NO FAVORITES

NO FAVORITES

January 8, 1999

Dear Friends,

I taught four-year-old's at a child development center. I loved that age. Four-year-old's are old enough to be somewhat independent and yet young enough to still be inquisitive. On Tuesdays, we took the children to the inner courtyard to ride the tricycles. One spring, the other teachers and I were baffled by the children's behavior. They constantly squabbled, pulled and tussled, over who would get the red tricycles - none of them wanted black ones. Now . . . if some of the tricycles had been red . . . or . . . if some of the tricycles had been black . . . we would have understood this rivalry - children like red. But . . . NONE of the tricycles were red . . . and . . . NONE of them were black: they were silver. To make matter worse, the children who received a "red" tricycle, taunted the ones who received the "black" ones. You can imagine our confusion.

*****

"For God does not show favoritism."

(Romans 2:11 New International Version)

It is human nature to make distinctions between people. We use race, color, religion, ethnicity, income, education, size, shape, weight, hair, clothes, age, gender, birth order, - the list goes on - to make distinctions between ourselves and others. These distinctions are designed to make us feel better about ourselves at the expense of another. God is not like this. His word says: "He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:45 New International Version)." No matter who we are, where we come from, what we look like, or what we have done, God loves us all the same. He gives each of us the opportunity to come to Him. It is His desire that all be saved. He is "not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9)." He awaits with open arms to accept us into fellowship with Him.

*****

There was a very simple explanation to the red tricycle/black tricycle dilemma. The children were more observant then we, the teachers, were. They noticed that the handle bar grips on some of the silver tricycles were red and the grips on the other silver tricycles were black.

In the Master's Love,

The Preacher,

Rev. BWilliamsWaters

email: Preacher.The@usa.net

Rivers of Living Waters Publishing,

John 7:38