Live Like Larry

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”

James 1:22


I read a great quote yesterday from one of my favorite pastors who said, “The cost of inaction is almost always greater than the cost of a mistake” which reminds me of another saying, “it is better to try and fail than to fail to try.” Watching the news these days I am excited to see the number of parents standing up for their rights and those of their children regarding what is being taught in our public school system. It appears like a great awakening is happening across this great country as more and more people are understanding the now famous words of John Stuart Mill who said, “Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”

The Christian faith is a militant faith, not passive by any means. The difference between the church and the world is our arsenal. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal the apostle Paul wrote, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. Prayer is the most powerful weapon we possess as followers of Jesus. As I watch with excitement the church emerging from Covid more determined than ever to live and walk with God its evident people now realize more than ever you cant just sit around and do nothing. Just ask Larry Walters.

Opportunity finally knocked in 1982, when Walters and his girlfriend purchased 42 eight-foot weather balloons and several tanks of helium. From there, the idea was simplicity itself: Attach a garden-variety, Sears aluminum lawn chair to the balloons, strap on some water jugs for ballast, take along a pellet pistol to shoot out the balloons to control the descent, pack a parachute and carry a CB radio, and maybe, with luck, sail across the desert to the Rocky Mountains. Oh, and take along some beer and sandwiches for the ride.

The doughty craft, dubbed Inspiration I, was cut loose from its moorings July 2, with Walters securely strapped into his patio chair. He ascended rapidly — much more rapidly than he anticipated — and rose above San Pedro. He said he'd intended to fly only to 30 feet or so before leveling off, while munching sandwiches and pounding a few Miller Lites. Instead, he shot skyward at the rate of about a thousand feet a minute and didn't level off until he'd reached 16,000 feet.

He was way up high, and he was scared and probably not hungry anymore (and had lost his glasses to boot), but now he had another, more immediate problem: He was drifting into the flight path of incoming planes to Los Angeles International Airport. A clearly worried Walters used his CB radio to transmit a mayday call, which was picked up by operators on the ground who then maintained contact with him throughout the flight. Despite his precarious situation, after the initial shock wore off Walters was the picture of calm. He told those now monitoring him that knew he was in trouble, one way or another. Either he'd plunge to his death, get sucked into a jet engine or else get busted big-time when he landed.

He wasn't run down by a commercial airliner. Instead, Walters continued drifting, and was spotted by the pilots of at least two inbound LAX flights, including a TWA captain who radioed that he was passing a man in a lawn chair at 16,000 feet, who was holding a pistol in his hand. An incredulous tower received the incredulous report, made a radar fix and began tracking him.

Eventually, Walters shot out several balloons. He began a slow descent but dropped the pistol before he could shoot out any more. Ninety minutes after liftoff from San Pedro, he was safely back on terra firma, but not until the tethers hanging from his balloons fouled some power lines, knocking out electricity in a Long Beach neighborhood. The chair was dangling about 5 feet off the ground when Walters hopped down to a waiting reception committee from the LAPD. When asked by a reporter why he'd made such a foolhardy flight, Walters was ready with a pithy reply: "A man can't just sit around."

Remember, loved one, the Christian life is an active life. Living water flows through our being. Don’t just sit around and do nothing today, engage your faith, pray to God, intercede for people, be active and take a stand for God keeping in mind another old saying, “Those who don’t stand for something will fall for anything.”


“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”

James 1:23–25


I LOVE YOU!