Hula Hoop Hardships
Genesis 18:14
March 5th Devotional
Most readers have probably enjoyed the toy that was patented today in 1963. The invention of this toy has ancient roots. It seems as if children from countless eras have played with some form of it. Some were made from wood, grass, or vines bent into the shape of a circle. I imagine you could probably guess that the toy is a hula hoop. No one can lay claim to being the inventor of it, but we do know its patent history. The story revolves around Richard Knerr and Arthur ‘Spud” Melin. Arthur was the founder of a company named Wham-O. It started with him selling slingshots out of his garage, but he quickly morphed his business model to selling novelty toys. His first major success was the patent of another ancient toy, the frisbee, which was originally coined as the Pluto Platter. Arthur watched other children swing rings made out of metal or bamboo around their waste and quickly realized that he could capitalize on patenting this toy. The term hula hoop comes from the Hawaiian hula dance of the same name because of the similar motion. Arthur made the hula hoop out of a fairly new material called plastic and would visit playgrounds with the new toy. The children were hooked and a fad started. It was all the craze in the late 1950s. It was the must-have toy. Ads for the new toy were found in newspapers, magazines, comic books, and even on television. It is estimated that it sold over 25 million units in the first month and around 200 million units in the first two years. It originally sold for around $2 (which would be about $20 in today’s currency). But all toy fads are destined to come to an end. By the mid-1960's the hula hoop craze had cooled and children everywhere moved onto the latest new toy, leaving hula hoops everywhere to yard sale heaven. The hula hoop enjoyed multiple revivals over the years, but never quite enjoyed its original popularity.
I vividly remember getting a hula hoop as a child. The other kids in my neighborhood could twirl it around for what seemed like hours. One girl even had a pink hula hoop that made noises when she twirled it. I never quite mastered the hula hoop as a child, and by master, I mean that I’m fairly certain the hoop never made one full revolution around my body. My grandmother used to say that I wasn’t coordinated enough to play with hula hoops. No matter how much I practiced, the hula hoop was too difficult for me to learn. Some things are extremely hard. Some of us will never learn to play the piano, play golf, juggle, paint, and the list could go on and on. Typically, when something gets hard, we quit, we raise the white flag. Life can be hard at times and when life is hard, we are also tempted to quit. We are tempted to quit on our spouses, our jobs, our families, our finances, our faithful walk with Jesus, etc. But what about God? Is there anything too hard or difficult for God? To find that answer we need to look at Genesis 18. In this chapter, the Lord visits Abraham and his wife Sarah. Both of them are getting up there in years and were still without the child that God had promised them years earlier. Doubt might have even crept into their hearts and minds. God told Abraham that day that Sarah was to have a child, and Sarah’s response was to laugh. She laughed because, in her mind, it was impossible, and she was partially right. It was impossible for Sarah in her latter years of life to have a child. But Sarah only saw it from her side of heaven, God saw it from the other side. God heard Sarah’s laughter and said to Abraham “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” It’s a rhetorical question; the answer is implied. Nothing is too hard for God. God, who is limitless in power and wisdom has never faced ONE single thing that was too difficult for Him or even challenged His strength. Read this again, nothing is too hard for God. Underline that word NOTHING. You might be hitting a wall of impossible, but it’s not too hard with God. God is bigger than whatever you are facing and He will give you the grace and strength to overcome it or go through it. Nothing ever was, is now, or ever will be too hard with God.
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