The first job my brother Jimmy and I had was keeping score at bowling tournaments back before they had invented scoring machines. We pretty much lived at the bowling alley on weekends. The bowling alley would pay us a free game or a dollar for keeping score for three games of tournament bowling.
But the first real job we had getting a paycheck with tax deductions (unfortunately) was for Winn Dixie — Quik Chek grocery store on Governors Drive in Huntsville, Alabama. It was the major store for that part of town and where my family shopped. It was busy all the time. Jimmy and I bagged groceries, mopped floors, ran cash registers, unloaded trucks including watermelon trucks which liked to break my back, stocked shelves, shucked corn, cleaned out the incinerator — anything but the meat market.
One day (I think before we came to faith in Christ but while we were searching) I was running a cash register early on Saturday morning. Jimmy was bagging groceries. He told me he was going to work that day like Jesus would work. A few hours later he came to my register to bag groceries, sweat on his face and very tired. Then he said, “I’ll never do that again!” He had run himself ragged trying to be like Jesus.
Fortunately, God is a God of grace. We must work as believers as the Bible says while it is day. God does not sanction laziness. But His way is the way of grace. Jimmy and I were soon to learn the marvelous nature of God’s amazing grace. Many of our spiritual discussions in light of Billy Graham’s teaching on television happened during moments at Winn Dixie grocery store, another special place in our lives.
