The Applause of Heaven - Max Lucado [26]
No!
She took two steps and fell again.
Parents aren't supposed to go into the pit. I tried to reach her from the edge, but I couldn't. She was somewhere under the balls, so I spoke toward the area where she had fallen. "Andrea, let go of the balls so you can get up."
I saw a movement under the balls. "Nooo!!"
"Andrea," spoke her slightly agitated father. "You could get up if you would let go of ..."
"Nooooo!!!!!"
"Jenna, come here and help your sister up."
By now the other parents were beginning to look at me. Jenna waded through the balls toward her little sister. She reached down into the pit and tried to help Andrea onto her feet. Jenna wasn't strong enough, and Andrea couldn't help because she was still clutching the same balls she had grabbed when she first stepped into the pit.
Jenna straightened up and shook her head at me. "I can't get her up, Daddy."
"Andrea," her increasingly irritated father said loudly, "let go of the balls so you can get up!"
The cry from beneath the balls was muffled, but distinct. "Nooooo!!!!!"
"Great," I thought to myself. "She's got what she wants, and she's going to hold on to it if it kills her."
"Jenna," her visibly angered father said sternly. "Take those balls away from your sister."
Down Jenna dove, digging through the balls like a puppy digging through the dirt. I knew she had found her little sister and that the two were engaged in mortal combat when waves of balls began to move on the surface of the pit.
By now the other parents were whispering and pointing. I looked forlornly at the employee who was monitoring the pit. I didn't even have to say a word. "Go on in," he told me.
I waded through the balls to my two angels, broke the death-locks they had on each other, put one under each arm, and carried them to the center of the pit. I dropped them next to the table (all the other kids scrambled away when they saw me coming). Then I marched back to the side of the pit and sat down.
As I watched the girls play with the balls, I asked myself, "What is it that makes children immobilize themselves by clutching toys so tightly?"
I winced as a response surfaced. "Whatever it is, they learned it from their parents."
Andrea's determination to hold those balls is nothing compared to the vice-grips we put on life. If you think Jenna's job of taking the balls away from Andrea was tough, try prying our fingers away from our earthly treasures. Try taking a retirement account away from a fifty-five-year-old. Or try convincing a yuppie to give up her BMW. Or test your luck on a clotheshorse and his or her wardrobe. The way we clutch our possessions and our pennies, you'd think we couldn't live without them.
Ouch.
Jesus' promise is comprehensive: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."
We usually get what we hunger and thirst for. The problem is, the treasures of earth don't satisfy. The promise is, the treasures of heaven do.
Blessed are those, then, who hold their earthly possessions in open palms. Blessed are those who, if everything they own were taken from them, would be, at most, inconvenienced, because their true wealth is elsewhere. Blessed are those who are totally dependent upon Jesus for their joy.
"Andrea," her father pleaded, "there are more than enough balls to play with at the table. Concentrate on walking."
"Max," the heavenly Father pleads, "there are more riches than you could ever dream at the banquet table. Concentrate on walking."
Our resistance to our Father is just as childish as Andrea's. God, for our own good, tries to loosen our grip from something that will cause us to fall. But we won't let go.
"No, I won't give up my weekend rendezvous for eternal joy.
"Trade a life addicted to drugs and alcohol for a life of peace and a promise of heaven? Are you kidding?"
"I don't want to die. I don't want a new body. I want this one. I don't care if it is fat, balding, and