Seems like Jesus mentioned something like that when he talked about being either hot or cold.  He said that being luke-warm disgusts him.  He would rather people be cold to him or be passionate followers – the non-committal in between folks make him sick.

So where are you today?  Are you resistant to following Jesus or are you passionately seeking him and living your life to honor and please him?  Or . . . are you in the middle?  This is one instance where being in the middle is not the place to be.

Think about it today.