I had the privilege to meet Charles Plumb and hear him speak when I was in
college, so this message brings back old memories...
Subject: Who Packs Your Parachute?
Charles Plumb, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, was a jet pilot in Vietnam.
After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy
hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal
and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in
Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, You were shot down!"
"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb. "I packed your parachute," the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The
man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it worked!" Plumb assured him, "It sure did, If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."
Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white
hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said "Good morning, How are you?" or
anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.
Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the
silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know.
Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?"
Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day.
Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory --
he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his
spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you,
congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do
something nice for no reason.
As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachute.
The Church of Christ, purchased with his blood (Acts
20:28), provides the parachutes that Charles Plumb referred to.
Physically, God has promised to provide our needs (Matthew
6:28-34). I think that the Church plays a major part in that
providence.
Spiritually, members of the Church pray for us, and bring us back into
God's fold when we stray (Galatians
6:1).
Emotionally, members of the Church support us as we bear one another's
burdens. (Galatians
6:2)
Do you desire these "parachutes"?
Just as the wearer needs to take action by putting on the parachute and
pulling the rip cord to take advantage of it's "saving power", action
is needed to enter into the saving power found in the Church.
God has told the actions he requires are:
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If you have strayed from the Church having once been added (Acts
2:47), God requires repentance and prayer to return (Acts
8:24).
I would like to thank the members of the Gahanna-Jefferson congregation for their
part in packing my parachute!!! Let us know if we can pack yours tonight.
--
Zachary Van Tassel --
