Every year our church spends a weekend camping at our Bible camp at Kenosee Lake. We stay up too late, eat too much food, hear some good lessons and generally just have fun together. This year, the weekend ended with a “Water gun fight”.
Several of boys were running around the camp spraying people, so one of the dads called a few of the younger girls over and said, “In the back of my truck I have a couple of really big water guns. Go fill them up, but don’t tell the boys. When they come running by, jump out and let them have it.” The girls thought this was a great idea, so they grabbed the guns and ran off.
Soon, the boys went into one of the buildings to refill. The girls hid by the door, water guns loaded and ready. When they boys came out, the girls jumped out of their hiding spot and, as you can imagine, the fight was on. There were kids running everywhere.
In the middle of all this, though, a girl named Tayler stopped and asked one of the smaller boys, “Do you mind if your clothes get wet? I mean, is it ok for us to shoot you?”
Tayler’s example is a simple, but very powerful, life lesson. Just because you have the ability or the right to shoot someone, that does not mean that you have to shoot them. Just because someone else is spraying you, that does not mean that you have to “get them back”. Maybe it is worth thinking about someone else for a second instead of just defending yourself with all your might.
Being nice and sweet and kind is not a good strategy in a water fight (Tayler and the rest of the girls were soaked, while the boys hardly had a drop on them), but it is a great example of how to live and how to treat others.
In this case, wouldn’t it be nice if everyone “fought like a girl”?
“Be excellent in what is good!” (Romans 16:19)
Monday, July 13, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Just when I thought I had Something figured Out
The annual “Estevan Rodeo Parade” goes down 13th avenue, right past our church building and this makes it a popular place to gather. People come and sit on the lawn, or in the shade of the building. It is really nice.
What makes the day even nicer is that, every year, one of our church members, a man named Richard, always gives my girls some money and sends them to Dairy Queen for ice cream. This year our girls said, “You know what? We think that it is our turn to buy ice cream for Richard”.
That made me happy. I mean, here are my kids thinking about other people, remembering the kindness of someone else and wanting to pay it back (even if it was with my money). They wanted to be generous, so Sara gave them some money and they ran off to Dairy Queen to buy dilly bars for Richard.
When they came back, we told the girls to go down the line of people and hand out the ice cream.
Now, what I meant was, “Hand it out to our friends”.
However, my youngest daughter did not get that message.
Instead, she just kept going and asking everyone, “Would you like some ice cream?”
My first reaction was to yell to her, “Stop! You are going too far. We don’t know those people!”
Then I realize something: These people were really happy that someone was offering them free ice cream. Megan was meeting a whole new bunch of people and they were being very kind and gracious to her.
Now here is the thing: I thought I was being generous, but I wasn’t. In fact, all I was really doing was paying Richard back for all the years that he was generous to us. By only sharing with the people that I knew, I had sort of missed the point.
In a section that talks about how we treat people, Jesus asks, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” (Matthew 5:46-47) In other words, if you are only “evening up” with people, you really are not being generous. If you only do things for others in hopes that they will return the favor, you really have not done anything special.
The point: I hope the parade route continues to go past the church building and I hope that people continue to feel free to come, sit there and watch it with
us.
With what my daughter taught me about generosity this year, who knows? You may even get some free ice cream.
What makes the day even nicer is that, every year, one of our church members, a man named Richard, always gives my girls some money and sends them to Dairy Queen for ice cream. This year our girls said, “You know what? We think that it is our turn to buy ice cream for Richard”.
That made me happy. I mean, here are my kids thinking about other people, remembering the kindness of someone else and wanting to pay it back (even if it was with my money). They wanted to be generous, so Sara gave them some money and they ran off to Dairy Queen to buy dilly bars for Richard.
When they came back, we told the girls to go down the line of people and hand out the ice cream.
Now, what I meant was, “Hand it out to our friends”.
However, my youngest daughter did not get that message.
Instead, she just kept going and asking everyone, “Would you like some ice cream?”
My first reaction was to yell to her, “Stop! You are going too far. We don’t know those people!”
Then I realize something: These people were really happy that someone was offering them free ice cream. Megan was meeting a whole new bunch of people and they were being very kind and gracious to her.
Now here is the thing: I thought I was being generous, but I wasn’t. In fact, all I was really doing was paying Richard back for all the years that he was generous to us. By only sharing with the people that I knew, I had sort of missed the point.
In a section that talks about how we treat people, Jesus asks, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” (Matthew 5:46-47) In other words, if you are only “evening up” with people, you really are not being generous. If you only do things for others in hopes that they will return the favor, you really have not done anything special.
The point: I hope the parade route continues to go past the church building and I hope that people continue to feel free to come, sit there and watch it with
us.
With what my daughter taught me about generosity this year, who knows? You may even get some free ice cream.
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