A new bow

During a recent conversation with a pastor friend of mine he made a comment that got me thinking. We were talking about the need for people to be grateful and he said, "Folks ought to just put a new bow on the 4 wheeler that's already sitting in the back yard."

I laughed at the tongue-in-cheek comment and then started thinking, "What would it teach our kids if we actually did something like that?". After all, it's obvious that our country's culture of consumption has played a huge part in the current economic state of our country.

So what if we literally or figuratively put a new bow on the stuff we already have. What if we began teaching our kids that the "magic" of Christmas isn't in getting more toys than their cousins or friends. But rather that the miracle of Christmas is that Christ gave his all for us and we should be grateful for every blessing we have and then go and bless others.

Chasing this rabbit trail of thought, I made a statement to my wife the other day. "If we could convince one of our families to pool all the money they would normally spend on gifts for the family gift exchange and went to Sams and bought food to feed some homeless, hurting people, we could probably feed about 50 people steaks and potatoes and pie." I don't know about you, but I'd rather go feed some hurting people a jam-up meal than get another sweater.

Just some thoughts. I could go on for a while. But I'll spare ya for now.

Grateful,
Johnny