I don't ever recall mum telling me to 'get outside and play' when I was younger. It was the most natural thing to do, summer and winter.There was no Playstation, no X box, not even a DVD player or a Video recorder, in fact there wasn't even colour television. So the most natural thing to do after school was to have a quick bit to eat, a change of clothes and out the door before somebody mentioned the word homework. After all, there was the whole evening to sort that out. Of course what I decided to play generally depended on the season but rarely on the weather and my best playmate turned out to be the gable wall of our dwelling house all year round. For most of the time it was where the football rebounded from and though wider and of course much higher than normal goals, it did the job well as I tried to keep the ball inside he imaginary lines I had drawn in my head. In summer, it became the opposition for a game of tennis and because of the pebble dash, allowed the ball to come off at some really unexpected angles. It also became the background for the wicket hat I was bowling at when cricket started to appear on the box in early summer. How I remember trying to emulate John Edrich, the left handed batsman, Geoff Boycott and John Snow on many a summer evening or holding the tennis racquet in my left hand just like Rod Laver. But in winter, once rugby had taken its hold, nothing would stop me from using the whole yard to practise. It had been concreted a few years previously and there were appropriate joins in the grey layers at roughly where the twenty two and try line would be at each end. the walls of the sheds made satisfactory teammates as I passed the ball in their direction and caught the rebound. And of course the snow helped even more, for when there was a good thick layer on the ground, it served two purposes, first providing a soft landing on top of the concrete and secondly, through its reflective, white surface, extending the daylight on a winter evening. But of course there were so many other things to do around the farm that didn't have to involve a ball, like climbing among the bales in the hay shed, jumping into piles of loose hay, riding the bike around the yard at breakneck speed, going off for walks in the orchard or down to the nearby river and playing on the swing that had been hastily constructed out of several strands of interwoven binder twine and tied to one of the lower branches on an apple tree, with an end of an apple box for a seat. Yes there were some wonderful times outside and the beauty of it all was that we made our own fun and our imaginations ran riot as we pretended to be the heroes of our television screens.So when I hear a younger person talk about boredom in the summer and I think of all the things people now have to make amusement for them, I get really confused. But perhaps therein lies the secret, for when we don't use our imaginations and don't have to think of how to have fun, we forget how to do it. As you read this, no doubt, you will have hundreds of other things that occupied your younger years but mostly because you made he effort in the first place.
Strangely though, there are times when you are outside that you'd rather be inside. When we were at secondary school, there was an entry door that all the boys used to get inside the building. For some odd reason, every break time and lunch time as it got closer to the dreaded bell to start class, everyone would start to congregate at the door until thee was a mad pushing and shoving session right up tight to the entry, that the prefects on duty could do little about. Sometimes it took the intervention of the Vice Principal with a sharp rap of his fist against his office window to quell the tide and release the pressure. What I couldn't understand was why everybody was just so keen to get inside to class. I would have quite happily stayed out all day, but still I joined the crush anyway. The other times I definitely wanted to be inside but had to stay outside were the occasions when we locked ourselves out of our own house. So while I always preferred being outside, there were times when I would have done anything to be inside.
Jesus reminds us of the importance of not being outside the Kingdom of Heaven for there will come a day when no more will enter. He says. in Luke ch 13 'Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.' And that will be the time when you stand outside and really want inside. Jesus died outside the city wall so that He could make a way for you to enter inside into God's presence. As Paul writes, 'And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.' I finish with the words in Revelation 'Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.' Don't be left outside in His reign.
