Never Lick a Moving Blender

Never Lick

a Moving

Blender!

Humorous Insights

That Motivate

and Encourage

MARVIN PHILLIPS

HOWARD

PUBLISHING CO.

Other books and tapes by Marvin Phillips

Books:

Don’t Shoot: We May Both Be on the Same Side!

Booklet: Let’s Win Souls Now!

Audio cassettes:

Coping with Stress!

Building Marriages That Last!

Feel Good about Yourself!

Video cassettes:

Coping with Stress!

Building Marriages That Last!

Available through Marvin Phillips (12000 E. 31st Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 74146-2001, 918-663-3000).

The world needs a lot of Marvin Phillips!

(Zig Ziglar)

A master speaker! His warm, encouraging personality radiates and inspires others to want to develop their potential. Written evaluations were equally enthusiastic. He is truly one of the best I have ever heard

(Kara Gae Wilson, Tulsa County Superintendent of Schools)

Always leaves his audience feeling better about themselves and motivated to achieve. On a scale from one to ten, Mr. Phillips rates eleven!

(Barbara Wilson, Assistant to the Director, Special Education, Tulsa public schools)

Book Marvin Phillips to speak to your church, school, or company.

For more information call or write:

Marvin Phillips Seminars

12000 AE. 31st Street

Tulsa, OK 74146-2001

(918)663-3000

Our purpose at Howard Publishing is to:

Increase faith in the hearts of growing Christians

Inspire holiness in the lives of believers

Instill hope in the hearts of struggling people everywhere

Because He’s coming again!

Never Lick a Moving Blender!

© 1996 by Howard Publishing Co., Inc.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Published by Howard Publishing Co., Inc.,

3117 North 7th Street, West Monroe, LA 71291-2227

00 01 02 03 04 05   10 9 8 7 6

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations within critical articles and reviews.

Illustrated by Kristen Myers

ISBN 1-878990-58-6

eisbn:978-1-451-60566-2

Scripture quotations not otherwise marked are from the New International Version, © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission Zondervan Bible Publishers.

 Dedication

This dedication is easy. It goes to my Peak of the Week class—that faithful group that comes every Wednesday night to hear one more lesson designed to peak their week. Some are regular members of Garnett Church of Christ where I have served as senior minister for the past twenty-six years. Others, and this number keeps growing, are those in my television audience who watched the program and then decided to become a part of the live class each week. We have a great time together. I think sometimes they motivate and encourage me more than I do them. We get a kick out of peaking each other’s week. Here’s to you, Peakers!

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Never Lick a Moving Blender!

Chapter Two

Chippie Doesn’t Sing Much Anymore

Chapter Three

The Fine Art of Frog Kissing

Chapter Four

Turn It Loose!

Chapter Five

Keep Your Cotton Pickin’ Hands Off My Pickup Truck

Chapter Six

How to Get a Turtle on a Fence Post

Chapter Seven

Never Wrestle with a Pig

Chapter Eight

Get Off Your Duff and Go

Chapter Nine

A Closed Mouth Gathers Ho Feet

Chapter Ten

Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost!

Chapter Eleven

If You Want to Run with the Big Dogs, You’ve Got to Get Off the Porch

Chapter Twelve

They’ve Just Slapped My Other Cheek

Chapter Thirteen

Keep Your Head in the Game!

Chapter Fourteen

Broccoli Can Kill

Chapter Fifteen

A Survival Plan for Planet Earth

Chapter Sixteen

Are You a Hot Dog or Just a Weenie?

Chapter Seventeen

Ten Things You Can Become That Don’t Cost Money or Take Brains, but Other Folks Heed and Will Pay You More Than They Cost

Chapter Eighteen

It Was Spring, but I Wanted Summer

Chapter Nineteen

The Fresh Breeze of Integrity

Chapter Twenty

Alone but Not Lonely

Chapter Twenty-One

Don’t Let Me Die ’Til I’m Dead

Chapter Twenty-Two

You’re Only as Rich as Your Relationships

Chapter Twenty-Three

America the Beautiful

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Operation Was a Success, but the Patient Died

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Party

Foreword

From the beginning Marvin said it could be done. Whatever the task, he thought we could do it. Whatever the mood against it, don’t believe it. My initial introduction to this man was to observe his life, excitement, and joy. His charge was not for us to play dead to reality, but rather to wake up to potential.

All these years this man has prodded, promoted, and pushed for all of us to open our senses to certain, definite possibilities. I have watched him endure the tough stuff … and win. His talk has been in perfect cadence with his walk.

Marvin Phillips is at it again! He has put his heart in print that others might find reason to smile some, laugh a little, and hope a lot. Never Lick a Moving Blender! is a painfully funny thought. And, the more one thinks about it, the more the practical application surfaces.

A series of one stirring provocation after another comes to the reader from these pages. Light-hearted humor begins to soak the heart. And then? A realization begins to sweep across the mind saying things like, Oh no, that’s the way I am or Hey, this guy’s right. Never Lick a Moving Blender! is more than good advice … it’s great medicine.

This work is a comic strip put into delightful word pictures. Some of them you can envision. Others you will feel. Some you may duck as they narrowly miss. Quips are sometimes quick. Other stories inspire. But there is something even more unique. There seems to be a new awareness regarding our own surroundings, as if we had put on 3-D glasses. We may laugh at ourselves a little. For certain, we will see ourselves a lot.

If you need a hearty change of pace, don’t switch brands of coffee. Relax a bit. With ease, begin to read. Never Lick a Moving Blender! will cause you to get serious about not taking everything that goes on too seriously!

Terry Rush

Tulsa, Oklahoma

Preface

This book is really a third collection of stuff I do in my Wednesday Peak of the Week classes. Three of my five books have shared these weekly encouragement infusions. The previous two were, You Can’t Fly to Heaven in a Straight Line and Put Peak in Your Week.

My third book, The Joy Factor of Church Growth, offers sermons on evangelism and church growth. It came from a course I teach each September at Kentucky Christian College in Grayson, Kentucky. The fourth book was on fellowship— Don’t Shoot: We May Both Be on the Same Side.

With Never Lick a Moving Blender! I am returning to my roots. Joy, happiness, success, and encouragement are my favorite stuff.

The Peak of the Week class (and now television series) is an idea that clicked. It worked. Nonmembers started attending. Now clearly a third of my weekly audience is composed of those who are not members of the Garnett Church. The television audience has appreciated my boots-and-bluejeans approach, and down-to-earth style. Everywhere I go, people stop me to say they watch and enjoy Peak of the Week! Many who are now dedicated Christians got their start in this nonthreatening environment. What began as a thirteen-week experiment has now continued over ten years. Without a doubt, more books will be forthcoming from the Peak of the Week series.

Elsewhere in the book is a page that tells you where to get the other books and tapes I’ve done and how to arrange for me to speak to your church, school, or company.

Thanks for reading this one. I’ll be rewarded if you like it and are motivated to greater enjoyment of life and service to God and his cause. I hope it not only peaks your week but your whole life and eternity as well.

Acknowledgments

To borrow an old Winston Churchill expression, Never has one man owed so much to so many! I am grateful to the members of the Garnett Church of Christ who have loved me and encouraged me in my local ministry, my travels, and my writing. I thank Linna Clinton, my secretary, who proofread the chapters and offered suggestions for changes, for putting up with me when my attitude was bad when I was pressed because of time deadlines. You see I wrote this book in the months following cancer surgery. It made a difference in my stamina and sometimes my concentration.

I thank my peak audience, both live and television. They have been overwhelming in their enthusiasm for the class, the television show, and the books that came out of it.

Last of all, I thank my God for his grace to a stumbling, fumbling preacher. He has allowed me to travel all over the world spreading the Good News about Jesus. And he has allowed me to preach locally, for twenty-six years, to one of the greatest audiences any man has ever addressed.

I am a very blessed man!

The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!

What the mind of man can conceive and believe his life can achieve.

 Chapter One

Never Lick a Moving Blender

He had the most pitiful expression on his face you ever saw. I’m talking about Grimm—Mother Goose’s dog— from the comic strip by the same name. He’s a pitiful looking thing anyway. He’s always getting into trouble— drinking from the toilet, hunting lunch in a garbage can, and other deplorables.

This time he went too far, and the picture told the whole story. Most comic strips have three or four frames. Today there was only one. Grimm was at the far left. The blender was at the far right. Grimm’s tongue stretched the full distance between, caught in a tangled mess around the blades of that blender. The caption said it all. It preached the sermon and gave this advice: Never lick a moving blender!

How many times have you made Grimm’s mistake? You can follow his thought process as he spots that blender at work. Looks good. Smells right. Intent harmless. But the effort wasn’t worth the pain.

Lots of things in life are like that. Kids disobey their parents. They don’t really mean any harm; they’re just having a little fun. They don’t want to hurt anyone, but disobedience gets to be a habit. Before long it seeps into the classroom. It extends to the community. A little theft occurs here and there. Looks okay. Smells right. Just seems like a little fun that brings a few kicks. Nobody really gets hurt.

We all expect to be the exception to the rule, but what we expect and what we get are sometimes vastly different. Our tongues get caught in the blenders of life. There’s a bunch of pain we hadn’t counted on. We become one more statistic proving the old adage that crime does not pay!

Don’t Cut Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face

There are lots of sayings that call to us—clichés that click, pointers that really point somewhere. Here’s another one: Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. It means don’t retaliate when it will hurt you more than it will help the situation.

Grudges always hurt the grudger more than the grudgee.

Remember the story? One guy holds his finger against a brick wall. He says to his friend, Hit my finger. Of course he moves his finger at the last minute and the friend’s fist hits hard, rough bricks, skinning his knuckles. To get revenge, the friend says, See if you can hit this. And he holds his forefinger against his own nose. Pow!

You wouldn’t be so dumb would you? But you might hold a grudge against someone. You might say, I’ll get you back if it’s the last thing I ever do!

Grudges always hurt the grudger more than the grudgee. Our attempts at revenge hurt us more than they help. You stay away from the family reunion because someone will be there who has done you wrong. You quit church because someone hurt you or because you didn’t agree with some decision that was made.

Never give anyone the power to affect the peace and harmony of your life. Staying away from that reunion can affect scores of people. Damage may be done for years to come.

Quitting the church because of something someone else did is a lot like getting mad at the dog and kicking the cat. The church belongs to Jesus. He died for it. He