Who’s Packing Your Parachute?

Charles Plumb was a U.S. Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent six years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now speaks on the lessons learned from that experience.

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. “You were shot down!” “How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.

“I packed your parachute,” the man replied.

Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!”

Plumb assured him, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said ‘Good morning, how are you?’ or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot, and he was just a sailor.”

Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.

So, take a moment and think, “Who’s packing your parachute?” Who has done something that has helped make your day safer – or easier or more pleasant – or who have you witnessed “packing” for someone else? Recognize them right away.

Each of us are touched by individuals who provide what we need to make it through the day. Some help inadvertently. Praise that person anyway. You are supporting the kind of behavior you respect – making it more likely to happen again.

He needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory – he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say “hello,” “please,” “thank you” or “congratulations” – looking that person full in the face, without rushing the words.

As you go through this day, take the time to recognize those, who packed your parachute.

Thank you for packing mine.

Does this story cause me to be more reflective of who is behind me, supporting and helping and encouraging me along my way?  Am I an encourager, a helper, a helper and one who does their part (i.e., “plays ball”) in the Body of Christ? Am I helping as an asset to bring out the best in another, so the team is more capable, more productive, more successful?  Am I in the game actively participating in some way for the common goal or am I on the sidelines complaining about what the team is doing wrong?

Rom 12:3-8 J B Phillips

^3-8 As your spiritual teacher I give this piece of advice to each one of you. Don’t cherish exaggerated ideas of yourself or your importance but try to have a sane estimate of your capabilities by the light of the faith that God has given to you all. For just as you have many members in one physical body and those members differ in their functions, so we, though many in number, compose one body in Christ and are all members of one another. Through the grace of God, we have different gifts. If our gift is preaching, let us preach to the limit of our vision. If it is serving others let us concentrate on our service; if it is teaching let us give all we have to our teaching; and if our gift be the stimulating of the faith of others let us set ourselves to it. Let the man who is called to give, give freely; let the man who wields authority think of his responsibility; and let the man who feels sympathy for his fellows act cheerfully.

⁹ Let us have no imitation Christian love. Let us have a genuine break with evil and a real devotion to good.

¹⁰ Let us have real warm affection for one another as between brothers, and a willingness to let the other man have the credit.

¹¹ Let us not allow slackness to spoil our work and let us keep the fires of the spirit burning, as we do our work for God.

¹² Base your happiness on your hope in Christ. When trials come endure them patiently, steadfastly maintain the habit of prayer.

¹³ Give freely to fellow-Christians in want, never grudging a meal or a bed to those who need them.

¹⁴ And as for those who try to make your life a misery, bless them. Don’t curse, bless.

¹⁵ Share the happiness of those who are happy, the sorrow of those who are sad.

¹⁶ Live in harmony with each other. Don’t become snobbish but take a real interest in ordinary people. Don’t become set in your own opinions.

¹⁷ Don’t pay back a bad turn by a bad turn, to anyone. Don’t say “it doesn’t matter what people think” but see that your public behavior is above criticism.

¹⁸ As far as your responsibility goes, live at peace with everyone.

WHAT IS A TEAM?

TEAM:  A group of people with a full set of complementary skills required to complete a task, job, or project.

Team members (1) operate with a high degree of interdependence, (2) share authority and responsibility for self-management, (3) are accountable for the collective performance, and (4) work toward a common goal and shared rewards(s). A team becomes more than just a collection of people when a strong sense of mutual commitment creates synergy, thus generating performance greater than the sum of the performance of its individual members.

Declare today: “I have been given talents and abilities that God has blessed me with.  Spiritually I can be a real asset to the overall team play and in enjoying the success of playing on a winning TEAM.”

“If love is the glue that holds the Body of Christ together, then humility and meekness are the oil that make it run smooth.”-Unknown