Whachis!

In case you've never seen the t-shirt, "Whachis" is defined as the last words said by a redneck before killed in some stupid stunt, i.e. "Watch This". We've probably all been guilty of this at least once, us guys anyway. While in the dentist's lobby today, I read an article in Sports Illustrated (Apr 21 edition) about the dangerous risks we take. The writer had signed up for a weekend bull riding school. He broke his collarbone. A fellow student was killed. This weekend my wife probably felt like I belonged somewhere in these categories.

Here's the story. If you are blood related to me, you were there when this happened. The other three people who read this were not, so bear with me as I share the details. We were gathered at my sister's house for my niece's birthday party. Her husband brought out his childhood go-cart for everyone's enjoyment. I got the second ride of the day, just to test the throttle and choke adjustments. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. On my last lap around the house, I turned the wheel sharply to pull into the "pit area". I turned a little too sharply. The go cart flipped. The upper frame landed on my forearm (I have a big knot near my elbow). This is a picture of the "road rash" I received as the cart and I slid for a few feet. My wife screamed. My oldest son, my brother-in-law, and the other fathers there for the party all laughed. Then all the wives sat around and talked about their juvenile husbands. The younger wives were warned by the older ones that it does not get any better.


This pic was taken the morning after. It doesn't do justice to how really cool the scrape looked when it first happened. When it first happened, I had red streaks all the way up to my wrist. The wound area was a bit wider. I was totally bummed the next morning when I saw how much it had healed. I was hoping to get a day or two of some really cool stories to tell about my great accident.

I have found that many of us treat our faith journeys with a "whachis" attitude or we glory in our accidents. We talk about how bad our lives were before we began our journeys. We do it for all kinds of reasons. We do it to remind ourselves how far we have come. Sometimes we do it to brag about how far we have come, forgetting the grace element. Perhaps we want to get some excitement back into our lives and we start walking down memory lane.

It becomes really dangerous when we say "whachis" with our faith journeys and allow ourselves to be put in risky situations where staying true to our faith can be difficult. It is true that God will always give us a way out of any temptation we may face. At the same time, it is our responsibility to avoid the temptation as much as possible, not go hunting it down.

Other times we want to hold onto our wounds. We may know that God can heal any wound in our lives. We know that it is through Jesus Christ that he does this. But the wound becomes such a major part of who we are, that we don't want to let it go. We are afraid of what life will be like if we don't have it in our lives. That fear is another one of those things God can deliver us from.

Which of these categories do you belong in? BTW, my son later turned over the minibike. We went window shopping for dirt bikes today.