He Knows Who’s Good or Bad

The Lord saw fit to bless me immensely four years ago with my first grandchild. Man of man was he a beautiful baby and oh so chunky. he quickly became “Chunk” to me and that boy lit up our world like the star that led the wise men to baby Jesus. He was simply the most beautiful creature I had ever seen walk the planet Earth.

Fast forward to now and that Chunk is not so chunky and the pudgy little face is not so round, but he is still beautiful in his Grandy’s eyes. (That’s me...Grandy) He is a tad bit leaner and meaner these days as a four-year old, and the tales of his exploits at his pre-K classes in Malta are prone to make me both laugh with a near sadistic glee and shake my head in dismay at the same time.

I often wonder how my friend Stacy Starrett, who is the superintendent at Malta, has not gotten down on one knee in front of my beautiful grandson and pinched his little head off. The boy is ummmm...precocious.

I laugh at some of his exploits because they are a carbon copy of his mama’s exploits at the same age. The wise old adage of “payin’ for your raisin” has come home to roost so to speak for this boy’s mama. I wince as well at some of his actions because many of his day to day exploits are worthy of his backside meeting up with a wooden instrument.

Little Isaac goes to school each day and finds himself on his way home daily with a color attached to his toils in class. Days that end with green are very good and days that end with red are not so majestic.

A few days ago he came home with the heralded green marker and his parents quickly rewarded him by letting him pick out a new inflatable for their yard. Soon after a 10-foot tall Grinch stood next to the driveway. The boy was then told if he was to get green again, he could pick out yet another sidekick for Mr. Grinch. Sadly, Mr. Grinch still stands alone and green is not a color on the boy’s color wheel.

I have said all of the above as a reminder to us all that most of us would also be in a mess if we had to earn a green mark every day. I know I definitely stray into the yellow some days, and if I, and we all, are honest, we have red days too. While my grandson needs to be thankful that he has a teacher, principal and superintendent who are obviously loaded up with grace and mercy, all of us should be even more thankful that we serve a God that has infinitely more grace and mercy than anyone.

Where would we be if grace and mercy were not doled out to us by the bucket each day? See, even better than Santa Claus, our Father in Heaven knows who is good, or bad. He really does see us when we’re sleeping, and He knows what we are doing when we are awake. He knows if we have been bad or good, and He knows when we are less than good for goodness’ sake.

As we convey to our small children that they should be good so that their Christmas tree is loaded with gifts, as adults we should be good so that the one who gave His life on a tree can give us the greatest gift of all.

Better than any toy, bicycle or video game, the gift God gives us each and every day is the opportunity for eternal life. All we have to do to receive that gift is believe, just as a child so earnestly believes in Santa.

This year, as we all celebrate the season, let us all reach for the color green every day. I shall try to do so, and pray you do as well. Now excuse me for another week, I am going to buy my grandson’s teacher some new yellow markers to put in her stocking. She is going to need them.