Beware, Lest You Forget!

Leroy was sixty-eight when referred to hospice for chronic airway obstruction. He lives with his wife “Cricket” and his adult daughter, “Bunny”. He also has three adult sons, Lee, Larry and Lonnie. Leroy’s grandson, Nick, is usually hanging around when I visit too. Leroy and his family love the outdoors and they’ve left behind them a trail of adventures, mishaps and close calls; experiences that scare the daylights out of you when they’re happening, but make for entertaining stories around the kitchen table. Bunny declared, “Dad is probably the only person in the world who almost turned over a pontoon boat.” Leroy looked up, grinned and shook his head in confirmation.

In retrospect, I knew I should have given Leroy a drivers test before loaning him our motorized scooter. Leroy took it to Indian Lake on a family fishing trip. His son, Lonnie recounted, “It was almost dark, so we decided to head back. Dad had gone ahead of us on the scooter, and as we were walking up the path with the fishing equipment we saw something fly across the parking lot. The next thing we heard was a thud. We ran to see what it was and there was dad lying on his side.” Leroy, in self defense, claimed, “I just wanted to see what it would do! I was going around a dumpster and I ran out of pavement.”

Leroy retired from a company that manufactured train rails. They electronically forged sections of rails up to a quarter mile long. Leroy hired in as a “point man”, guiding the rails onto railroad cars. But Leroy quickly climbed the company ladder, eventually becoming foreman, supervising a crew of twenty-five men. Each time Leroy was assigned a new position he was placed beside a man already doing the job. The man was told to show Leroy what to do. When Leroy became foreman in Belleview, Ohio he took a young worker under his wing and “showed him what to do”. Consequently, when Leroy accepted a new position in Russell, Kentucky, he already had his replacement trained. Not only did the young man replace him, he eventually became the plant manager and a national trouble shooter for the company.

Leroy’s story reminds me of another young man. His father died when he was eleven years old. Lacking wealth and much formal education, he had little hope of a life of national significance. But he had a heart for adventure. At age sixteen he became a surveyor in the rugged frontier lands of Western Virginia. At age twenty-one he was commissioned by the British Governor of Virginia, to carry a message to the French near Lake Erie; to tell them that the Ohio Country belonged to England. So, on October 31, 1753, he and his party of six, departed from Williamsburg, Virginia. While crossing the Allegheny River, the young man fell from his raft into the cold swirling water. And if it weren’t for his companion, Christopher Gist, the young man may have drowned or died of hypothermia. Gist pulled him out of the water, got him to shore, built a fire and tended his frost bitten extremities. That young man, George Washington, lived to became the first president of the United States. Now you have the rest of the story.

We have a tendency to illegitimately take the credit for our successes, don’t we? But God Himself warns us, “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God…who led you through that great and terrible wilderness…then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth’…then you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power…” (Deuteronomy chapter 8)

You see, there are no self-made men. What if Christopher Gist hadn’t been there to pull George Washington out of the freezing water? What if Leroy hadn’t taken that young man under his wing? What if the significant people in your life hadn’t cared for, provided for, inspired, taught and maybe even rescued you? So “Be careful lest you forget” all those people in your life who have helped you. In fact, now may be a good time to thank them for doing so.

“For who regards you as superior? And what do you have that you did not receive, but if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (I Corinthians 4:6-7)