Vicki & I were invited to a cookout a couple weekends ago. There were 4 couples there. We have no kids...the other 3 couples have 2 kids each. They know I like to cook so they asked if I'd man the grill. I was happy too. The guy had a lot of food...even more than enough to feed 8 adults and 6 kids. There was enough food for 2 batches on the grill. I got a batch of dogs, burgers and chicken going but not being familiar with this guy's grill, I started 'em off on medium. One of the other guys was hanging out with me. We were just chit chatting about stuff, passing the time. I kept an eye on the food...it was going, but slowly, so I kept inching the temp up. There was no rush...the grill is at the top of the driveway on the side of the house...everybody else was in the backyard...adults on the deck...kids playing football and having a water gun fight in the backyard...it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Next thing I knew, the grill was turned all the way up to HIGH but the flame wasn't. The food was cooking, but slowly. Again, nobody was yelling for food yet and my one buddy (not the guy whose house we were at) was hanging with me. Everybody was coasting along. More about that in a minute.
My buddy noticed this line of Leland Cyprus trees that separated the yard we were in from the neighbor's. If you know about these trees, they are evergreens and make perfect landscape barriers. They grow about 3-4 feet a year and these were easily 20 feet tall. He contrasted those trees with one Japanese Red Maple he and his wife had planted in their own front yard 6 years ago when they moved into their house. He said that over those 6 years, that tree (although very beautiful and very meaningful to him) didn't appear to have grown more than a few additional feet in total. He said that a week or two before, as a lot of stuff had begun to bloom, he noticed that his tree hadn't greened up like some on his street. He went out to inspect the tree and when he grasped the trunk and gave it a shake, he said all of the ground at the base of the tree moved. He pulled on the trunk a bit and he said the whole tree came up out of the ground. He was standing there holding a dead tree that was so long in the making. He inspected the ground to find a huge nest of ants that had killed this tree by destroying its roots. Now, back to the grill...
It took about 30 minutes to cook that first batch and we brought them off just as it started to drizzle. The adults and kids in the back came inside and we made sure the kids had something to eat. We put the 2nd batch on as the rain picked up. The guy whose house we were at came out to ask us what we needed. I told him about the slow cooking issue. He went to his deck and pulled over his big deck umbrella for us. It was really raining now. He asked if I thought we should change out the tank. I said I didn't see how that would really make any difference. After-all, the food was cooking...just not quickly. He said we should try changing it anyway. So we did...and the 2nd batch cooked in about 8 minutes.
So what, right? I didn't think much about any of it either but a couple days later, God gave me 2 applications from those events which I shared this week at a huddle with the Small Group Leaders I coach:
- Grill - things may look ok on the surface...might be going slower than we'd like but it's ok...until stormy weather hits. Underneath the surface, we need to make sure we've got a proper and constant flow of GAS (God's Awesome Spirit).
- Tree - again, things may look ok at first glance...we may be fine to coast along for a season...but when we start assessing our growth, we may find that if we haven't been making sure our roots are established, protected and healthy, we are wasting our time.
We (me and the SG Leaders) spent some time talking about the "roots" that we (as leaders) should establish and protect in the groups we lead. It was a good discussion starter and the actual cookout experience was a real eye-opener for me.
1 comment:
Very good information
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