"ZIP IT! JUST ZIP IT!"

If you put a buzzard in a pen six or eight feet square and entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of his ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner. The reason is that a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of ten or twelve feet. Without space to run, as is his habit, he will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top.

The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkable nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and, no doubt, painfully, until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.

A bumblebee if dropped into an open tumbler will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.

In many ways, there are lots of people like the buzzard, the bat and the bee. They are struggling about with all their problems and frustrations, not realizing that the answer is right there “above” them.

Problems surrounded Jesse. Skinny and weak. Always getting picked on. He hated this job. Jesse was a chicken-plucker. He stood on a line in a chicken factory and spent his days pulling the feathers off of dead chickens. It wasn’t much of a job. But at the time, Jesse didn’t think he was much of a person.

His father was a brute of a man. His dad was actually thought to be mentally ill and treated Jesse rough all of his life. Jesse’s older brother wasn’t much better. He was always picking on Jesse and beating him up.

Yes, Jesse grew up in a very rough home in West Virginia. Life was anything but easy. And he thought life didn’t hold much hope for him. That’s why he was standing in this chicken line, doing a job that darn few people wanted.

In addition to all the rough treatment at home, it seems that Jesse was always sick. Sometimes it was real physical illness, but way too often it was all in his head. He was a small child, skinny and meek. That sure didn’t help the situation any.

When he started to school, he was the object of every bully on the playground.

He was a hypochondriac of the first order. For Jesse, tomorrow was not always something to be looked forward to. But, he had dreams. He wanted to be a ventriloquist. He searched and found books on ventriloquism. He practiced with sock puppets and saved his hard earned dollars until he could get a real ventriloquist dummy.

When he got old enough, he joined the military and, even though many of his hypochondriac symptoms persisted, the military did recognize his talents and put him in the entertainment corp. That was when his world changed. He gained confidence.

He found that he had a talent for making people laugh, and laugh so hard they often had tears in their eyes. Yes, little Jesse had found himself.

You know, folks, the history books are full of people who overcame a handicap to go on and make a success of themselves, but Jesse is one of the few I know of who didn’t overcome it. Instead he used his paranoia to make a million dollars, and become one of the best-loved characters of all time in doing it!

Yes, that little paranoid hypochondriac, who transferred his nervousness into a successful career, still holds the record for the most Emmys given in a single category.

The wonderful, gifted, talented, and nervous comedian who brought us “Barney Fife” was none other than Jesse Don Knotts. 

From a kid who was bullied at home and at school to a dead end job as a chicken-plucker holds the record for winning the most Emmys as a Best Supporting Actor on a TV Series has a street named for him by his statue in Morgantown, West Virginia, his place of birth.

There is an old saying in the Deep South, “you can’t get lard unless you boil the hog.” Translated it means you have to live life to experience all it has to offer. We all know first hand life has an immense amount of ambushes and land mines giving us a healthy dose of defeat, failure and missteps. None of us wanted to enroll in the school of hard knocks but it is a vital part of maturing and becoming savvy about the world. God teaches us all of those hard knocks and sufferings makes us stronger. (Romans 8:3)

 When we graduate from the school of hard knocks, we show our scars and worry lines as our diploma. Many of us look and feel like chewed twine but we have learned, experienced and survived life’s ambushes and booby traps. Most of us will have learned from those “come to Jesus” moments to get closer to God, read the Good Book more and understand God takes calls 24/7. (1 Peter 5:10) Yes, we have learned God never ever gives us more than we can handle! (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Unfortunately, some of us forget what caused those scars and worry lines or have some proclivity for more pain and agony so we return to those same paths full of land mines. Or, many of us will avoid the actual return to the mine fields and instead do the regret two step dance to beat ourselves over the head by focusing on the regrets of our bad decisions and missed opportunities. Jesse Don Knotts is an example of using those problems and hard knocks to realize his dreams.

 Life’s problems are something like this. If we hold it for a few minutes in our head, they aren’t too bad. Yet if we think of our woes and ills for a long time and they begin to ache. But when we hold onto our problems even longer, they will begin to paralyze us. We will not be able to do anything. So when we resolve our problems, give them a deep sea burial. If we don’t keep the past problems and past sins buried at the bottom of the ocean we can find ourselves doing the regret two step and singing the “shoulda, woulda, coulda” blues. That’s right we will be eating two spoonfuls of sorrow.

Yes, the “shoulda, woulda, coulda blues” is in itself a land mine. Old el diablo can’t stop Jesus from saving us so he uses regrets to make us feel bad and doubt God has forgiven us. Think about it, we are eating sorrow by the spoonful about something we did or didn’t do twenty, thirty, forty years ago. Why do we waste a second about something we did or didn’t do forty years ago? God has put us where we are right now in 2020 for a reason. His reason. (Acts 17:26) That’s right, salt that down again. You are where you are right now because that’s where God wants you.

Worse yet is some of us are wasting time living mired in regrets when God has already forgotten what we did or didn’t do. Because we are thick headed at times, God made it simple for us by telling us “I will remember your sins no more.” (Hebrews 8:12) We need to follow suit and leave our problems and sins buried at the bottom of the ocean. Or as Barney Fife used to say; “Zip it! Just Zip it!

Heavenly Father, thank You for never giving us more than we can handle. Remind us when we are immersed in calamity, misery and anguish that we can rely on Your promise everything works together for our good. Convict us to “Lean on the Everlasting Arms” whether things are good or bad!