I was the breakfast cook around our house when the kids were growing up. It’s not that Holly couldn’t, or wouldn’t, but I loved breakfast, and it was an opportunity now and then for her to be able to sleep in. Belgian waffles were my favorite. As a matter of fact when I was off at college, my mom actually bought me my first waffle iron. That one is long since gone, but my love of breakfasts is not. And as a family tradition, whenever everyone is home I can be seen in the morning fixing waffles, eggs and bacon or maybe some French toast.
It was also my mom who brought me my first pair of name brand shoes. I was in seventh grade and had made the basketball team. It seemed like everyone on the team was getting this type of shoe and I just had to have it. Mom being who she was scraped together the money needed to buy me my first pair of Converse shoes, now known as “All Stars” or “Chucks”.
Well, what does my love of breakfast and making the basketball team have in common? The connection is a guy selling shoes out of the trunk of his car for a company he co-founded called Blue Ribbon Sports. But this college track coach wasn’t satisfied with the Onitsuka Tiger shoes he was getting from a Japanese shoe company. So he tried some different ideas and ways to perfect shoes for his team. Finally ruining the family’s--yes that is right--waffle iron when at breakfast he came up with the idea of the waffle sole. They later renamed their company Nike, and we know how well the company has done. All because he did not give up, was willing to step out, even when it may have seemed strange to those around him.
There is this situation Luke records for us (Luke 7:36-50). It wasn’t breakfast, or waffles or even shoes, but it did involve feet and a meal. A woman approached Jesus as He was reclining at a table eating dinner. She wet Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair and then anointed them with perfume. Now almost two thousand years later we are still talking about what she did, because she didn’t just think about it, or pray about it, but did something about it.
A shoe company that is known around the world, has billions of dollars in sales, and actually earlier this decade bought out the company that made the first name brand basketball shoe I owned. It started because someone was willing to step out and do something. A coach had a vision of something greater than just what was in front of him. It started out small, selling shoes out of the trunk of his car and has become the largest shoe company in the world, because someone was willing to step out and do it.
What can happen if you step out? If you go beyond just thinking about asking someone out to services or and activity we have? If you go beyond just being nice, which is a good place to start, and having a conversation about God and His love for us? If you go beyond showing up for “church”, and become the church in the community you live in, the place you work, or the activities you are involved with? Not saying thump them with your Bible, but bring God into the conversation. What can happen if you. . . just do it?
Think about it as you put on your shoes this week,
Randy