One time in uni speech class, I was assigned to give an instructional speech. My assignment was to teach the class to throw a boomerang. Easy work, if you know how to throw one. I didn’t.
I remember practicing daily in the athletic field before sunrise. During this time, I discovered why you don’t throw boomerangs horizontally like frisbees—it whizzed straight up then down, smacking a deep red welt on my hand as I tried to catch it. After more practice, the boomerang began coming back.
The day of the speech came. I spent ten minutes presenting the history of the boomerang and the theory of throwing it. Then we went outside to the parking lot. The lot was full of cars. With windscreens in mind, the teacher began expressing second thoughts.
I confidently assured her of no danger, saying “It’s all right, I’ll aim it away from the cars.” As the whole class gazed on, I took aim and threw the boomerang.
We all watched as it spun away then circled back—clonk, right into a tree. I retrieved it and had another chance, so I aimed it in another direction. Again, the boomerang spun away and circled back in a grand arc.
It hit the same tree.
I felt like the experience was an epic fail, in today’s words. Amazingly, the teacher still gave an A for the assignment, probably out of pity!
In our hands, a boomerang may not do exactly what we want. We can send it out and we don’t know how it might come back.
In the same way, our words often do not achieve what we want. We struggle with miscommunication, using the wrong words or an unhelpful tone or bad timing. Even when we express our intentions clearly, we are limited in accomplishing our purpose. The apostle James says you cannot even speak confidently of tomorrow since “you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.”
But the Bible teaches that when God sends out His word, the result is exactly what He aimed to achieve. What He says is what will happen. God’s word always comes back.
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”–Isaiah 55:10-11
About Ben Kwok
I bought a couple of boomerangs similar to the one displayed when I was in Sydney. You can’t visit Australia without getting one. For years my kids begged me to throw one until I finally gave in. I threw it as directed in the instuctions and watched it sail across a field and disappear into the adjacent woods, never to be seen again. The other boomerang has remained hanging on the wall as a decoration. I’m glad God’s Word always comes back.