NO FREE LUNCH

NO FREE LUNCH ... Except at the MTC

The man asked me if I had ever shopped at K-Mart? That seemed like a strange question to ask me over the phone on a Saturday morning. I cautiously answered in the affirmative which seemed to be the right answer because he then informed me that my name had been drawn as the grand prize winner in a contest they had just concluded at the local Simi Valley store. He kept calming my skeptical heart with the parade of prizes that were now mine and asked me to come to the local store to pick up my award certificate. I was never asked for a check or a credit card number or to pay $49.95 or any such usual request that often accompanied these ‘freebies’. Finally I began to accept this ten day trip to Hawaii (for two) together with $10,000 cash as being ‘for real’ and I began to let my mind start visualizing the romantic beaches of Waikiki.

The drive across Simi Valley freeway to the K-Mart off ramp seemed longer than usual and the brisk walk to the managers office was continuously interrupted by customers and merchandise being marketed along the path. Finally, my proactive knock on the door announced my arrival. They seemed to take longer than good customer service prescribed to open the door, but finally I was face to face with an ‘authoritative’ person who was capable of ‘making my day’ with my PRIZE CERTIFICATE. My pride made it difficult to grovel and ask for it as I thought it would have been far better to have already posted a welcome sign for such a winner, have the cameras ready and the band prepared to play, but instead she stands there and makes me ask for it.

“Hi”, I finally say, “I’m James W. Ritchie (pause, hoping for the band to begin to play) the prize winner (the words were coming a little slower but hoping the convincing smile on my face made up for the horrible thought that was beginning to curl up in my stomach) – the grand ... prize ... winner!??” The look on her face was worse than the answer but her words made an unforgettable grove in my cerebral cortex as they bore deep into my small little mind, “You too, huh?” (Dale Carnegie’s book on How to Win Friends... would never have trained her to use the word, “Huh?” – that was totally an unnecessary overkill and of very poor cultural taste.) She could have began her speech with, “I’m sorry” or some other softening blow, but no, it had to be quite loud and condescending, “YOU TOO, HUH?” I saw her lips moving some more and she said something about being the tenth person that day who had come to claim this non-existent prize but I really didn’t care what else she had to say. I made some childish responses where I claimed to dislike Hawaii and how money is the root of all evil and I hate to travel, especially to islands with beaches and resort hotels and coconuts and pineapples, places where people peel my grapes...all the while I was backing up and hoping few had seen this stake president who had fallen for the ‘sucker of the week award’.

On the way home I started to laugh at myself (beats crying) and remembered words that my parents had drilled home during my growing up years on the poultry farm: “There aint no free lunch!” I thought about how easy it was to dupe me when it seemed the offer was something of value and my effort was unnecessary to receive it. I’m the kind of guy who has sent in some of the Readers Digest Sweepstakes but never dared admit it – hoping that this one time I might get something with no more investment than the postage stamp. I knew better, I had been taught better – those things in life that really mattered were nearly always the items with the most expensive price tag. But a free lunch was still appealing and I had fallen for it again.

The lessons are numerous. Consider these thoughts. Why doesn’t Heavenly Father show us all where the gold mines are? Help us ‘find oil’? Or let us heal everyone with our Priesthood Power? Or let us learn the great lessons of life at the beach instead of from the sweat falling from our brow? Why can’t we get our Return Missionary Honorable Release with a mini-mission instead of a two-year course in Mountaintop I? Why do we have to knock on so many doors to find the Elect? (He knows where they are, why not do the ‘Passover thing’ on each door to save us a lot of time?) Why do we have to get up with the Chickens to get the ‘worm’? Why does a university degree take so many years? Why can’t money compound quicker? Why do I have to choose between my Gold Account and a Houseboat on Lake Powell? Golf Lessons and a mission to Mongolia – even Outer Mongolia?

Let me use missionary work as an example and try to share why it ‘must’ be difficult. If we tried to exercise the attributes of a Return Missionary, like total obedience or Proactively or automatic and proven leadership and we did it without those attributes being driven into our character and embedded so deep so that no matter the circumstances we would never falter, we would fail under crisis. We have to become Like Unto Moroni. We must be automatic. WE must never waiver. Those attributes don’t come with a one time test or a weekend wonder. They come with consistent and uncompromising effort. They take time to measure. They take time to harden the spiritual muscle and resolve. They take time to prove that the joy that comes from those hardened spiritual muscles are far more rewarding than the quick fleeting feelings of pleasures that the K-Marts certificates have to offer.

THERE AINT NO FREE LUNCH! The sweat of our brow was the Lord’s intended school master. He said, “There is a law upon which all blessings are predicated...” He called it the ‘”Law of the Harvest”- “As you sow, so shall ye reap.”

So, I have decided that I had better forget about the Readers Digest Sweepstakes or the K-Mart Hawaii Grand Prizes or the Idaho Lottery and I will forget about Ed McMann showing up on my front porch (besides even if he drew my name, once he found out we were in Africa he would draw again – just my luck).

If you see me on the beaches of Waikiki you can bet your savings that either I paid my own way or my kids sent me – that’s as close to a free lunch as I’m going to get. You ever dream of eating Lunch in the Celestial Kingdom? I’m told that once you are inside the gate, Lunch is Free – They call it the Celestial Exception.