And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.
~1 Peter 3:15 NLT
I remember the day and the place: July 20, 1969. I was nine years old. Well, almost. In the middle of a hot Southern summer, I sat in our den, cooled, I’m sure, by a window air-conditioning unit, awaiting a historic moment in American history.
The black-and-white nineteen-inch television sat on a shaky stand, not attached to a secure wall stud. I knelt on our couch, awaiting the grand moment many Americans thought was NOT happening. Believe it or not, many thought no one had been flying around in space and certainly would not be walking on the moon’s surface. The government was pulling our leg. But I believed it—and wanted to see it.
Sure enough, moment by moment, announcement by announcement, slowly, the monumental event unfolded. Apollo 11 landed on the moon, the hatch opened, and an almost alien-like creature emerged. Humanity had made its first step on the moon. Neil Armstrong said of the event, “One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”
But what most people did not know was what he carried with him—another historic moment had happened years before. On December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first motor-powered airplane flight. Although their contraption only reached an altitude of eight feet and traveled 120 feet, it was a moment never to be forgotten. And Neil Armstrong didn’t. In fact, the Wright brothers could never have imagined how far and high their plane—or parts of it—would travel.
Inside Armstrong’s personal preference kit lay a 1.25-square-inch piece of muslin fabric cut from the left wing of the Wright brothers’ airplane and a piece of spruce wood taken from the left propeller. Armstrong strolled with those two pieces of history inside his spacesuit as he took that moonwalk—a tribute to the Wright brothers.
According to Peter, we must always be ready to pay tribute to the Savior we follow. And we do, whether we intentionally try or not. But intentionality is preferable. Our words and actions lift our Savior or tarnish his name before others. We should always strive for the former.
When we think of what God has done for us—sent his Son to pay our sin debt, forgiven us, given us abundant life—we should consciously pay tribute to him in all the ways we can think of.
Neil Armstrong paid tribute to humans. We are privileged to pay homage to an eternal God who loves us immensely.
As we enter this New Year, don’t miss your chance to pay tribute first to God. Then thank others who have helped you on your life’s journey.
Thanks for a great story from Apollo 11. Armstrong knew he didn’t get where he was on his own!