Friday, September 5, 2008

Look before you leap....

I just finished reading a story that made me laugh harder than I had in awhile. Last weekend college football kicked off around the county. Universities spends significant dollars to develop creative ways to commemorate the first home game. One tried and true tradition is to have the game ball brought into the stadium by a skydiver. The University of North Carolina wanted to employ such a tactic last weekend and have thousands of screaming tarheel fans cheer as the skydiver brought in the game ball into the stadium. UNC had done everything, they had hired the best skydiving company with a long record of success. They had clearly communicated the arrival time and even given them the GPS coordinants. The plane took off and cruised the desired altitude....the skydiver gets set and jumps. As the skydiver falls to the earth he opens his chute and prepares for a picture perfect landing. It wasn't until his feet hit the ground that he realized that he made one huge error, he was landing in the wrong stadium...instead of UNC, he was landing 8 miles in the wrong direction at Duke stadium. That's funny!!!

As I thought about the situation I realized it happens all the time. People have great intentions and jump only to realize they're landing in the wrong place. Whatever the reason the skydive was wrong. Blame it on GPS, pilot error or a simple oversight he landed in the wrong place.

Application point: before you jump, make sure you're going to land in the right place.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to say thank you for your words of encouragement. I'm a regualr reader of your blog and the entire Elevation staffs' blogs as well. It really means a lot. I'm so glad I found Elevation. There are so many great people who constantly lift me up and inspire me to continue to head down the path God has chosen for me.

Thank You,
Jacque

ps- I really liked the message of this blog. I've been praying over some really big life changing decisions lately, and it's a good reminder to make sure I know what I'm getting myself into before I go all in =]

Anonymous said...

That's hilarious! And you know, I like Duke, so it's even more aweome. Good application, Larry! And thanks for the comment on my blog! I guess I just need a call from Fox News. :)