The lucky thumb


Funny story in church yesterday. You may have heard it before. Here’s my re-telling.

This African chief has a great pal, with whom he does everything – they hunt together, fish together, eat together etc.

One day, the chief gets his hands on a rifle. All excited about his new acquisition, he goes out into the jungle to test it with his pal. Unfortunately, the rifle is a bit faulty and the first time he fires it, it blows off his thumb!

The pal tells him “Don’t worry, this is great, everything will work out well!”

To which the irate chief replies “AAARRRGGH are you CRAZY?! I just lost my thumb!” And upon their return to the village, the fuming chief throws his pal into jail (so much for the rule of law).

A year later, the chief’s pal is till in jail, but the chief feels well enough to go hunting again. Wisely, he decides to stick with his trusty spear this time. Unfortunately, he gets captured by a bunch of vicious cannibals! Just as the cannibals are lowering him into the cauldron with the turnips and onions, they notice that his thumb is missing. Being a superstitious lot who won’t eat anything that isn’t whole, they decide to release him and chase him away.

The relieved chief returns home, and then remembers his poor pal who’s still stuck in jail. He gets his pal out of jail and says “You were right, blowing off my thumb worked well for me after all – will you forgive me for putting you in jail?”

To which his pal replies “Oh chief, it was great, everything worked out well.”

The astounded chief says “How can that be? You were stuck in jail for a whole year!”

And his pal says “Well chief, if I hadn’t been in jail, I’d have been with you, and I’d be dinner right now.”

Rather similar to the Sword in the Stone story don’t you think? Except we know that it is not coincidence, but God’s work in our lives. All things work for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose! Rom 8:28

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bullying? Stand up!

Image
When I was a kid, I remember being bullied a fair bit.  I was small for my age, bespectacled, shy.    The teachers didn't help by putting a target on my back by making me Vice Head Prefect.  I would get my stuff just taken away from me by bigger kids, dragged out into the field to be tickled until I collapsed (much less fun than it sounds), and pushed into the storm drains.  Not all the kids were full-blown bullies of course.  But I remember some of them standing by, and politely holding my spectacles (so they wouldn't be broken) while the bullies did their work on me. Most of this stopped when I got to secondary school, where a much larger proportion of my fellow students were now just as nerdy!  And of course I grew up too.  I don't really look back on those days with any kind of animosity, because I think it never occurred to me that it was unusual.  But I do think my experience made me a bit more sympathetic about people around me who...
Read more

Life as a pie chart

Image
Someone told me recently about a "life exercise" in which one compiles all the stuff that makes up your life, and puts it in a pie chart.  So let's say for me, something like this. The idea is to visually demonstrate to myself that, in the event I lose one of these things, then I can see that, hey life is not so bad, that wasn't such a big deal.  Say for example, if I suffered a blown ACL, and couldn't run or play basketball any more, like this: At first blush - I'd say, hey, I still have my wife, children, parents, career, church life - so, chin up, things are not so bad.  Pretty good life visualisation tool to bring some optimism back into play! ... But what if, a month later, something happens at work, and boom, career gets sidetracked, I lose my job, or get put in cold storage somewhere, like this: Oops, now only half my life is left!  With only half of life's meaning left to me, what do I do? And what if something happens to...
Read more

Family AND Team

Image
I heard an interesting viewpoint this weekend. A family is not inherently a team. Hmm.  Sometimes at work, often in church, and most of the time at home, you hear people say to each other that we are family. And often, we really are. We care for each other above and beyond transactional matters.  It matters to me when my colleagues and cell group members (and of course my actual family members) go through illnesses or family issues or work challenges. I root for their success at presentations and projects and relationships. I care about what they care about, even if it has little direct impact on my own life. In a way, a family is sort of an amalgam of people who support each other in pursuit of each member's personal goals. For example, as a father, I support my children in their academic, career and ministry goals. But where they go to school, the grades they get, and the careers and ministries they build - they're really their goals, not mine.  Ditto for my role as a c...
Read more