A Little Man
Luke 19:1-10
Consider this little man Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was determined that he was going to see a miracle take place in his own life. A chief tax collector does not climb trees unless he is desperate. It's hard to maintain your dignity while shimmying up a sycamore. But there Zacchaeus was. Small of stature. there was no other way he could behold the Master passing by. And he was determined that if there was any hope at all for him, he was not going to miss this opportunity.
Zacchaeus reminds me of a story that former coach John Madden told about Jim Burt, a professional football player with the New York Giants. Jim was an All-American at the University of Miami(Florida), but he was ignored in the NFL draft. He had to talk the Giants into signing him. At training camp. he heard that when a rookie was cut by a team, an equipment boy would knock on the door of the room and tell him to go see the coach.
"You know what Jim did?" Bill Parcells, the Giants' coach, told Madden. "Jim slept on the floor under his bed. He figured if somebody came to the room but couldn't find him, he wouldn't get cut." Parcells found out about Burt's strange but determined strategy when he asked him why he looked like he wasn't getting any sleep. Burt told the coach he had been sleeping on the floor the last five nights. That's determination.
In one of his books Norman Vincent Peale tells about a ragged newsboy years ago in Chicago who had that same kind of determination. The young fellow used to huddle on a sidewalk grating near the Chicago Tribune building because the flow of heat from the presses operating in the basement kept him warm. From that vantage point, the boy could see well dressed men and women going into a theater across the street where brilliant lights on the marquee spelled out the evening's attraction. He decided one cold night that someday he would be that attraction himself, and to record the birth of this impossible dream he took a rusty nail and scratched his name and the date on the concrete windowsill behind the grafting. The years passed, and the dream did not die, and the day came when the ragged newsboy, now attired in white tie and tails, held the crowd that came to the theater spellbound with the most astounding array of magical tricks the stage had ever seen. He was Howard Thurston, the great magician., and sometimes he would take his friends and show them the name and date dimly scratched on the concrete windowsill so many years before.
It is difficult to deny someone with that kind of determination. Zacchaeus had that kind of determination. Impervious to his pride and his place in the community, he shimmied up the sycamore so that he could see Jesus. He longed for a change in his life. He believed Jesus could bring that kind of change. So he climbed up in the tree and waited. His diligence was rewarded. The Master spotted him there in that sycamore tree and called him to come down. "Zacchaeus make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today." What? The Master stay in the house of a despised tax collector? Yes, indeed. Let the crowd murmur. Let the self-righteous squirm. The Master knew Zacchaeus was searching and that he was serious. What more could Christ look for in a human heart than someone who is determined to make a new start to experience new life.
Questions to Ponder
Have you missed any opportunities in life?
How determined are you ?
Do you need to make a new start in order to experience new life?
In His Service,
Terry Phillips
