Ripples

by Jim Payton

teachers told you God will protect you and keep you safe so your Mum and Dad will never know, will they?”

  Again, a voice in Sam’s head seemed to say, “Go on Sam, you can do it. God wants you to do it. He will keep you safe.”

  “No,” said Sam. “I won’t do that. I know God would keep me safe, but I’d be doing wrong by not doing what Mum and Dad have said so I won’t do it.”

  So, you see, being a copycat of Jesus is hard. Sometimes your friends, and other people, want you to do things that you should not. It was not God, or his angels, speaking to Sam telling him to do those things. It was the Devil pretending to be God. Sometimes it can be hard to tell what God wants you to do, so if you’re not certain then ask your Mum or Dad, or someone else you trust, like your Sunday school teacher, school teacher, youth leader or an older person. They will tell you what God is actually saying.

  Story 27 Ruben and Son

  Based on Matthew Chapter 21, verses 1 to 11.

  Ruben snuggled down closer to his father. It was not cold, but as a baby, he liked to have his Dad close by. Ruben was a grey colour but he had a big long head, just like his Dad. He also had hooves on the ends of his legs and he had a tail. When he spoke, he went “Hee Haw”. Yes, Ruben and his Dad were donkeys. They lived in a town not far from Jerusalem. Suddenly two men walked up to Ruben and his Dad. They untied his Dad from the tree to which he was tethered.

  “Come on,” said one of the men. “You’re coming with us.” Ruben’s Dad got slowly and reluctantly to his feet. Ruben did the same.

  “Who are these people Dad?” asked Ruben.

  “Beats me,” said his Dad. “I just hope that it doesn’t mean work.”

  “What are you doing with my animals?” asked Eli. Eli was the owner of Ruben and his Dad and had just arrived.

  “The Lord has need of them,” one of the men said. The men lead Ruben and his Dad away. They went to a place quite close. There was a hill there, and it was know locally as the Mount of Olives due to the large number of olive trees growing on it. There was a large group of people sitting on the ground and they were listening to a man who was talking to them. He acted like a teacher. Ruben heard him called Jesus. He was telling the people stories about something that was going to happen to him. He said that he was going to be leaving them all and that the Passover meal they were going to share would be the last meal they would all have together. Ruben could not understand what the man Jesus meant, but he could tell that he was very sad.

  Jesus then stood up and walked across to Ruben’s Dad. Someone put their robe on Ruben’s Dad’s back, and Jesus sat on it. Ruben’s Dad then started into Jerusalem carrying Jesus on his back. Ruben’s Dad turned to Ruben and said, “A long, long time ago your great, great, great, great Grandfather heard a Prophet named Zechariah say that one day everyone in Jerusalem would celebrate and shout as the King of the Jews rode on a donkey and the Son of a donkey. He must have meant us.” As they walked into Jerusalem, the people on the sides of the road cut down branches from Palm trees and threw them down in front of Ruben and his Dad and Jesus, or just waved them in the air. Some people even threw their robes down for them to walk on. So, Jesus entered Jerusalem knowing that he was soon going to die for being good. While it is very sad that Jesus died, we can be glad because he did not stay dead for long. Three days after he died, he came alive again and went up to heaven to stay with his father, God, in heaven.

  Story 28 Jesus and the Real Indians

  Are you good at spelling? I do not mean easy words like your name, or cat, or food. I mean hard words like arithmetic. Today people call arithmetic ‘math’ but that is short for mathematics, another hard word. Children used to call mathematics, sums. Teachers would get children to spell arithmetic in spelling tests. If they got it wrong, they would get into trouble. Sometimes they would even get the strap, or cane. You will have to ask Mum or Dad, or perhaps your Nana or Poppa what those things were. I could never ever spell it right and got into trouble every time. One day I made up a little sentence using the letters of the word arithmetic. Each word needed to start with the letters of the word arithmetic. The sentence was, A Real Indian Thought He Might Eat Turnips In Church. If you take each first letter; a,r,i,t,h,m,e,t,i,c you spell arithmetic. Clever!

  I remembered that when I sat down to write a Christmas story. These days everyone seems to shorten the word Christmas to Xmas and I want to make sure you know it is Christmas and not Xmas. I was in such a hurry to write this story, that when I typed Father Christmas, I found that I had typed Father Christmis. You know, that gave me a great idea. Christmas is all about the birthday of Jesus. That’s right. We celebrate Jesus’ birthday on the day we know as 25 December. That was a long time ago though, over 2000 years ago. Not a lot of people remember it is Jesus’ birthday. They think it is just a holiday and a time to get presents and eat lollies. Christians remember it is Jesus’ birthday but even some of them write Xmas instead of Christmas. When you write Xmas, you leave Jesus out of Christmas. You see, Jesus is the Christ, and that bit of Christmas spelt Christ, means Jesus. Whoever heard of having a birthday without knowing whose birthday it is? That is what people are doing when they write Xmas. They are forgetting whose birthday it is. So when I wrote Father Christmis it reminded me that Father is God, Christ is Jesus, and by making ‘mas’ into ‘mis’ I was reminded that I was not to miss Jesus this Christmas like all those people who spell Christmas, Xmas. Do not forget that Christmas Day is Jesus’ birthday will you? And do you know the best present you can give anyone? It is to tell them that you love them. So, on Christmas day do not forget to say, “Happy birthday Jesus, I love you. Thank you for being my friend. Amen”

  Story 29 Sally and Food

  I do not know if you remember me. I am Sally, the butterfly. I have three spots on my wings. I got all upset once because teasers at school called me ‘three spot’. As I told you, I go to butterfly school to learn how to eat cabbages, but just like you, we have school holidays. While it is great for the first few days not having to get up early, it soon gets boring doesn’t it? I mean, big time boring. Like, what can a butterfly do but fly? I miss my friends and sometimes wish I were back at school.

  But, let me tell you about when I met Percy the Praying Mantis. I had seen him at the Garden Centre before, but as he went to another school, I had never spoken with him. This time I met him at the athletics track. As I was bored, I just flew around and then stopped to watch a couple of snails training for the 100 mm sprint. Percy was also there. We got chatting and then he invited me back to his place. I had never had so much fun. We played pin the spot on the ladybird, and then hopscotch. If you do not know what hopscotch is, you had better ask your Mum or Dad. Percy’s Mum also had a DVD for us to watch. It was Slug man 3. That was neat. We got some lollies to eat. They had brussel sprout centres. Yummy. Percy’s Mum telephoned my Mum to see if I could stay for tea. Once tea was set out on the mushroom table, I went to start eating but then noticed everyone else was sitting with their eyes closed. Mr. Mantis said, “God, bless this food to do us good for Jesus sake. Amen.” Then everyone started to eat. Afterwards I asked Percy why his Dad did that. Percy said that all the food and everything else on this earth came from God so they all thanked him for it before each meal. It seemed so simple, so I told my Mum and Dad and now we say it before each meal. Do you?

  Story 30 Armour

  I can remember the day well. How old was I? Oh, about 9 or 10. I was a bit of a strange kid. I did not have many friends, and I was never the first one picked in any side. Gee, it is awful to be the last one picked. Even at my schoolwork I was only average. I was scared of the teachers. I remember when Mum and Dad took me to a dentist. They had some shopping to do, so while I only had two fillings, I ended up being away from school for the whole day. The next day, at school, the teacher asked me how many fillings I needed. I believed I would be in trouble if they thought I had been away from school the whole day for two fillings, so I said twenty-six. That little lie got me into m
ore trouble than if I had stuck with the two fillings. Other kids called me names, and I lost fights. When we got into trouble at school, we would get the cane. It was a length of bamboo. Teachers would use it to hit you on the backside. I got it a few times and it hurt. One day I saw another boy getting the cane, girls did not get it, and he had put some newspaper down his shorts so that it did not hurt him. I remember thinking it was funny having newspaper as armour. It did stop the cane from hurting him though.

  The next Sunday, I read in my Sunday school lesson about spiritual armour. Spiritual is a big word isn’t it? Do you know what it means? If you do not know, what it means, ask Mum, Dad, Grand parents or your Sunday school teacher and see if they can tell you. I said that I read my lesson because we lived a long way from a Church so we did our Sunday school lessons by correspondence. I knew that armour protected you because I had read about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and Robin Hood. In both stories, the Knights protection was armour. The Bible story talked about the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, shoes of peace, a shield of