Children's Moment About "Stuff"

Well, the move is over!!! ~whew~ I actually had another dump run, and a full truck load that went to Goodwill before it was all over and done. But... it.. is.. done...!!! This was the first time that I have had to do the bulk of the packing, and organizing, and throwing stuff out. I was emotionally and physically drained, and after the close of the sale of the house, when I was all moved into my Dad's house, I had to take a day off work just to sleep and re-charge.

Ok, enough said about that -- on to my Children's Moment about "Stuff."

I told the children that I had just move and had to get rid of a lot of stuff. I asked them if they had a lot of stuff in their rooms. A coupld of them said yes and a couple said no. I asked them what kind of stuff they had. They said clothing, toys, books.

I then asked them if they needed all the stuff they had. They all said yes of course. I responded with "you really don't need all of it, but I am sure that you want it and like it" which did not really go over very well.

My next question was if they thought Jesus had a lot of stuff. A couple of the kids shrugged, but the pastor's son responded "nope, because he didn't even have a house... well, he has a house but he was never there." This boy is 8 by the way. So I asked the kids what they thought Jesus did have that he kept with him. A couple of the responses were clothing and shoes.

They were pretty good at getting the point that Jesus did not have anything, because he was always walking from one city to another in order to tell the word of God. That he didn't have much because what he had he had to carry with him, so basically only had the one outfit and maybe one pair of sandals, and nothing else. I asked what Jesus did when his clothing got smelly, and what did he do about food and sleeping. The preachers son again answered.. saying "Well, when he got dirty he would just wash his clothes in the river when he was taking a bath, and he lived in a tent like about the size of the entry over there (pointing to our tiny church entry)." I then pointed out that Jesus also had to rely on other people for his food and water, and even shelter a lot of the time.

Then again I asked them if they really needed all the stuff they had at home. Most of them shook their heads indicating nope they didn't. "So, then why do we have so much stuff that is so hard to get rid of, if Jesus didn't need it all to get by?" Again, the pastor's son, stating the obvious: "WELL, they didn't have things back then like TV's and video games, and movies, so he didn't need to have them like we do."

That was the lesson...