Lesson from a Newborn

Tonight at church, the prayer and praise service moved into the Children's church room while the kids practiced for their Christmas program. We were all sitting on hard cold chairs and I was thinking about how uncomfortable the service was going to be when the following scenario occurred.

The pastor was asking for any praises and a new Christian raised her hand. She said she was happy at how her son was growing. He had been wanting to get on the basketball team for some time now. He finally made the team and his first game was tonight. She had told him she wasn't sure how the schedule was going to work out since some of the games fell on Wednesday nights and she felt like they should be in church. She told him she would go with him tonight since it was his first game. They were in their car headed towards the gym when her son said something along these lines, "Mom, can we just go to church? I think they are practicing for the Christmas program. I can go to next week's basketball game."

It's pretty sad, but the more I thought about it, the more I wondered what would happen if more people could get ahold of what that young boy knew. Putting God before everything does pay off. How many of us skip a service here or there for "family coming into town," or "it's the biggest football game of the year" reasons? And yet this "newborn" Christian and her son decided God was more important than his first basketball game. If only we all put God first in everything, what could happen?