Daily Lesson for October 14, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson is from Matthew chapter 10 verses 29 through 31:

29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

My parents live two doors down from Slide Road, one of the major streets in Lubbock and because of that they are first-hand witnesses to all sorts of interesting things.

A couple of years ago I was over there on a Sunday afternoon when there was a knock on the front door. There was a man there pointing to his cell phone but not talking. We all thought it was odd for him to be standing there just pointing and making gestures like that without saying anything. As I watched from across the room, I assumed the worst. He was trying to sell something or perhaps get in the house for some not good reason. Was he high on drugs?  Pretty soon, my mom looking down at his phone says, "Accident.  Call 9-11."

My dad already had the portable phone in his hand and he dialed as adrenaline kicked in and I bolted out of the door and look across the street to see a car stopped in the middle of the road.  There is a woman standing outside next to the car.  I run across the six lanes of traffic with our strange visitor behind.  I reach the woman and say, "Are you alright?" and she too points down to her phone and starts typing into the text. I realize then what the deal is -- they are deaf. As she types I look at the car but see no obvious damage and wonder if someone else might be having a medical emergency in the vehicle. The woman then raises phone - "Accident."  I reach for my phone and begin texting. "Anyone hurt?" I ask, showing her the phone. She then points down, and I see for the first time what in my excitement I hadn't seen before -- a single duck lying lifeless in the curb of the street. There's the accident, we've just called 9-11 about.

At just that time I am standing there wondering if it's possible to uncall 9-11, I hear in the distance the distinctively shrill pitch of a police car siren.  And right after that the whistle of an EMS transport. And then the unmistakable bass horn of a fire engine -- all coming for this one dead duck in the road.  That's when it dawns on me that I am going to have to be the one to try to explain this whole thing. As I stand there in the middle of the road and watch them each pull up one by one, I don't know whether to shake my head and laugh at it all or begin crying for the poor fowl at my feet.

And then the scripture comes to me, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father."

He who has hears to hear let him hear.