John 21:20-22
Each and every one of us has a
model, someone we tend to follow, someone we look up to and try to
emulate. Growing up in a small town of
about 75,000 people in 1942, my family did a great job of not sharing what was
happening in Europe, but even a small boy picked up enough information to want
to be like G.I. Joe. So my friend Tommy
Black and I would fight the evil Germans and we both wanted to be G.I.
Joe. I never met the poor farmer whose
grain field was full of our foxholes where we fought our war games, but he must
have been a good man to put up with what we did to his grain.
When I was older and at the big
park down the street, it was called the big park because the little circle that
we lived by was the small park, it was famous for it large mesquite tree,
famous to Tommy and I. Now Tommy moved
away and that was a low moment, but soon there was Jimmy, Gary, and Richard to
play ball with at the big park. If we
were playing baseball I wanted to be “Stan the man” Musial and if we played
football I always wanted to be like one of the older boys who could throw the
touchdown passes.
When I finely got to go to school,
what a disappointment! All I wanted was
to be back in my mesquite tree or playing ball at the big park with my brother
and his friends. But in Jr. high school
I met Tyrone and he had a leather black jacket, a ducktail haircut and a real
motorbike, and girls thought he was so cool.
So I became a follower of Tyrone, not the best of choices, and that
lasted for a couple of years, not good years at all, looking back on that time
of my life.
After Jr. High school, there were
others who I looked up to, others I tried to imitate, even a few I tried to
follow, and it seemed that the ones I followed were not the best of examples. So often, I fell into a dream world, and I
was always the hero, always successful, and that is a very dangerous place to
find yourself at almost anytime of your life.
When I became a Christian at the age of 27, I had formed
some very harmful patterns of following men, good men, so now that I was a
Christian, life would be very different, wrong!
I had for 27 years developed a system to get my needs met outside of
Christ, and tried to do what I had done in the past and
that was to look to a man or men as my model.
Now, over all the models were better but no matter how good they were,
they were still flawed. So at some point
we Christians must come to the same point as the Psalmist: “For you have delivered my soul from death, my
eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; I will walk before the LORD in the
land of the living. I believed, even
when I spoke:” I am greatly afflicted”; I said in my alarm, “All mankind are
liars.” What shall I render to the LORD for all his benefits to me? (Psalm
116:8-12 ESV)
Jesus has just told Peter “Follow me” and Peter was not any different
than you or I, looks around and sees John and asked Jesus “what about this man” and in a very
polite way, Jesus said that is none of your business, “You
follow me!”
As people who seem to be
followers, what can we learn from the Psalmist; this is what he did: “I will lift up the
cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD, I will pay my vows to the
LORD in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. O LORD, I
am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to you the sacrifice of
thanksgiving
and call on the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows to the LORD in the
presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the LORD, in your
midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD! (Psalm 116:13-19 ESV)
Jesus said to each of us who are
called by His name: “You follow me!”
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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