March 16th: The boiler in our pool was recently down a month. The water temperature has dropped to about 70 degrees. I am sure if most of us went swimming now we would first dip our toes in the water and feel how cold it is. We would probably walk over to the steps and get our feet acclimated to the temperature and then our calves and then we would slowly walk into the water until our entire body has adjusted to the 70 degree temperature.
If we were to get into the water like that, the experience of swimming would probably be miserable. This is just a series of uncomfortable moments that strung together will make for a miserable experience.
But Mike Breaux, the author of the book Making Ripples, says that the cannon ball is a much better way to enter the water. He suggest that we should get a running start, and just as we hit the edge of the pool we jump as high as we can, tuck in mid air and wait to hit that cold 70 degree water. The splash would go everywhere and the ripples would go to the wall and back. If the pool walls weren’t there, those ripples would just continue to go out, long after we made our splash.
Mike Breaux suggests this is what God has in mind for us. God says to us, “Trust me – Jump. Make a splash with your one and only life, and we can make ripples together. Live your life in such a way that you touch someone else’s life. Then they’ll touch someone else’s life, and they’ll touch another life, and so on and so on.
Paul put it this way in 2nd Corinthians – “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”
Charlie Harry lived his life in constant ripple. Touching the lives of not only the people in this room but thousands at the Y and someday millions around the world. Because he knew that a life can touch a life that touches a life.
I needed Charlie recently. We opened bids for the Boiling Springs YMCA and they were much greater than I had hoped for. I must have been pretty pale sitting around that table, wondering what I was going to do to make this vision come through.
If Charlie would have been there he would have first made me laugh and got me to relax. Then he would have just walked me through the realities and the discussions of the economics, potential, and what ifs. But at the end he would have brought me back to the vision and the lives that would be changed and he would have encouraged me to come back with a plan that would focus on that – life change.
Because Charlie knew that a life touches a life that touches a life.
If we were to get into the water like that, the experience of swimming would probably be miserable. This is just a series of uncomfortable moments that strung together will make for a miserable experience.
But Mike Breaux, the author of the book Making Ripples, says that the cannon ball is a much better way to enter the water. He suggest that we should get a running start, and just as we hit the edge of the pool we jump as high as we can, tuck in mid air and wait to hit that cold 70 degree water. The splash would go everywhere and the ripples would go to the wall and back. If the pool walls weren’t there, those ripples would just continue to go out, long after we made our splash.
Mike Breaux suggests this is what God has in mind for us. God says to us, “Trust me – Jump. Make a splash with your one and only life, and we can make ripples together. Live your life in such a way that you touch someone else’s life. Then they’ll touch someone else’s life, and they’ll touch another life, and so on and so on.
Paul put it this way in 2nd Corinthians – “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”
Charlie Harry lived his life in constant ripple. Touching the lives of not only the people in this room but thousands at the Y and someday millions around the world. Because he knew that a life can touch a life that touches a life.
I needed Charlie recently. We opened bids for the Boiling Springs YMCA and they were much greater than I had hoped for. I must have been pretty pale sitting around that table, wondering what I was going to do to make this vision come through.
If Charlie would have been there he would have first made me laugh and got me to relax. Then he would have just walked me through the realities and the discussions of the economics, potential, and what ifs. But at the end he would have brought me back to the vision and the lives that would be changed and he would have encouraged me to come back with a plan that would focus on that – life change.
Because Charlie knew that a life touches a life that touches a life.
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