A New Bike
Every child loves to hear stories from their parent’s past. My dad had many stories to share and four eager sets of ears to listen. One of my personal favorites was dad’s first reaction to the news of Japan’s surrender in the summer of 1945. James Bryan Jones’ earliest years were the war years. The industrial world and its resources were consumed providing American forces all they needed to serve justice on Germany and Japan. No child understands the politics of war. All dad knew was that new toys were hard to come by and he wouldn’t have a bicycle until the war was over.
When it was announced over the ocean waves and then the air waves that Japan had surrendered, every church bell across America rang out and people put down their work and toil to celebrate. The free world was celebrating victory for all, but a little boy with a very limited scope of international knowledge knew the end of war meant a closure to childhood’s personal sacrifice.
My father was neither spoiled nor narrow minded. He was a youngster reacting to the world he experienced and perceived. Dad was soon guided to a more correct consciousness of what he was due and the high cost of freedom. How do I know this? He grew to become a generous and compassionate person.
When we face the world each day we bring our gender, age, education, talent, passion and preference acting as a filter to every stimuli entering our physical and mental body. What comes out in response is our perception of facts. Sometimes this takes us far from true reality.
As we get chronologically older the gap between perception and reality should narrow. It’s called maturity, but some never achieve greatness in this endeavor. Spiritually, God commands that we grow and become less concerned with our point of view and more aware of His.
Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. I Corinthians 14:20 Have a childlike faith when dealing with sin, but otherwise act like a grownup! For the Christian, maturity is not an option. We have no entitlements but our inheritance has sidewalks make of gold!
Just as my dad learned a more objective way to see his world, he taught his children that they were not the center of the universe. The autonomy we enjoy and the liberties we exercise were paid for by others and the highest gift we were given was eternal life at the expense of Heaven’s Love.
Love,
Gretchen