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 The World's Best Tie
by Paul Lee
I own the world’s best tie. Now, that may come as a surprise to those of you who know me, given that in general I hate ties. I don’t wear them anymore. I’m convinced they are part of some evil plot — I don’t know by whom or for what purpose, but rest assured, it’s evil. Nevertheless, I own the world’s best tie. It’s not the most expensive or even the most stylish of ties. It’s purple. It has a sort of design on it. It is to the untrained eye an ordinary tie. But it’s far from ordinary... You see, every Friday my family gets together for “Family Night.” We play games or rent a movie, maybe go someplace special. It’s a night that we spend together for the express purpose of enjoying ourselves and growing closer. My son, Joshua, in particular LOVES Family Night. It’s the night we play his favorite game — Touch Somebody. Joshua likes simple names for things. Sometimes for dinner we have a meal of rice and ground beef which he decided was called “Brown Stuff.” Naturally, that was adopted as our name for the recipe. In the case of the game, it’s called Touch Somebody because the object of the game is to follow the sounds made by others in the family and touch somebody. Hence, the name. It’s made more difficult by the fact that the “toucher” is wearing a blindfold, and it’s made more fun by the fact that the “touchees” must make animal noises (dogs, cows, donkeys, you get the picture). The first night we played the game, we realized we needed a blindfold. Since I was unwilling to go to Wal-Mart and ask for the blindfold department, we improvised. I grabbed a (long unused) tie from my tie rack in my closet and we played. We had a blast! When we were done, I put away the tie. I don’t even remember which tie it was; it was unworthy. The next time we played, I grabbed the purple tie. It worked admirably. When it came time to put it away, the knot just wouldn’t come undone. I could slide it back and forth a bit to make it tighter or looser, but I couldn’t work the knot all the way out. So, we just left it like that, and it has become our regular blindfold for Touch Somebody.
The Christian faith is filled with similar stories. Bread and fish are transformed by Jesus into symbols of his sustaining power. Unleavened bread and wine are no longer just food and drink, but the body and the blood of our Savior. And the cross — the rugged, humble, shameful, bloodstained cross — is now an object not of scorn or humiliation, but of power and glory and sacrifice and deliverance. I praise God for that. But even more, I praise Him for the transformations I see in the people around me. One is delivered from anger, another from alcoholism and depravity. Another’s faith grows daily, another discovers a personal relationship with Jesus for the first time, even after attending church for decades. God is working in all of us to transform us to from ordinary to extraordinary. He sees within us something we can’t see ourselves. We often don’t know why He would care about us, we doubt we’re even worthy of His attention, and we certainly can’t see what He wants us to become. But He sees. He knows. He cares. And that’s extraordinary! Kinda like my tie...
Title: "The World's Best Tie" Author: Paul Lee Publication Date: December 5, 2002 |
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