Cautious and Careful?

*On August 7, 1974, shortly after 7:15 a.m., Philippe Petit stepped off the South Tower WTC and onto a steel cable (A walk that took six years to plan, and was illegal)

He walked the wire for 45 minutes, making eight crossings between the towers, a quarter mile above the sidewalks of Manhattan.

In addition to walking, he sat on the wire, gave knee salutes and, while lying on the wire, spoke with a gull circling above his head!

As soon as Petit was observed by witnesses on the ground, the Port Authority Police Department dispatched officers to the roof to take him into custody.

One of the officers, Sgt. Charles Daniels, later reported his experience:

"I observed the tightrope 'dancer'—because you couldn't call him a 'walker'—approximately halfway between the two towers. And upon seeing us he started to smile and laugh and he started going into a dancing routine on the high wire...

And when he got to the building we asked him to get off the high wire but instead he turned around and ran back out into the middle....He was bouncing up and down. His feet were actually leaving the wire and then he would resettle back on the wire again....Unbelievable really....Everybody was spellbound in the watching of it."

Petit was warned by his friend on the South Tower that a police helicopter would come to pick him off the wire unless he got off. Rain had begun to fall, and Petit decided he had taken enough risks, so he decided to give himself up to the police waiting for him on the South Tower.

He was arrested once he stepped off the wire. Provoked by his taunting behavior while on the wire, police handcuffed him behind his back and roughly pushed him down a flight of stairs. This he later described as the most dangerous part of the stunt!

His audacious high wire performance made headlines around the world. When asked why he did the stunt, Petit would say "When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk". *Wikipedia article

Risk, adventure, daring….some are drawn to this sort of thing….they are adrenalin junkies. Is that the way you are?

It’s doubtful that we would have ever seen the Apostle Philip on a high wire, because he was the cautious practical Apostle. Philip was cautious and careful!

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, "eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!" (John 6:5-7) NIV

We've all heard the story before. Sometimes, often times it’s the familiarity of God’s word that we have to overcome. We often think we know everything about a story…in reality there is always yet another “Life” application. In the story and the life of Philip there are many!

The story teaches us: that God provides for our needs. A boys lunch of five barley loaves and two fish, are multiplied by Jesus and thousands have lunch provided by God that day!

Jesus cares about our physical necessities, that much is true... but there is another lesson in the story, not as obvious as the first, but there nonetheless. It was a lesson that Philip was to learn, that we must learn.

This story really begins—although it doesn't say so— with a mother. The mother of the little boy. Can't you just see her: baking the barley loaves (The bread of common people) preparing the fish; packing them tightly in the basket for her son to carry.

She knew it would be a long day, and her boy would need her love-packed lunch to give him strength. What she didn't know was that Jesus would need that lunch too, for a much greater purpose than that for which she was now preparing it.

The need that day was great, the provision prepared, in a humble home somewhere in Galilee.

The answer to your dilemma, just might come from the most unlikely of sources...remember God's resources are limitless!

It was a reminder that an often overly cautious Apostle named Philip needed, its a lesson that we all need, when it comes to trusting God...we are often much to cautious, and much to careful!