Friday, August 15, 2003

Cow Town

When you're young things can seem bigger than they really are or smaller than they really are, depending on your perspective. When I was young, things seemed huge. The little farming community I grew up in was around 30,000 or so (if memory serves) but I was sure there were at least 100,000 people living there and that it would take a person at least a week to traverse on foot. Cause man, that was one booming metropolis. Then I began to grow and my world began to shrink. I hit my teen years, when there is no such thing as perspective, except mine of course. When you're a teen things generally seem less significant than they really are and you are generally positioned at the center of the universe. I know I was. Having traveled the world (which meant I had walked from College street to West street in only an hour or two) by the time I was 14, I just knew that this little cow town couldn't have more than a dozen people in it and I could probably throw a rock clear past the train tracks. Certainly nothing significant would ever come out of this silly, little, insignificant town. So I grew some more thinking that I was probably the saving grace of that place while everyone else was going to homecoming parades and watching High School football games and musicals and cruising Main street on Friday nights. Boresville…or so I thought in all my glorious arrogance. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Neil Roberts changed that. He attended my old high school. He was a freshman during my senior year at Woodland High School in Woodland, California. And he was murdered in Afghanistan while serving America in Operation Anaconda as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. He was a Navy Seal…one of America’s real heroes. I wish I’d have known him.

There was another little town with little or no potential. But a great man came from there, too. The town was Nazareth and the Man was Jesus. “What good can come out of Nazareth?” people would ask. He was murdered , too…in support of Operation Redeem Man. I’m glad I know him.

John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

Take a moment and introduce yourself to Jesus…a real Hero. I know He’d love to meet you.