What Did They Get Out Of It?

  In 1939, a film called “Code of the Secret Service” hit the theaters. It was one of a series of movies about a tough-guy Secret Service agent named Brass Bancroft.  It wasn’t much of a hit. Even its star considered it one of the worst films he ever made. But for a ten-year-old boy from Miami Florida named Jerry Parr it was inspirational. After making his father take him several times to see the flick, he made up his mind that one day he was going to become a Secret Service agent. And that is exactly what he did.

  Forty-two years later, Jerry Parr found himself living out his childhood dream as part of the security forces guarding the President of the United States. It was a seemly ordinary March day until a gunman named John Hinckley appeared and began firing.  Parr dove to protect the President and pushed him into the waiting car that immediately sped off. When Parr noticed the President coughing up blood, a result of a pierced lung from a ricocheting bullet, he made the call to head straight to the hospital. A decision that probably saved the President’s life.

  Bass Bancroft would have been proud. He certainly was grateful. At least the former actor who played him was. That was the very man Parr had saved former actor and now President of the United States Ronald Reagan.

  In life, it is easy to forget about the things we did and only evaluate them in what it did for us. What did I get out of it? How did it help me? What good was it for me? Yet our actions don’t exist in a bubble, they affect and influence others as well. And those others may be the very ones we will be calling on in our time of need.

For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself;”

Romans 14:7 

  Think about it in terms of assembling with the saints. We often view it solely on the basis of ‘what did I get out of this service’. Yet our attendance isn’t just about what us. We are to “encourage and spur on one another” (Hebrews 10:24-25). I might not think much of it but it may be exactly what others need. Yet if I complain or lose interest, it might not be there for them and later may not be there for me! Good teachers quit when no one attends their class. Preachers falter when are continually discouraged by low turnout. Elders wear out when no one heads their messages.  A message may fall flat to us yet to others it can be the very thing that inspires them to service that might just save us from danger in the future.

  Our actions and attitudes are ripples in the pond that can move others. Let make sure they are moving them in the right directions and not sinking the ship.