Where I'll Be and Why

I will be preaching for another pastor this Sunday because he has dirt on me, literally.

It all goes back to my childhood.  One summer Saturday when I was a preschooler, I was playing outside while my father was trying to get at least one of our two worn out lawn mowers to run so he could mow the yard.  It was not going well so he decided to take a break, go inside for a while, get a drink of water and cool off.

The mowers were near our back porch which was also where the sand pile I was playing in was located.  I had recently made a visit to an uncle who ran a filling station.  It inspired me.  I wanted to play "filling station."  I began to pretend the mowers were cars and I was the attendant.  Yes, I am old enough to remember when there was no such thing as a self service gas station. 

I apparently did not have much of an imagination at that stage because I could not just pretend to put gas in my imaginary mower/cars.  I had to actually put something in the gas tanks.  Nothing was readily available but the sand in my sand pile.  Little me, of not much imagination or understanding of the workings of internal combustion engines, poured sand in the gas tanks of the two worn mowers that did not want to run to begin with.  Needless to say when my father returned and discovered my filling station, he was not happy.  Let's just say I was strongly rebuked and I never saw the need nor had the desire to pretend to play filling station again.  It was not comfortable for me to sit down that afternoon either.

After things settled down and cooled off, it was decided by may family that this incident was kind of funny so the story got told the next day at church.  T. Wayne Price was the pastor of my church then.  He is now the pastor of First Baptist Church, Refugio.  He called me several months ago to preach at a one day church renewal event that he was hosting.  He reminded me he had dirt, or maybe better put - sand, on me.  I will be preaching there Sunday.  But so this story can never again be used against me, I have confessed it all to you here.

Pray for me and I will pray for you this Sunday.

For the journey....