A String and a Coin

[HKHaugan]

A String and a Coin

Recently I was walking across the parking lot of a Home Depot and spotted a quarter on the pavement. I stooped over to pick it up and couldn’t. Someone had glued it there. I wondered, were they watching or did they do it for an ongoing joke? I laughed at myself at having been taken in and went about my business. It reminded me of a similar thing when I lived in New York City. Someone would put a dollar bill at the end of a piece of a disguised string and lay it on the curb. When someone came along and tried to pick it up a person hiding close by would pull the string. You can guess what the reaction was. Right. Everything from anger to laughing.

This simple prank has found an extended form in ‘bait-and-switch’ sales strategies. It’s also found in promises that are never fulfilled, unrealistic hopes and expectations that bring frustration. It’s also behind one of my heart challenging questions,”When you got what you wanted did you get what you wanted?” The flashing lights of pleasure have a string attached and the inner satisfactions promised fade like the end of a rainbow never found. Christmas shopping is an addiction to the secular fear of being unloving. It might be interesting to note that Halloween spending exceeds that of Christmas. This means something spiritual is taking place in the world atmosphere that overwhelms us in the dark times of the year.

A disguised spiritual string is attached to something our hearts wrestle with. There’s a need to prove our love, affection, kindness and concern. That’s the string. Many hearts depend on that string by excessive spending, sending cards and dressing their homes with extravagant decorations. Credit cards are overdrawn and what awaits it all is the day after when children end up drawn to the empty boxes as more attractive and played with than the gifts that came in them. Then the clean up and the moments of re-entry back to the real daily world.

The secularization of truth is seen all about us. It takes us back to an image so basic to the understanding of this erosion process. That image is Jesus charging into the Temple in Jerusalem and overturning the tables of the money changers, driving out the cattle and other sacrificial animals as he shouted, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves (Mt.21:13 based on Jer.7:11).” Think for a moment about the meaning of the Temple when Paul speaks of it as our bodies being personal temples of the Holy Spirit. This is not to discourage gift giving but rather the motivation behind so precious an intention. Is there some fear attached? Perhaps an attempt to placate or prove that in spite of a lack of personal attention, this can replace some unfulfilled vacuum?

On the other hand, is the Lord’s presence prescribing a more personal approach? For disciples of Jesus prayer preceding love of family and friends brings us into a whole new dimension of giving. Is there a broken fence that needs mending either literally or inter-personally? Could it be alertness to the Holy Spirit’s leading to give something that is personally symbolic, creative and unique? Prayer can bring that spiritual dimension of giving to our heart.

But more significantly, the birth of Jesus is a celebration of someone who brings us back to our heavenly Father to be filled with His Spirit who can plow a whole new furrow of possibilities before us. That remembrance opens us to worship Him, renews our daily life as a worship experience that honors Him, worship that gives Him the glory and clears the relational paths before us. Some of those paths have a lot of obstructions. Faith in Jesus can clear them. It may take time, prayer, consistency and patience, which it usually does. But remember, “...we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Rom.8:28).”

Back to the string and the coin. If the string, instead of being disguised in glitter, is the Spirit’s leading and the coin or the dollar bill is really the heart of another, something real and wonderful awaits. Our witness, our sharing, our allowing ourselves to be vulnerable to what lies in the heart of someone else. Ultimately any heart can be pried from its fear driven pride and freed by the Lord. Offering Him, the Gift of gifts, the Giftgiver, that’s what our mission is. That’s what this season intends. And that’s what makes Christmas an everyday event.