I WOULD LIKE TO TALK ABOUT SOMETHING THAT INTERESTED ME
MANY YEARS AGO when just a child. I attended the circus
and before my eyes there were three rings in full action.
I can remember it so well! The acrobats swinging and flying,
leaping through the air! But more than anything there was
something that interested me in the third ring.
I SAW A GIRL AND BOY FLINGING OUT ACROSS THE RING BRIGHTLY
COLORED MISSILES, and they had gone a little way in space
and then they would return and come back again, straight
back into the very hands that had flung them out. No matter
which direction they were thrown, back they came swiftly,
and the young actors would catch them as they curved back.
THE CHILD WATCHED IN AMAZEMENT! WHAT MADE THOSE THINGS COME
BACK AGAIN? What made them curve in their courses and circle
right back to where they began? They left that girl's hands,
and back to her hands they came! Then I heard someone beside
me say -- and it was the first time I had ever heard the
word --
THEY ARE BOOMERANGS! Well, I've heard the word many times
since then after I tucked it away in my childish mind: I
had to have it explained to me when I got home! But as I
say, I've seen it so many times in life since then,
BECAUSE LIFE IS ITSELF A BOOMERANG. EVERYTHING YOU DO COMES
BACK some time, somewhere. God's Word says, "Whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Every word
you fling out comes back some day.
I BELIEVE THAT EVEN MY THOUGHTS COME BACK UPON ME, for thoughts
are things after all. It's just an uncanny way the boomerang
has of describing a circle, that of returning back to the
very one that threw it out.
AND THAT IS THE WAY IT IS WITH THE LAW OF SPIRITUAL GRAVITY,
the law of retribution, just as fixed as life itself: That
whatever a man casts out in the world shall return again
on his own life.
HE THROWS OUT TO THE WORLD THE BREAD OF KINDNESS AND IT
RETURNS after many years, such a blessing on his own life!
He casts forth a curse and there curves back to him a greater
curse in the later years. You say, "I don't know about
my boomerang, yours strikes one way and mine another."
But as sure as you live, God's Word is true.
GOD'S WORD NEVER FAILS, AND WHATEVER YOU DO WILL COME BACK
TO YOU. I know that kind words spoken years ago gathered
momentum and I've reaped great blessings for them just in
these later years of my life.
AND IT IS THE SAME FOR YOU TODAY. YOU'RE REAPING LOVE AND
GRATITUDE FROM SOME FAR-FLUNG BOOMERANG that years ago you
flung out. It's just the same. You take a parent -- the
other day I was noticing -- who lives near me; irritable
and impatient. And then I heard the child railing back in
irritability and impatience and I thought, "It's just
the boomerang coming back to that parent."
SOME TIME AGO I MET A YOUNG MAN WHO HAD LOST FAITH IN GOD,
and in our conversation you could hear the whirl of the
boomerang, for years ago he began reading the type of literature
in his own home -- that was there by his own parents' hands
-- which leads only to loss of faith in everything.
SOME TIME AGO AT AN ALTAR -- AND THIS SURELY I CAN NEVER
FORGET -- was a dear one kneeling there and praying, a mother.
She told how it was really a boomerang that a boy of hers
had gone so wrong because she had not brought him up in
the way in which he should go.
AND THE CHILD'S LIFE, LIKE METAL WHEN IT'S HOT, HAD FLOWN
INTO THE MOLD AND HARDENED THERE, and now that he was a
man she couldn't seem to deal with him. But it had been
because of her own life in those early years, her indifference
towards God, and no prayer in the home.
NOW THE BOOMERANG HAD COME BACK AND SHE SAID, "OH,
AT THAT TIME IT WAS SO DIFFERENT! I THOUGHT IT WOULD NEVER
COME BACK TO ME, and I wasn't afraid, and I thought I was
just having a good time, and I used to say it was nonsense
about these things coming back." But she said, "I'm
hearing now the clink of handcuffs, the shutting of prison
doors over my boy, and I couldn't help but think, as I sat
in the deputy's office, that I heard in the distance just
the return on my own life and what I had sowed in that boy's
life."
SOME TIME AGO IN A HOSPITAL IN MIAMI, FLORIDA, I CALLED
ONE MORNING IN TWO DIFFERENT SICK ROOMS, one room where
Marie Smith was lying sick. There were flowers in abundance,
and all sorts of cards and beautiful little gifts that had
been sent into her room, and she was just surrounded by
those thoughtful little offers of kindness.
BUT THAT HAD BEEN HER LIFE, FOR SHE HAD SOWN LOVE AND THOUGHTFULNESS
THROUGH THE YEARS into the lives of these others, and now
it was coming back to her in her hour of need and desperate
sickness in that hospital.
IN THE OTHER ROOM WAS LYING A WOMAN ALONE, BITTER: SUSPICION
ON EVERY FEATURE OF HER FACE. SELFISHNESS HAD RUINED HER
LIFE: Selfish, suspicious, critical, and there she was lying
with her face turned to the wall. She had built around her
life a friendlessness, a coldness, a hardness of heart and
selfishness, and now she was shut in alone in the time of
her death.
OH, WHAT A DIFFERENCE IN THOSE TWO ROOMS, WHERE THE BOOMERANG
CAME BACK IN DIFFERENT WAYS! In Proverbs 26:27 God's Word
says, "Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and
he that rolleth a stone, it will return unto him."
And then in Ecclesiastes 11:1, God's Word says,
"CAST THY BREAD UPON THE WATERS: FOR THOU SHALT FIND
IT AFTER MANY DAYS." Oh, the one that lives unselfishly,
caring for the needy and lifting the burdens, easing the
pain, supplying the need, you surely will see that boomerang
come back in blessing upon them some day!
GOD'S WORD MAKES IT VERY PLAIN ABOUT REAPING WHAT YOU SOW.
If the reaping doesn't come in fullness here in this life,
it will come in the next life. Except ye repent, the reaping
certainly is coming.
BUT YOU CAN REPENT! GOD'S WORD SAYS, "EXCEPT YE REPENT,
YE SHALL LIKEWISE PERISH." But God's Word also says,
"If you confess your sins, he is faithful and just
to forgive you your sins." God's Word never returns
to Him void, and it shall prosper in that whereunto He sent
it.
IF YOU WILL TURN TO GOD'S WORD AND READ IT, AND LIVE IN
IT, WHAT A BOOMERANG IT WILL BE UPON YOUR OWN LIFE! What
a blessing it will be! Lay up your treasure in Heaven now,
and what a glorious boomerang it will be in the days of
your old age! God bless you and bring this lesson home to
heart. God's still on the Throne, and prayer changes things.
