AT THE TIME...IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA!?!?

Greetings and Saluations all of you deep thinkers. Thought and good thoughts lately?

Many moons ago...when the lovely Brenda and I were first married...we use to make trips to Chattanooga (yes Mr and Mrs. Hart...you heard right...Chattannoga). It was a lovely trip...with 106 miles of beautiful scenery... from Murfreesboro along I-24, up Mont Eagle Mountain...down across Nickajack Dam....rolling around Moccasin Bend Mental Institution... into the town of Chattanooga. Once on the way home...we were driving along, enjoying the company of each other, soaking in the scenery...when we heard a rattling. "Hmmm...wonder what that is honey bunch. I don't know sugar lump...maybe we should stop the car and see."

Of course...being the manly man that I am...the provider of my woman... I pulled over the side of the road...boldly got out of my car...and began looking over the situation about which I knew nothing about. I got down on my hands and knees looking under the car from the rear end...and noticed a pipe protruding out (aka the tailpipe...aka the exhaust). In my MIND...I reasoned...I wonder if that pipe is loose and that is what is making the rattling noise? In next logically thought out that if it is loose that I should shake it just to make sure. It did not factor into the equation that we had driven 50 or more miles...and that the tailpipe just might be slightly HOT. I reached up...as Sweet Brenda Sue was sitting in the car...admiring her manly man as he took authority to solve our problem...and took my five fingertips and grapped hold of the HOT PIPE. Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course instead of instantly letting go at the first signs of pain...my fingers reflexively gripped the hot tailpipe tighter. Long story, short (I know...too late)...we went into a local truck stop looking for medical aid. Let's just say there were a bunch of burly truck drivers...sassy waitresses ala Flo on the T.V. show ALICE...all looking at a scrawny kid who was grapping hot tailpipes. AT THE TIME...IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA.


Fast forward from 1972 to 1989. I had seen some cooking show...where the chef was caramalizing sugar. He went on and on describing how the aroma was intoxicating and the taste was woooooooonderful!
Sooooooo...I got out my pan... melted butter...but in the sugar...and sure enough, he was not lying. The smell of that caramalized sugar was wafting up my nostrils like a sweet ambrosia dripping on the tongue of a thirsty soul. Again...my brain shifted into gear...thinking...I need to have a taste of that....just a taste. Control central of my brain set into motion the the arm and the index finger of my body as I reached in ever so carefully...so as not to burn myself...and dipped the tip of my finger into the caramalized temptress. Immediately...my finger tip sent a signal to my brain...Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikesss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I quickly removed my finger...and instictively...like the instincts of a well trained Ninja...place the hot glob of sweetness into my mouth to cool down my finger...not realizing that now...my tongue would be sending another signal to my brain....Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes!!!!!!!! Now I was in pain in two locations. AT THE TIME...IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA!?!?


There are two verses found in the book of PROVERBS...or as I like to call it...the book of PRO-VERBS...a collection of PRO (positive) VERBS (action) to live out our lives in this land that we call NITTY GRITTY...where stuff happens. It teaches us not only how rough life is...but how we can avoid some of the pitfalls of life...so we do not have to suffer needlessly. God's has got the cure...but sometimes...a lot of the times...we do not want the solution. Why? It might infringe upon our "fun". There was an old commercial for Excedrin headache medication...when a kindly...gentle....old lady was asking her daughter if she could help her with something. The daughter...who had a headache...snapped the old lady's head off by yelling..."MOTHER...I WOULD RATHER DO IT MYSELF!!!!!!!!!!! I do the same thing with God...because at the time IT SEEMS LIKE A GOOD IDEA.

Proverbs 14:12 says, "There is a way which seems right toa man, but its end is the way of death." God underscores this again in Proverbs 16:25, "There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death."

The Amplified Bible puts it this way..."There is a way which seems right to a man...and appears straight before him, but at the end of it are the ways of death."

The Message Bible says, "There's a way of life that looks harmless enough; LOOK AGAIN---it leads straight to hell. Sure, those people APPEAR to be having a good time, but all that laughter will END IN HEARTBREAK."

There once was an angel...who was the head worshipper in the house of God. He desired the worship that was being given to God...and hatched a scheme to take over. He convinced a third of the heavnely host to join him...and the cause and effect was that he was cast out of heaven along with a third of the heavenly host. To Lucifer...AT THE TIME ...IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA.

Everybody...reaches up...at times and grabs the TAILPIPE OF LIFE...dips our fingertip into the CARAMLIZED SUGAR OF OUR MUNDANE EXISTENCE. SMART people do STUPID things all of the time. We do it so often...that our stupidity becomes the standard for what we measure other peoples actions by...and when they fail to reach our standard...we look at them and go..."DUH!" We also do what at the time...seems right... that our senses become dulled to the voice of God...and we DO WHAT WE WANT...no matter the consequences....to ourselves or to others. We become mockers of what is right and justifiers of what is wrong. (Read Romans 1-3)

There needs to be a reaching out and touching with our fingertips alright...and NOT like my stupid blunders. We need to reach out and touch the fingertip of the Creator. As the Ralph Carmichel classic songs says..."Reach out to Jesus...He's reaching out to you."

A the fingertip of God is the fingerprint of God (I really don't know for sure if God has a fingerprint...but it sounds good). He has transferred his fingerprint to our finger tip...and now whereever we go and whatever we touch in his name...we leave His fingerprint. Don't burn the fingertip and mess up the fingerprint with what AT THE TIME....SEEMS LIKE A GOOD IDEA.

NEXT TIME: THE FINGERPRINT

Love and Caramalized Kisses
Rod "Yiiiiiiiiiiiikes!" Boyd