Open the present ...

 

There is this mistaken notion amongst many people that all you have to do is be a good person and you will go to Heaven. Nothing could be further from the truth and people need to be put right on this.

Heaven is not a luxury hotel and all you need is the right number of ticks and gold stars in your Spiritual Passport and you're in.

If you go through life not caring about God then what makes you think He would want to spend an eternity with you?

Harsh? But it is true.

Let's look at it this way. Tell me if I'm wrong.

God in His limitless love has invited us all, with no exception, to an eternity in Heaven. But we must respond to this invitation. It isn't a matter of sitting on our backside through life and we're in Heaven at the end of it. We must RSVP God's invitation.

When someone gives us a present we must open it, appreciate it, and thank the donor for it. If we leave it unopened all it is is a packet with wrapping paper around it. It is not a gift.

We respond to God's invitation by believing in Him as our loving Creator Father, by obeying His wishes, and by believing and acknowledging that Jesus is His only Son, who died for us and was resurrected from the dead.

These are the main headlines as they say in the News. There are others we can learn about as we progress through our lives. 

Or in other words, to summarise by quoting Jesus, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him." John 14:6-7

Presents and Gifts

 

Buying a gift for someone is such a personal thing that we should be careful that the recipient really appreciates what we have bought for them. My books for instance have boomerang qualities in that they can be passed on to others when bought and enjoyed; although most people tend to keep them for themselves. Especially the FREE ones.

Some years ago, after visiting us and enjoying many a rest by the pond in our back garden, when he left Uncle Eric sent us a fish for our pond. It arrived special delivery. It was a frozen salmon. 

In his haste to thank us for a nice holiday he went to the wrong website and ordered a fish from a high class specialist fishmonger. We enjoyed the fish, but never told him the truth. We said his fish was flourishing in the pond.

That same uncle was invited one year for Christmas. In early November he sent us a turkey. Well, not a turkey as such. It was a coupon whereby we go to a nearby farm, choose a live turkey, and nearer Christmas they slaughter it and prepare it and send it to us special delivery ready for the oven. Thankfully, I did not have the children with me. I did not have the heart to point at a bird and condemn it to death. I signed the relevant papers and told them to send me any turkey.

One week before Christmas a parcel came special express delivery. I opened it and it was a leg of lamb. I looked at it once or twice and it was still a leg of lamb. I went out of the kitchen and back in again; it was still a leg of lamb.

I rang the farm. They said they sent a turkey; "are you sure Sir?" she said to me. I went to the kitchen and checked again. Yes, I was sure it was a leg of lamb because it looked like a leg of lamb rather than a turkey which is altogether a different shape.

I then spoke to the manager, he informed me that my turkey had escaped the farm and had an argument with a combine harvester and became ground meat. So they decided to send me a leg of lamb costing more than the turkey as compensation. 

I explained that technically I had not chosen a turkey, so "my" turkey could not have escaped and met his demise against a mightier opponent. 

To save further headache, we accepted the leg of lamb and we quickly bought a turkey from the supermarket. When Uncle Eric came for Christmas we told him this was his turkey on the table.

Another gift I received from someone was a day at a health farm. You start with a sauna where you are boiled alive like a lobster. Then the brochure showed a whole body massage with a photo of a young man lying naked on a table with a tiny towel on his backside and a beautiful masseuse rubbing his shoulders. Knowing my luck the masseuse will be a heavyweight wrestler with a grudge against society. What is it with this fashion of lying naked in-front of someone you never met and have them touch you all over? You don't know where they've been. The brochure also offered a mud bath, or putting your feet in a pool of water and having fish nibble at your toes. I gave that gift coupon to someone else.

And yet another strange gift I won in a competition is a flight on a hot-air balloon. You know the one ... hanging there in mid-air in a wicker basket with a gas cylinder above your head blowing air into a flammable canvass flying just anywhere without a rudder or compass or any means of direction. A modern image of society, I guess.

What if the wicker bottom gave way because of the weight of the people and we all fall down without a parachute? Or if the balloon loses its air ... You know, when you have a party balloon which you blow up and then let go ... and it flies all over the place left and right as it deflates going bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz as it loses air. Does this happen to a hot-air balloon? Can you imagine it flying all over the sky left and right as it deflates dragging people hanging for their lives in a picnic basket? Not for me, I tell you.

I prefer my gifts of the edible kind. Even if it is a leg of lamb pretending to be a turkey.

Christmas Gifts

If we are honest, we would all admit that at one time or another we have re-cycled Christmas and other gifts given to us which we do not want. We take away the wrapping paper, put on a new one and give the gift to a relative or friend who would appreciate them more than us.

I know that I have done so in the past. The odd video DVD, or book which I do not want or like, or indeed the bottle of drink which I will not use. They have all found their way to someone else and saved me having to buy them presents.

I doubt though that anyone has ever had reason to sell unwanted presents. I never did ... until now.

I say until now because I have received two Christmas presents which quite honestly I cannot bring myself to re-cycle by giving them to anyone else. I know no one will appreciate them.

So the next best thing is to sell them.

And this is where you come in. Do you perchance wish to buy either of these items and how much would you be willing to pay?

The first item is ...

... an anchor.

It arrived a few days ago, delivered by two postmen who had great difficulty getting it out of the van and to our front door. It was already wrapped in Christmas paper and at first I thought it was a crossbow. But it seemed too big and very heavy to be such. So heavy that the postmen had to drag it along the road rather than lift it.

When we took the wrapping off we discovered, to our dismay, what it actually was. It's a Christmas gift from an eccentric uncle. The note read that he changed the anchor in his yacht and he wondered whether we would like this one as an ornament in our front garden. 

We live some million miles from any sea ... so an anchor as an ornament outside the house would be appropriate, don't you think?  

Do you want to buy it? Offers in the comments box please.

The second item I have for sale is also an un-wanted gift which arrived the day after the anchor was delivered.

It is ...

... a crane.

Yes ... a crane. I got out of the house Saturday morning and there it was. Fully erected and standing proud in our front garden.

Who ever put it there must have worked fast during the night to put it up together like a Mecano set. The neighbours said they saw three big lorries parked outside with a lot of iron bits and pieces and in about a couple of hours the people put up the crane in our garden. The neighbours thought we were perhaps building an apartment above our house; or maybe putting up a statue of myself.

With the crane was a note in an envelope from a lunatic aunt of ours, (not on my side of the family). The note said, "I saw this on the Internet and thought of you!"

What sort of demented person would see a picture of a crane on the Internet and think of buying it for me? What is the connection between a huge yellow crane and me? I don't even like the colour yellow.

I phoned her and ever so politely asked her if she lost her marbles. Whether perhaps she was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Whether her little grey cells had perhaps committed suicide.

She said she saw the small photo on the Internet, (like the one above), and thought it was a toy. So she bought it for me. She had received the invoice for a ludicrous sum of money which she thought was too much for a toy and she took the matter up with her solicitor.

So, in case the suppliers don't take the crane back, do you want to buy it? You'll have to collect it yourself.