“Making The Best of The ‘Best’!” 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 Key verse(s) 15:“According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.”
“I did my best, really!” With tear-streaked face and bit lip, the little boy looked up at his stern-faced father. In his hand he held the remnants of what was supposed to have been a box kite. But, what was supposed to have been a neatly balanced craft of tightly bonded paper, taught string and crisp balsa wood angles was anything but. The little boy thought he could do it. The directions seemed easy enough. All you needed was a scissors and some glue. But, what he now held in his arms didn’t look anything like the picture on the crumpled bit of cellophane laying on the floor beneath his feet. Some of the paper had ripped and nothing was tight. The glue hadn’t dried properly and he had more of it stuck to his finger than to the kite. It was obvious even to the little boy that what he held would probably never fly.
That little boy was me decades ago. My dad had taken me to the Five & Dime downtown and allowed me to buy a real kite, a box kite. While all the other kids had simple kites with a tail, I was determined to have a box kite. I know that he had misgivings about it. My dad was a bit of a kite connoisseur. But, in the end, he had given in. He even chipped in 50¢ to seal the deal. But now I had not only wasted my 25¢, I had wasted my dad’s half dollar. I felt ashamed as I handed the wounded kite to my dad. Luckily for me dads can fix almost anything and it wasn’t long before he and I were standing in Geason’s field behind our house with a shabby but marginally flight-worthy box kite tugging albeit limply from my hand-held line. It wasn’t the kite that was important any more and my dad knew that. That was my “best” on the end of that line and that was all that counted.
Sometimes, when someone has done their best but the best isn’t good enough, it’s best to put ourselves into their problem and, even if we have to “take part of ourselves” to cover their “best” efforts, it’s the right thing to do.
During quail season in Georgia, an Atlanta journalist met an old farmer hunting with an ancient pointer at his side. Twice the dog ran rheumatically ahead and pointed. Twice his master fired into the open air. When the journalist saw no birds rise, he asked the farmer for an explanation. “Shucks,” grinned the old man, “I knew there weren’t no birds in that grass. Spot’s nose ain’t what it used to be but him and me have had some wonderful times together. He’s still doing the best he can -- and it’d be mighty mean of me to call him a liar at this stage of the
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