As most of you know, our son Blake is adopted. He was eight days old when we brought him home. He is now 27 years old. A lot has changed in these 27 years. One of the most striking changes has been in his height. Twenty-seven years ago he was 19 inches long. Today he is 6'5" tall.
Blake is now teaching history and is assistant boys basketball coach at Olive Branch High School. Last fall I went to Olive Branch to pick up his truck to get some work done on it (Parents still often do that kind of thing when their sons are teaching school; it's not the kind of profession that results in an excess of income).
That day I met Blake at school at his lunch break to switch vehicles with him, and we went to a Subway near the campus to eat together. We went through the line, and, as we came to the cashier at the end of the line, I discovered that she knew Blake from school. They visited a little, and then he pulled a trick that he has perfected; he went to get our drinks while leaving me at the cash register to pay the bill. As he left, he asked, "Dad, what do you want to drink?"
After I told him what I wanted to drink, I turned to the cashier who said to me, "Are you his dad?" When I said yes, I saw this puzzled expression come over her face. It's one that I've come to recognize over the years. She looked up at him, and then she looked down at me, and it just did not compute. So, she said to me, "Your wife must be really tall." I'm not sure what mental picture she had of my wife, but I figured that if she took my 5'8" and added it to my wife's height to arrive at an average of 6'5" she figured that Danielle must be at least 7 feet tall.
I said, "No, actually Blake is adopted." She looked really embarrassed when I said that. So, in an effort to relieve her embarrassment, I used a line that I often use in such situations. I said, "I can't claim that my genes made him that tall, but my groceries had a lot to do with it." She smiled at that.
Sometimes I make a preemptive strike when I see someone eyeing him and me, trying to figure out how I have a son so tall. I say, "I know what you're thinking, but when I started preaching I was 6'7" tall. This job has really worn me down."
It's not that I enjoy being 5'8". I've always wanted to be taller than I am, but I just did not have much control over it. When it dawned on me that I would be rather short, I had to make a lot of adjustments. One of the main things I had to do was cancel my plans for a career in the NBA.
Our physical height is predetermined, but it is up to us as to how big we will become in the Lord. Paul said that we should aim for the "edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come . . . to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:12b-13). Our prayer should be that God would help us grow up in Him! How tall do you stand in Him today?
