MAKING A LIST...

If Santa was for real, what would be the most-requested item in his mailbox?

I wonder how many millions of notes would ask for “Frozen” costumes and play gadgets. Or toys connected to Spiderman or some other super-power character?

 Back in the really old days—like Bible times—kids had pretty simple want-lists. I pick that up from Jesus’ teaching about children’s gifts:

You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. (Matthew 7:9-10)

This teaching’s context is Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” in which He unlocked truths about a holy but gracious and generous God. I think the point of this portion is sometimes we are asking for symbolic stones and snakes, not realizing their worthlessness and potential for harm. If human, fallible parents can make good judgment calls about children’s “wish lists,” so much more can our Heavenly Father do so.

When my children—now adults and parents—were small, they were allowed to open one gift before breakfast and before opening the rest of their presents.  They knew it would be rectangular and rattle when shaken. Because I favored buying “healthy” breakfast cereal the rest of the year, their joke gift would be the most sugar-laden, crazily-advertised cereal I could find.

The rest of the year, they had to eat healthier stuff, but oh the sugar rolled on Christmas morning. I called the joke gifts “Flicky Flacky Flakes,” and thankfully the package didn’t last the week. The normal breakfast around our house—something a challenge with their lists of likes and dislikes—was usually a bit more nutritious to keep them from fading halfway through the school day.

In my adult world—my spiritual adult world—I try to guard against empty spiritual calories in the morning. I don’t have a “Santa list,” but my first thought in the quietness of an early morning devotional time is like this little song: “Good morning, Lord, this is your day. I am your child. Show me your way.”

I don’t need Santa. I don’t need stuff.  But I do need God’s gracious provision of wisdom to discern stones from the Bread of Life, and snakes from the miracle Sea-of-Galilee fishing nets, in the choices and problems I face every day.