If the price is right

Thanks to social media selling your unwanted things for a reduced price has become almost too easy. Long gone are the weeks spent pricing and organizing everything just so you can wake up at 5:00 to put it all on tables in your yard. Now with a quick pic and a few clicks from your phone, hundreds of people can take a peak at your inventory and offer what they think it may be worth. Recently my kids have taken a cue from their mother and realized there's value in all those toys collecting dust in their closets. Monday they came walking into the room each with a large pile of stuffed animals in tow. As I was sorting the Spidermen from the Tiggers, I came across two Care Bears. These stuffed bears with the symbols on their tummies representing an emotion have been around forever with Mandy & I still having ours put up for safe keeping to this very day (mine is Good Luck Bear). As I pulled the bears out from the sell pile, I asked how the boys could dare want to sell something so priceless and full of sentimental value. I was a bit taken back by the response I got; "Dad! We want the money more!"

As I sat and thought about how easy my children were willing to give up such a precious gift for a few dollars of fun, the more I understood it's the same thing we all do with the gift given to us that day at Calvary. Jesus gave his life so our sins may be forgiven and yet how many times do we ignore that gift in exchange for something petty like an R rated movie or a song with such filthy lyrics they can't play it on the radio? The answer is probably more often than any of us care to admit.

Just Like Your Father

"He gets that from you!". Mandy & I say some form of this expression at least twice a day. "That one's all you right there!". It's as if there's some sort of competition taking place with the winner receiving the secret victory of knowing our children may have their faults, but at least they didn't get it from their mother (I typically lose this battle). I suppose it happens to us all at times; these traits we develop either through genetics or enough time spent with somebody. Adam just came back from spending a week at camp and suddenly everything is SAVAGE! I'm savage, Alex is savage, lunch is savage, fishing is savage...apparently he had a bunk-mate that used the word to mean anything cool. When I was a kid everything was Smurfy, now it's savage. The way we comb our hair or eat pizza (fold or fork?) or the phrases we use...it all comes down to the thousand different things that influence us during each passing minute of the day.

These same ideas of how we become who we are and who people see when they are around us are explored in 1st John 3. A life lived in service of God and in remembrance of His son Jesus Christ, should bring a sense of knowing to those we come into contact with. Love, peace, a desire to do right, and a sense that we are not worth of the sacrifice made on our behalf, should wash out from us whenever we are out in the world. Like the scent from a candle that reminds you of home or the feeling you get when you first meet somebody you instantly know can be depended on, the way we act should create a spark inside those that don't know Him. And when the time has come for us to part ways and let life take us where it may, we should all be so lucky to be remembered by those we knew as "Just like his/her Father".