A couple of Sundays ago, a visiting pastor at my church shared a story about his childhood with the children. He talked about how he was cut from the school baseball team when he was a young child and how his father comforted him by giving him ice cream and encouraging him to practice hard and improving for the next year. In the next year he not only made the team, but he was selected as team captain and then they went on to win first place in the playoffs. At the very end of the story, on little boy spoke out and said, “You never told us what flavour the ice cream was?”
Of course all of us adults laughed at the innocence of such a question asked by this child, but for him it was actually really important. This got me thinking, are we the same with things that God tells us? Does he tell us stories and plans that he has for us, yet all we focus on is the fact that there are little treats throughout our life journeys. Is he telling us all the hardships, time, effort and hard work that we need to put in to go through life and succeed, and at the very end all we caught on was that there was going to be ice cream? Then when we go through life expecting ice cream and wonder when the ice cream will come. Is this what we focus on? All the treats and not the actual journey?
This was just a thought that I had. I pray that ALL of us can focus on the BIG picture and then we can enjoy our treats that much more.
Rooted in Christ 