Saturday, August 29, 2009

The Dirt Bike








Today our church had a yard sale.

However, this wasn't your average, run-of-the-mill yard sale.
No, my friends, this was an outreach; a ministry opportunity; a venue in which the love of Jesus could be shown to our community freely.

And by freely, I really mean freely because, well, everything was given away for free!

What a fantastic idea!

I didn't make it, but from what my husband tells me, it was a great success! People were blown away and more than a little surprised to see that our church was literally giving things like GPS systems, treadmills, furniture, picture frames and clothing away for free.

Last week, my husband drove a truck and trailer over to a members house to pick up several items that they would be donating for the yard sale. Later, my 4 year old joined him and happened to notice that one of those items was a dirt-bike just his size.

Well, you can be sure that he asked Daddy about it and my husband told him that while he couldn't have it (because it was for the yard sale) they could certainly pray that maybe no one else would want it and then maybe he could have it. (All left over items were donated to Goodwill and, well, up for grabs.)

Needless to say, our little guy has been praying that he might be able to have the dirt bike and several times today while home with me (while Daddy was at the yard sale) he would ask me to call my husband to check on the status.

When my husband got home he told my son that "it was there for a while and the next thing I knew, it was gone!"


Someone else had been blessed by it.


I could tell that he was a little bummed and this became even more clear when the two of us were sitting together at the dinner table tonight. Our conversation went something like this:

M: "Mommy, I'm sad"
Me: "Why buddy?"
M: "I'm sad because I didn't get the dirt bike"
Me: (wanting to somehow make a life lesson out of the situation): "I know honey, but it's okay...someone else was blessed with it."
M: "But I wanted the dirt bike!"
Me: "Well, guess what buddy..."
M: "What?"
Me: "Our church was actually giving away all of the stuff at the yard sale for free!!"
M: "They were?(eyes wide) Why?"
Me: "Well, buddy, because we wanted to use today as an opportunity to reach out to people in our community. We were giving things away to show people the love of Jesus and to use this as an opportunity to invite them to our church where maybe, just maybe, they might hear about Jesus for the very.first.time.ever!!"
M: "And bring the dirt bike back?!?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ahh....we have a long way to go folks. :-)


Be blessed,

~Jenn~

1 comment:

  1. Cute!!! I cherish those teachable moments in my day when I can help my children see outside of their own little world and realize the big picture of life and know that it's not all about them, but reaching the world for Jesus.

    Maybe Mason will get a dirt bike for Christmas!?!? Huh, mom!?!?

    Blessings,
    Jenifer

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