The Fear of the First

What have you done the “first” time that filled you with trepidation?

Okay. Maybe, just maybe, for you, it was stressing over that first bite of spinach! Maybe it was questionable, but we all understood what it did for Popeye!

Okay… Maybe it has nothing to do with food.

But do you remember the first time you stepped up to something you had never done? Overcoming the fear. Building up that intestinal fortitude! Creating an “I can do this” mentality!! Then following through to success! Not that it worked right the first time, but you did it!

Through my years, I’ve done several things that were the “first,” and I survived them.

• Standing on the leading edge of a rough-cut board and squeezing up enough nerve to jump into the water 20 feet below. At a creek where you cannot see the bottom! Better yet, swinging by rope into a similar dark and murky water and releasing a good 40 feet above the surface!
• Riding in a hot air balloon over Anchorage and feeling confident enough to take the kids up in Washington!
• Soaring in a sailplane after being towed up to 3,000 feet by a prop plane along the Glenn Highway
• Getting off a ski lift successfully, then skiing down a slope next to the edge of a 2,500-foot drop… the first time to the top of the mountain…
• Driving too fast down a dark country road in your mom’s station wagon.
• Holding my first child…and not dropping him!
• Writing my first production program in the late 7Os. And it worked!
• Waiting on my first customer by myself.
• Driving my first cross-country trip.
• Preaching my first sermon.
• Pastoring my first church.
• Saying, “I do.”

My Morning Thought

This morning I thought about my very first solo flight… I wished I had been smart enough to take pictures. My plane is a Cessna 150. My instructor, Wesley Ballard. Where? Merrill Field, Anchorage, Alaska. When? It’s a little fuzzy, but it would have been about 1983. My flight book was chewed up by vermin when stored a few decades ago!

My first flight in a small plane had been at Anchorage International Airport. A different instructor, school, and experience. My second flight at the same airport was with an even different instructor who wanted to show me what a spin was like out over the Cook Inlet. I’m sure he tried to scare me out of flying!

When I committed to learning to fly, Wesley became my instructor. We had been doing touch-n-go’s. That’s where you practice flying the circuit, touching your wheels down on the runway, and then taking right back off. Over. And over. Drilling it over and over in your mind and building up your skills until you can land the plane without a bump and take off as fast as possible.

After about an hour of practice, and with only 10-12 hours of flying under my belt, Wesley told me to request a full stop and a taxi to the tower. I was almost sure of what was happening but controlled my apprehension. He hopped out of the plane, told me to take the plane around three circuits, and meet him back at his office when I was done.

He went up to the tower, and I requested permission to taxi to the runway.

Suddenly, I’m fully aware that my safety net is not sitting in the seat next to me.

Yes. He’s in the tower where he can coach me if I need it, but did you know that a plane flies differently with only one person on board? It does! Suddenly, I have elbow room and can see to the right without looking around another body.

I lined up on the numbers, looked over my controls, gazed down that long runway heading toward downtown Anchorage, and then pushed the throttle to the wall! Airborne!

Success! Three times around the circuit, with the last a full stop…. A first.

Here’s A Question

How do you prepare for your first? A lot of training, reading, studying, practicing, preparing… for that moment when you are doing something for the first time. In front of an audience. For real.

If you are the right type of personality, then you follow similar preparation steps every time you repeat the action. Nothing becomes comfortable as an “old hat.” You have the personality to treat every time as if it were the first time.

Maybe that would have helped Samson. After many attempts by Delilah to learn his strength, he succumbs to her charm and shares the truth. The next time he wakes, scripture tells us a telling tale.

Then she lulled him to sleep on her knees,
and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head.
Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him.
And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!”
So he awoke from his sleep, and said,
“I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!”
But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him.
(Judges 16:19-20 NKJV)

It’s almost as if he had played the fool too many times, and forgetting his heritage, he allowed his blessing to be stripped from him. And he did not even realize it. It’s almost as if he forgot his first. His mantle. His blessing. He dallied with the temptation, lost his blessing while asleep, and awoke as an ordinary man.

Maybe it’s like taking your role for granted. Whether a spouse, a father or a lifelong career personality, the world around you becomes just an everyday existence. No spark. No fire. Just a drudgery of day in. Day out. Year in. Year out.

Make A Change

Do you want this to be your lot in life? It will be. Unless you live like every experience around you is your First! Keep looking for the spark that makes life exciting. Fun. Enjoyable.

This winter, we saw hummingbirds hanging around through the cold, snow, and ice for the first time. So we worked hard on keeping the feeders free of ice. Bring them in at night, put them out in the morning, and watch them battle as they chased one another through the porch, shrubs, and trees.

They came back every day, and if we had not worked hard to help them survive, who knows what would have happened?

This winter, we lost contact with our favorite stray cat. Diablo. We never got to touch him. Though you could see he wanted to be touched, we never quit trying. One of my favorite videos is petting him with a broom. He loved being stroked…just not touched!

Every day he showed up, we fed him. He changed his allegiance from me to my bride. She became his favorite. The winters were hard on him as he wandered from neighborhood to neighborhood. I’m sure he fought to stay alive, but he always returned to us as a safe harbor. He failed to show up about 3 weeks ago…but not because we did not try.

Here’s a thought for you.

Treat every daily existence as if it’s a new experience with new opportunities to overcome and new victories to be won.

As I recently shared with some, “I treat every negative as a possibility to become a positive.“

Every time I crawled into the cockpit of the Cessna 150, or 152 Aerobat, I made sure I did everything right, by the book, never letting it get to be just another flight. I did not want a Samson experience. I wanted to enjoy another First…