Conference yukon::christian_v7

203.0. "God's Will. Good. Better. Best." by TOKNOW::METCALFE (Eschew Obfuscatory Monikers) Tue Jul 20 1993 10:15

In Sunday School, my teacher related a story he got from one of the
_Little_House_on_the_Prarie_ series that he was reading to his sons.
I'll try and re-relate it.

In the 1800s, one boy went and asked his father for a nickel.  The father
complied and the boy went off and bought some penny candy.  Coming out into the
street, the boy bragged to another boy about his good fortune to have a dad who
would give him a nickel any time he asked.  The other boy's father was a simple
farmer, you see, and the braggart felt secure in his assertions.

The farmer's boy felt chagrined and bragged that his father would also give him
a nickel any time he asked for it, too.  The first boy challenged this.
The farmer's boy said he didn't want to ask for the nickel, but in his mind he
was afraid to ask his father, for he knew they were poor.

The challenge nearly came to blows, as it sometimes does with boys, daring
and double-daring each other into actions to prove something or other.  The
farmer's boy said he would ask his father for a nickel to show them that what
he said was true.  So off he went to seek out his father.

When the boy found his father, who was speaking to another gentleman, he waited
for the time to catch his attention.  When his father asked what the boy
wanted, he asked for a nickel.

"What do you want it for?" he asked.  The boy related the story that had just
transpired.

His father reached into his pocket and pulled out a fifty cent piece.  He
wanted to instill the value of money upon his son and so launched into a
lecture.  At the time, a half a bushel of potatoes went for a half dollar. This
was something the boy understood, for he farmed many a bushel from the fields.
He began to understand the toil he'd expended for the value of a half dollar.

The father, after instilling this knowledge, handed the boy the half dollar and
said, "Now, you can spend this on candy and it will be gone, or you can go buy
a pig and that pig will have a litter and you can make $20 by next year."

The end of the story as it relates here is that the boy did show his friends
that his father entrusted him with not just a nickel, but ten times a nickel,
and that he was not going to trade the nickel(s) for a temporary satisfier.

The point of telling the story is that sometimes we are given things and
options and God the Father leaves the decision up to us.  We can spend that
half dollar on candy, if we want; or some of it here and some of it there;
or all of it on the investment on the future.

We think about God's will in absolute terms.  In this illustration, there was a
clear desire on the part of the father for the son to know the value of that
which he entrusted to his son, and the desire to invest it, but the father
allowed the boy to make the decision by himself. We can see that it would be a
good thing to spend the money on candy to share with his friends; it might be
better to do something else; and it might be best to buy the pig and sell next
year's litter.

Good.  Better.  Best.

God leaves a lot of choices up to us to make.  He has instilled in us His
values.  Too often we seek for confirmation of God's best plan when He has
already put within us the values to see which is best.  And when some options
that are open to us seem to be of equal merit, we are given the power to
choose; and perhaps God has no preference except that it pleases Him for you
to make the choice, yourself.

When God is truly first and foremost in your life, you cannot make a wrong
choice.  Think about it.

Mark

	Good note Mark.





Glen

.0 also applies to Bad, Worse, and Worst, especially when God is not first
in a person's life.