Lawn Chairs - Part I

This past Saturday Beth & I went up to the Kids Sports Complex north of town.  Our 4-year-old grandson, Brett, was playing in his 1st football game.  Flag-football.  It’s supposed to be non-contact but the kids still largely tackle each other anyway.  It’s so cute.  (I can’t believe I’m old enough to have grandkids playing sports!)  Brett did well.  He got to run the ball once (everyone on the team takes turns).  He ran the wrong way and everyone chased him.  Then he turned upfield with everyone still chasing him.  Finally he ran out of bounds just short of the goal line.  With all those kids still chasing him.  It was so hilarious!  If only I’d been videoing him!!  On to the subject of this post.

After Beth & I arrived at the field (all the kids were practicing at this point) she decided that she wanted a lawn chair so that she could sit down.  We’d dutifully prepared ourselves by putting a couple in back of her SUV.  Well, one thing that I noticed (and I am not always the most observant guy around) is the lawn chairs that everyone else had.  They were all the new kind.  You know, the collapsible, canvas-type.  There must have been 40 chairs along the sidelines and 39 of the were exactly the same.  Red fabric.  Black metal finish.  Along the fence were all these red canvas bags that they fold up into.  It looked to me like there must have been a chair rental place somewhere near by.  They were all the same.  I noticed.

So I go back to our vehicle to get our lawn chairs.  And start carrying them toward the field.  Boy, do I feel dated.  Our 2 lawn chairs are the old-fashioned kind.  You know.  Silver metal tubing.  Large.  Crisscrossed webbing.  I sheepishly carried them behind the crowd hoping no one would know what I was carrying.  I gotta say I was embarrassed.  I’m not taking those chairs anywhere again!

Do you know why?  It’s not that they don’t work.  We both sat on them and they held us fine.  It’s not that they are a problem to unfold.  In fact, I would challenge any one of those other people with their modern, fandangled chairs to a contest.  I can open my lawn chair and be sitting in it in 2 seconds flat!  They wouldn’t even have the draw string undone on their chairs in that time.  So, why won’t I take them with me anymore?  Because of peer pressure.  The need to conform.  They are not in style.  I don’t want to be seen as old-fashioned.  Un-hip.  Not 'with it'.

Come to think about it, it is rare to see a person who marches to their own drum.  Who really doesn’t care what other people think.  Who wears what they want to wear.  Who drives what they want to drive.  Who sits in what they want to sit in.  Saturday I found out that I do care what other people think.

Chances are that you do too.  Isn’t this what drives our clothing selections?  And the kind of vehicles we drive?  And our need to have the latest phone?  Or iPad?  Or Kindle?  We desperately want to ‘fit in’.  And we thought that peer pressure and wanting to 'fit in' was only the domain of teenagers.  Guess again!  I will look at the spiritual ramifications of this tomorrow.

Lord, it is absolutely amazing how much I keep learning about myself!  How much I long to be liked.  And admired.  And respected.  How much I really want to fit in.  Deliver me from the fear of man.  Help me to live in fear of You instead.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.