Author: Jon Partlow

Choosing the ideal place for a pickup game of football can be a challenge for any sixth grade boy. Then again, they can turn a living room into a practice field on a count of “three.”

Being raised in Portland, Oregon, given the amount of daily rain accumulating allowed for great football games in the mud. However, getting all filthy during school hours was frowned upon, if not discouraged. So what are a group of boys, in recess on a drizzly day with a football going to do?

My elementary school offered two options for boys to play on a paved surface for a friendly game of touch football. The first was a long but narrow strip in the front of the school. It just wasn’t wide enough for football. The other was the patio in front of the building, where we played foursquare, jump rope and tag. It was wide enough but not very deep. Windows nearby were a potential problem as well as getting the ball stuck up on the patio roof, about eight feet tall.

As fate would have it, a group of sixth grade boys – Rodney, Brooks, Leon, Monte, Waylon – were playing a pickup game of football in a drizzly, wet day, when the ball somehow got booted up on the patio roof and wasn’t coming down. Game over. Ideas were thrown about how to retrieve the ball, including asking the janitor, Mr. Dodds. But he was elderly and wasn’t about to go up there. The best idea was to lift someone to the roof, but they needed someone small, wiry and light weight.

That’s where I enter the story. I was a first grader who fit the bill and just happened to be walking by (probably returning from the bathroom). The boys called out to me, asking me to help them out, to which I was more than eager to lend my service. They hoisted me to the roof where I easily retrieved the football and saved their game. For a moment, I was the hero. But then I had to come down, and that’s where I froze. Time was of the essence and suddenly I was flagged for “delay of game,” and must have become the villain.

From an eye-point vantage, getting up is easy because you’re visually near the target. But coming down looks like your peering into the Grand Canyon. I had two options. First, slide down on my belly to give me more control over the “fall,” but risk pulling the gutters off the building. We rejected that option. Better yet, jump into the arms of the biggest boy in the group. I knew these boys. They were good guys who hung out with my brothers. But they were sixth graders. And the biggest boy was Leon who couldn’t catch COVID-19 even if an infected person sneezed on him.  

So there I was, standing between two choices I refused to make. The boys were calling for me to jump. They reached out their arms. They made their promises. They guaranteed I’d be caught. They wanted me to take a leap of faith, but I wasn’t gonna budge.

Such moments make me appreciate the disciples when they saw Jesus walking on the water (Mt. 14:22-36). They not only had to process the unbelievable: Jesus making strides on the waves as if it was laminate flooring. But they also had to decide how safe it was to step out of the boat, all in a matter of moments. They froze. At least eleven of them did. Peter accepts the challenge until committed, he sees the waves, and then he freezes. But ultimately, that’s what we call faith. Beyond the fear, and before the pride, you trust that the person telling you to jump will catch you. Or you trust the one calling you from the sea that if you focus on him, you can walk on water. And if he’s Jesus, you know you won’t slip through his fingers.

My oldest brother, Steve, walked by and saw the scene. He was a seventh grader and was changing classes. The boys informed him of the situation, how I was stuck up on the roof and wouldn’t come down. He came over, looked me in the eyes, extended his arms and said, “Jump, Jon. I’ll catch you.” Without even hesitating, I leaped safely into his arms. I realized, maybe not then but certainly now, that choosing who to trust in your “leap of faith” is the game-changer for you to live by faith.

Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e. only God is glorified!)