The Ultimate Dunking Machine

It was a warm day in the summer of 1992, when two boys in southern Ohio set their sights higher than they ever had before. No, it was not greatness, nor wealth, nor power, but a height they saw as just as lofty. All they needed was a little boost.

I was ten years old, playing basketball with David, my fifteen-year-old brother. We, along with our father and other members of our family, would often play Pig, for I never played the variety known as Horse until I later moved to Minnesota. I was not terribly successful in our competitions, yet I always enjoyed them.

One day, however, the simplicity of Pig was not enough to quench our growing imaginations. The basketball hoop in our driveway was teen feet tall, and I had not yet grown enough even to come close to touching the net. My brother could almost touch the net, and could use a chair to reach that height. We then had a flash of insight, one that we knew to be the perfect plan. It was a plan that would bring us closer to the rim, up to and above it, granting us the ability to dunk the ball through the hoop, as every young basketball fan dreams of. It was a plan that we would have never been able to do, had our parents been home at the time.

In the back of our house, underneath the deck, there were several blocks of wood, four inches square, with many a foot in length. We stacked them underneath the hoop in strategic positions, for it was not enough for us to simply jump from blocks of wood, for that would not have allowed us to achieve our goal. No, we needed something more; something with more height. Something with bounce.

The bounce came from a small trampoline we had in the garage. We placed it upon the blocks, then stepped back and admired our creation. It was the ultimate dunking machine. We knew it would work, for it was so simple.

David volunteered to test it first. I recall that moment, for a thought ran through my mind: the structure isn’t stable. Yet, I knew it would work out, for we had built it well. It was a masterful construction, using several blocks of inconsistent lengths to hold a foot-high trampoline. What could go wrong?

We soon found out. David started from the far corner of the driveway and ran toward the structure, leaping through the air, and landing firmly with his foot on the trampoline.

At that moment, we both realized something. We may have been kids with dreams; we were not, however, architects. As David landed, the structure collapsed, and the basketball went flying into our neighbor’s yard. He landed hard on the cement, and seemed to be in a daze for a few seconds, unsure of what had just happened. I, on the other hand, as almost any brother would, burst out laughing. While our attempt at rising high had failed, there’s just something about sibling rivalry that makes you laugh at such failure.

Within a few moments, however, the truth was revealed. My brother had fractured his wrist. Within minutes, he was in our neighbor’s car, heading for the hospital. I stayed home and disassembled our ultimate dunking machine. I informed my parents of the broken arm upon their arrival home, though I did not tell them the full story.

Now, many years later, this story makes me smile. I smile at remembering our older brother, Erik, laughing when he first heard the news. I smile at the fact that, several years later, I caved and told my parents the full story. I smile at how foolish we were, despite thinking our plan to be infallible.

While I can look back at the story and smile, I know each one of us still does things like this, even as adults. We try to reach for great heights, despite having an unstable foundation. We reach for things that we should not reach for, and put ourselves in danger by relying on our own intellect and wisdom.

In Genesis 11, the Bible teaches of the Tower of Babel, a structure that men built to reach into the heights of Heaven. While there were other reasons God did not want them building such a structure, it was not built for the right reasons. Men built it to flaunt their power and abilities. Eventually, God intervened, halting the tower’s production and scattering those men to the ends of the earth.

I believe we each have such towers in our lives. We have things that we trust to no one else, not even God. We rely on only ourselves for certain things. We attempt to better ourselves without giving that part of ourselves to God. Just like the two boys, on a warm day in southern Ohio, we build pieces into our lives using our own human wisdom, for we cannot fathom anyone else understanding things as we do. Yet, our plans then crumble, for they were not built on a firm foundation, for only God provides us with true stability. It is not through our own strength that we will find success, but through the wisdom that comes from loving, knowing, and trusting God.

As humans, we all need to take a step back from ourselves. Through prayer, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the examination of ourselves, we can find those areas where we have reliance on our own strength, and through God, we can begin to hand over such things to Him. We may look at our own wisdom and believe it to be perfect, yet, when we do that, we forget that we are equipped with finite, flawed minds. To rely on such a thing is folly. We are foolish if we believe ourselves more capable that God, for our own plans will crumble and collapse, while the hopes of those who rely on God are unshaken.

Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the LORD. That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.

- Jeremiah 17: 5-8