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As a kid growing up I live in the foster system and did not get the usual Christmas experience most kid had. My Christmas usually consisted of all six boys drawing a name from a hat and we were given $20 dollars to spend on the kid we pulled from the hat. The rule was we had to spend the whole $20 dollars and not buy some cheap toy and pocket the rest of the money. Well, one year I pulled the name of a new kid that had just come to the home. I really didn’t know him very well so I had to guess what kind of toys he liked. At the age of eleven I had a mean streak so I went to the dollar store and I bought a pack of army men, some candy, and a bunch of little toys. When I was done I still had ten dollars left over. So I came up with an idea and I got a roll of quarters. When I got back to the group home I decided to pull a prank on the new kid. I got together all of the stuff I need to wrapped his present.
First, I found four bricks for a pile of bricks that been cut for our new building that was being put up. I took a chisels and hammer and chiseled out a hole big enough for the roll of quarters to fit in. After putting the roll of quarters into the chiseled out part I then epoxied the four bricks together. After that I took newspaper and I would wrap a layer around the bricks and then tape it. As I built up the layers I would tuck in a small toy here and there in the paper. I must have taped at least twenty layers on to those bricks. When I was done I wrapped the whole thing in cool looking Christmas paper and put the new kids name on it. I know one thing that was the heaviest present under the tree that year. In truth it was really mean but I thought it was funny.
When it was time to open our presents it took the new kid over two hours to unwrap that present. But something weird happened in that two hours. You would have expected that for two hours he would have been mad or frustrated unwrapping that present. But as he started to unwrap that present he got happier and happier. You see each time he found a new army guy who would blurt out, “Wow, I got another army guy, cool.” Or he would say, “Man, in needed that plane to go with my other planes.” With out me meaning to I gave him one of the coolest presents he had ever had. He was an explorer and each little toy was a new discovery. In fact when he got to the center of the presents with the bricks he became even more excited. Tell me one kid who wouldn’t want to use a hammer to smash the bonkers out of bricks to find the prizes inside. That new kid played for hours and hours with his new toys oblivious that I was trying to pull a mean joke on him.
You know some people think that God is the same way. That he sent his Son, Jesus, as some cruel trick or present. They look at Jesus as if he is some terrible present. If the even dare to unwrap him that the they will now have to follow some set of unwritten rule and give away all they have and become some devout good two shoes. When in reality if they were to open up God’s gift they would be like that new kid. With every new layer they unwrap of Jesus they would discover a new freedom and gift for there life that was meant for their good. As we approach this Christmas season I am wondering which one you are this year. Are you the kid trying to pull a bad joke on others because you are miserable and unhappy, or are you the new kid discovering the goodness of God at each and every layer you unwrap of His Son Jesus?
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Thoughts To Ponder 