“COUSINS”

When I look back, I realize I had some really crazy cousins.  I had a very active imagination and they would usually follow me in any activity I would dream up.  That’s why I think they were a little crazy.  I spent part of the summer each year with my a couple of my cousins.  They really lived in the “country.”  They were so far out in the country they were almost back.

One of my favorite games was wasp fighting.  On their farm there were some very large nests loaded with Red Wasps.  They always had a large supply of wood shingles for repairing their roof.  These shingles could be converted to paddles.  We would cut handles in the shingles and then drill holes to allow for a faster swing.  Now all we needed was some long cane fishing poles because the wasp nests were under the eaves of the barn…pretty high up.  You may not know, but when you poke a wasp nest with a fishing pole, the wasps become a little irritated.  They will attack in force and then the fun begins.  As they dive for you it is time to use your paddle and swat them out of the air…dead!

We had been told not to play this game just about as many times as we played it.  Some of the wasps were very sneaky and didn’t attack from the front.  They would circle around and usually hit us in the back of the head.  They would get tangled in our hair and this made them “stinging” mad.  So, as a result, we would go home with knots on our heads and this usually caused us to have welts on our rear.  But, it was all in a day’s fun.  The cousins were crazy for buying into my ideas….right?

One of my uncles raised honey bees.  His name was Willie Ray and his twin sister’s name was Annie Faye.  He was Uncle Brother and she was Aunt Sis.  It didn’t occur to me at time that these were peculiar names for an aunt and uncle.  Some times one of the cousins would plan his own activity without my help.  One day we looked down by the bee hives and he was poking a stick in the holes where the bees enter the hive.  The bees were not too happy about this and he received many stings on his head and body.  A short stick on bees doesn’t work as good as a long fishing pole on red wasps.  It is just as effective but puts you a little too close to you work.

In order to be a leader, there must be a follower.  Each of us is a leader to someone and we also follow someone.  A leader must have influence over someone.  In the case of the wasp fighting, I was a leader and the cousins had a choice of following or not.  The cousin who poked a stick in the bee hive was acting on his own and had no followers.

We must all keep in mind that there are those who look up to us and our actions influence them whether our actions are good or bad.  Therefore, we are not only accountable for our actions, but we are responsible for the influence our actions have on others.  We depend on the leaders of our country to lead in the right direction and when that direction is wrong, we find ourselves in a real “wasp fight.”  We should never “go along” just to “get along.”  We have a responsibility to elect leaders that will be led by God and not the values of the world.  God allows good leaders and bad leaders, but He also uses each to accomplish His plans.  We can do it the easy way or we can do it the hard way.