Goodie Bags

One of the things that amazes me about children’s birthday parties is the tradition of “goodie” bags. You know, those small gifts that parents give to the guests as a way of saying “thank you” for coming to a party.

The thing that amazes me about that tradition is not the gift, but what I’ve seen happen in some children’s attitude towards those gifts. There are some children who are disappointed if there are no goodie bags or if the gifts inside are not up their standards. Some children come to parties now expecting that they will be treated just for showing up. Take notice sometime, a child goes to a party. They are welcomed, they are treated to a series of fun games and given drinks, prizes, cake, ice cream, sometimes pizza or hot dogs and if they are really lucky they get to go roller skating, swimming or do something cool like inside rock climbing. And this is what the guests get to do. Sometimes it’s really hard to tell who the guest of honor is. However, the disappointing part is not that the guests get treated well, that’s wonderful, the problem comes when the lines get blurred of why they are really there and when a child comes to expect that they will be treated special at someone else’s birthday party.

This is not just a problem that children have. Even as adults we see this so prevalent in our culture. Have you every look around at Christmas time? Who’s birthday is it really? Compare the gifts that we get to the ones that are given to Him during that time of the year. We’ve been so blessed that we’ve come to expect to be blessed and as a result we often lose sight of the blessing giver and that it’s really about celebrating Him.

We do that often in our corporate worship. We plan services around the pleasure of the people we want to reach. We preach sermons around what people want to hear. We come into services wondering whether or not our favorite song or speaker will be on the “menu” today. If you walk into many services today around the country you’d have to wonder who the focus of the service was . And what is on our mind when we walk in? Do we wonder what we are going to receive today? Or do on the other hand consider what we can bring to bring pleasure to our Master, the true Guest of Honor? May there never be a mistake when someone walks into our gatherings who everything was prepared for.

One of the wonderful things about our Lord is that as we put Him in His rightful place, we will always receive. He is so good.

Now, remember this principle today and if you can celebrate your mother for mother’s day and please don’t let her cook for you. It’s about her today! Honoring her is one way we can worship God today! MJ