Category: Living for Eternity

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Short Story: The Boy with the Harmonica

Harmonica

Jaden couldn’t believe the amazing gift his father had given him: his very own harmonica! He quickly mastered the implement and loved playing it.

He began playing it all day. He played it early in the morning before anyone else woke up.

“Stop it!” His brother groaned, rolling over in bed, but Jaden didn’t care. He kept playing.

He played it next to his other brother while he was studying. “Stop it!” His brother pleaded, but Jaden just kept playing. It was kind of fun to annoy him.

He played it instead of doing his own studying and chores, not caring if he got anything else done. Playing the harmonica was all that mattered.

He played it during lunch, making it impossible for anyone to talk at the table. He kept playing, hoping someone would notice how great of a player he’d become.

Jaden finally stopped when he heard his father’s voice summoning him.

“Jaden,” his father said quietly, “why do you think I gave you the harmonica?”

Jaden thought for a minute. “Because you knew I’d like it?”

His father smiled. “Why else do you think?”

Jaden wasn’t quite sure. He looked at his father questioningly.

“I gave it to you to bless others with music. Music can make people smile. It can help pass weary hours. But do you think you’ve used it as a blessing today?”

Jaden thought of his brothers’ reactions. They hadn’t seemed blessed. “No-oo,” he admitted.

His father nodded. “Remember, son, your gift is to bless others, not to serve yourself, annoy your brothers, or get attention. Okay?”

Jaden nodded. He needed to remember the purpose of his gift.

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 1 Peter 4:10 (ESV)

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Short Story: Purposefully Hard

Boy school

“Why does it have to be so hard?” Josiah moaned, burying his hand in his head. This particular assignment felt like it was just too much. How was he ever supposed to complete it? He wanted to just give up.

Josiah wished he could find a way to transport himself somewhere else. He wanted to escape this challenge. He saw his brothers outside playing, and wished he could join them. Why was he stuck with this task?

“Do you want to learn?” Josiah’s father’s compassionate voice interrupted his thoughts.

Josiah looked up. “Yes, I do,” he replied. “But why can’t we do the assignments we did last week? They were easy enough.”

“Because if you kept just doing them, you wouldn’t keep learning. I have to make it hard for you to learn.”

“This hard?” asked Josiah.

Josiah’s father looked at him lovingly. “Will you trust me to give you the assignments you need?”

Josiah sighed. He didn’t like this assignment at all, but he knew he could trust his father. It helped knowing that there was a purpose to the hard.

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness." James 1:2-3 (ESV)
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Short Story: New Pathways

“Why are you heading down this path?”

It was a good question. To be honest, Will wasn’t quite sure. The path was well worn–one he’d traveled often whenever he wanted to head down to the river for a swim. But he’d never really stopped to think about why he’d chosen it.

“It’s just the path I take to the river,” he mumbled.

“That doesn’t make it the best path,” Joshua pointed out. “There’s all kinds of dangers on this path: snakes, poisonous plants–I could go on. There’s a much better way to get to the river.”

Joshua pointed as he spoke to a barely visible path in the distance.

“But that path is hardly a path!” Will objected.

“That’s just because you haven’t traveled it much,” Joshua replied. “Make yourself travel it every day instead of this one, and it will become a solid path over time too. Come on, Will. New pathways might be hard to forge at first, but it will be worth it in the end to take the better route.”

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Short Story: Merrily Misguided

Everyone aboard the Vapor seemed happy as could be. The band played loudly, people danced, and food abounded.

From a nearby boat on the river, Bryant watched with a tinge of envy. How easy it seemed those on the Vapor had life! Why couldn’t his life be more like that?

But all was not as it seemed on the Vapor. Merry men were at the moment, but they knew not that their boat was being driven by a great evil straight for a steep waterfall, over which none could survive. The men and women on the Vapor would have longed for Bryant’s small row boat that was heading in the right direction if they only knew their peril. Would no one stop to think about where their boat was heading in the end?

For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked….But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end. Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. Psalm 73:3, 16-19 (ESV)

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Short Story: When All Is Not Bright

All is calm, all is bright...[1]

Ada found herself mouthing the words to the Christmas carol, but wondering in her heart why life didn’t feel calm or bright. Somehow, presents, family gathering, and as many cookies as she wanted still left her heart anything but calm.

Joy to the world...[2]

It’d been a hard year, filled with loss and health struggles. Ada felt exhausted after trying to do all the Christmas things. She didn’t feel joyful. Now, hearing happiness all around her made her only feel sadder somehow. And she felt bad about feeling bad; she had so many blessings too.

Ada walked towards the back of the room, in search of another cookie. On her way, she tripped.

The world went black.

Ada opened her eyes, not to the room filled with carolers, but to a dusty road. She squinted. There, in front of her, was a young couple. They looked like they belonged in a Nativity play, only more authentic.

“We’re almost to Bethlehem, Mary” Ada heard the man say.

“The baby’s coming, Joseph,” came a faint reply from the clearly pregnant woman by his side. She looked even more exhausted than Ada felt, like she’d been on a very long journey. “We’ll have to have him away from home.”

Away from home? Ada thought. Wasn’t Christmas all about being home for Christmas? Yet come to think of it, that first Christmas had Mary and Joseph away from their home in Nazareth…and Jesus leaving His home and glory in Heaven to become a man.

Ada watched, memorized, as a band of Roman soldiers passed by on the road. The other travelers so clearly resented them. I guess everything wasn’t merry and bright when Jesus came, Ada decided. In fact, hadn’t God used a census and taxes, of all things, to have Jesus born in Bethlehem? And didn’t the Roman occupation allow for the Gospel to go forth like it couldn’t have otherwise, as it brought a common language and passable roads to the whole empire?

The thought occurred to Ada that maybe God was using the tough things in her life–the things she resented–too. She couldn’t see how, but then, could the Jews back at Jesus’ birth?

Ada rubbed her head and closed her eyes for a second. Where was she anyway?

When Ada opened her eyes again, she found herself in a dark field. A smelly, woolly thing–was that a sheep?–brushed up against her. She could dimly make out the shape of men–they must be shepherds–nearby. Suddenly, an bright being–an angel!–appeared overhead.

“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord,”[3] the angel said.

The angel said more, but Ada didn’t get to hear it.

She’d blinked, and found herself back in the room of Christmas caroling. No one had noticed her fall in the back of the room. The group was still singing Joy to the World.

Joy to the World. After her dream, Ada knew the joy of that first Christmas wasn’t because life was easy, people were home for Christmas, or there were presents under the tree. It didn’t come from lights or even cookies. Jesus didn’t save the people from the hardships of life. Not from the Romans. Not from tough situations. Mary’s life didn’t become easy because of Jesus’ birth. Mary would one day have to watch her son die. The joy the angel spoke of was because a Savior had been born.

Jesus came to save us from sin and death. He brought eternal life to those who would receive Him. That life means knowing God now, in life’s sadness and challenges, and one day for all eternity in Heaven, where the world will truly be bright, as the suffering and death sin brought will be completely wiped away forever.

Ada realized that her days didn’t have to be “merry and bright,”[5] but because Jesus came, Christmas, and every day, could be filled with a joy that can exist anywhere–even in a dirty stable. A joy that came from knowing that Heaven, not Hell, was her eternal destination. A joy that can only be found by believing on the Savior that has been born.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 (ESV)

[1] Silent Night

[2] Joy to the World

[3] Luke 2:10b-11, ESV

[4] Joy to the World

[5] White Christmas

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Like Sandpaper

thankful

“Go set this on the kitchen table.”

Ruby grabbed plate and “thankful” tag her mom and put together and set it carefully on the kitchen table. She paused just a second to feel the smoothness of the wood. A faint smile crept across her face as she remembered that table’s history.

When they’d first gotten the table, they all got splinters from it. “Ouch!” was the most common word spoken at the dinner table that night.

That’s when Ruby’s dad had hauled the table to the garage and begun sanding on it. Ruby had just been a little girl, but her father had let her watch as he rubbed rough paper against the wood’s grains. “You’re hurting the table!” Ruby had protested, but her father had just smiled. He knew what she didn’t–that this sandpaper was exactly what that table really needed.

He’d been right. The table after sanding and finishing no longer produced splinters. It served its purpose and had been blessing them all since.

Ruby snapped back to the present, thinking about the things in her life that felt a little uncomfortable, like sandpaper. Maybe she should really be thankful for the situations and people that rubbed her wrong. Perhaps they were meant to somehow transform her like the sandpaper had this table.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
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Short Story: Playing a Tune

instruments

The town of Discord was an unusual town, to say the least. It was filled with instruments–oboes, clarinets, violins, guitars, and more roamed the streets. All day long, they each attempted to play their own tune by rubbing or twisting their instruments as best they could. The result was the most disharmonious sound you could imagine–and some badly twisted instruments!

It hadn’t always been this way. Originally, all the instruments had been in perfect harmony. The Master Conductor had played each one with expert skill. But the Great Deceiver thought he should be the conductor instead. When he failed, he set out to destroy the instruments the Master Conductor loved. He convinced them to play themselves and make up their own tunes. The instruments that had been made to be part of a great concert of music chose instead to listen to the Great Deceiver, exchanging the Master Conductor’s beautiful tones for their own discord.

Jammy, a run down guitar, was one of these instruments. He was as good as all the others at making up his own discord, breaking one string after another in the process. Then one day, he met the Master Conductor. He learned he’d been fashioned for a different purpose. The Master Conductor gave him a beautiful song to play instead of the discord.

Jammy wanted to play that song wherever he went, so others would learn of the Master Conductor. But Jammy found this a challenge. He’d gotten so used to playing discord, that he didn’t know how to play anything else.

He ran back again to the Master Conductor, listening to him play the harmonious tune and attempting to imitate it. But his attempts to imitate on his own failed.

“You have to let the Master Conductor play the tune on you,” his friend Melody explained.

Jammy was taken aback. “You mean we were designed to be played?”

Melody nodded. “Yes! Instruments aren’t supposed to play themselves or make up their own tunes. We were all designed to be played! Only in the Master Conductor’s hands can our proper music soar.”

To Jammy’s great delight, as he yielded himself to the Master Conductor, the Master Conductor poured out his beautiful song through Jammy’s strings.

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. Romans 6:13

(The Greek word in this passage probably referred to an instrument of war or work instead of music, but the point remains that we’re to yield ourselves for God to wield.)

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Short Story: What Will You Wear?

clothes

Samuel itched his skin again. He hated this terrible itch! Yet how could he escape from it?

His clothes. That’s what the doctor had said. He needed to put off these clothes and put on the ones the doctor had given him.

Samuel hastily changed. That was better.

But the following morning, he was back in his old clothes again, just a slightly different outfit. Not until the itch became unbearable did he remember that he was supposed to wear the doctor’s garments, which were made out of a different fabric.

Samuel realized he needed a plan. He needed to proactively put reminders to himself to wear the new garments. He even asked his brother to say something if he saw Samuel reaching for any of his old clothes.

Even with the reminders and help, Samuel still found himself itching in his old clothes at times. You see, those old clothes were hard to get rid of. They were made of a fabric that simply wouldn’t destroy here on earth. He’d tried burning them, freezing them, and more, but he couldn’t get rid of them. He tried to hide them, but they had a way of turning back up. They were troublesome clothes, to say the least. Samuel realized he’d have to stay vigilant.

I need to put them away and put on my new clothes, he reminded himself over and over again. With time and lots of help, Samuel began wearing his new clothes more and his old, itchy ones less and less. But he knew what clothes he wore would always be a daily choice.

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.…But now you must put them all away: anger,wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another…Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience…above all these put on love…let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts…be thankful.” Colossians 3:5,8,12-15 (ESV)
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Story: A Struggling Light

oil lamp

Luz felt very odd shining so bright and standing out from the shelf on which he sat in the palace throne room. He wanted to blend in a little more. Let me just inch over here behind this ledge, he thought to himself.

“Luz, what are you doing?” Beacon called out from a nearby shelf.

“I just don’t want to stand out quite so much,” Luz replied. “I figured everyone would be more comfortable around me if I just blended in a little.”

Beacon wagged his wick at Luz. “No, no, Luz. Don’t you see? You’re a light. You’re supposed to be different than the darkness. It’s your job to shine brightly. Your life isn’t about you—it’s about shining light in a darkness.”

Luz knew Beacon was right. “But it’s so dark…”

“All the more reason to shine brightly,” came Beacon’s response.

A few weeks later, Luz had the opposite problem. He wanted everyone to notice him. He kept trying to extend his wick extra high, hoping people would see what a great light he was. He was burning bright…and he liked it when others noticed.

Beacon again had to caution his light friend. “Luz, why were you lit?”

“To shine brightly,” Luz replied, confused by the question. Had Beacon forgotten his previous lecture?

“To shine brightly so that people could see the King on his throne. Your job is not for people to see you, but the King.”

Luz knew Beacon was right. He trimmed his wick a little and looked toward the throne himself. He discovered that if he kept his own gaze there, his light shone brightly in a way that illuminated the darkness for others to see the King too.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16 (ESV)

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Story: Thought Track

Toy Cars

Cars constantly whizzed around Josh’s toy car track, which he called Thought Track. The cars came in all different shapes and sizes. And unlike normal toy cars, these cars seemed to have minds of their own.

Josh’s father had designed this special track to work well, so long as each car stayed in its proper place and traveled in an appropriate way. Josh had the responsibility of making sure cars that shouldn’t be there got taken out, that those that could drive backwards stayed forwards, and that all the cars stayed in their proper place. This task proved anything but easy.

For example, the Task cars seemed to always jump into other lanes besides their own. One always seemed to be humming around the corner, often derailing other cars. Josh discovered he had to constantly erect boundaries to keep the Task cars in their lane. Otherwise, the Task cars would force less-assertive cars, like the People and Bible cars, off the track. Josh had to look at the track very carefully to even realize that these cars had disappeared, since the Task cars tended to fill up the space and noise so well.

There were also cars like Bitterness and Covetousness that just didn’t belong on the track at all. Josh had to keep after these rouge cars, as they were creative about sneaking back on.

Other cars like Fear could be driven well, but instead often drove backwards. Josh had to keep realigning them to head in the right direction.

It was amazing how quickly the Thought Track could get completely out of wack! When it did, Josh had to ask his father to help him get the cars back in their proper places (and remove the ones that just didn’t belong).

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”Philippians 4:8 (ESV)

“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” Proverbs 29:25 (ESV)

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Proverbs 1:7 (ESV)

“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,” 2 Corinthians 10:5 (ESV)