The Proof of a True Friend

Fresh Manna Readers. I want to encourage and exhort you to consider going to see the new movie, “The Nativity.” It is everything we would hope Hollywood would produce and if we support these kinds of movies, they hopefully will keep making them.

On weekends, I usually pass on something that has been passed to me by a Fresh Manna reader. The following was recently sent to me. I hope it will bless you!
In His Love,
Pastor Tim

Fresh Manna © by Pastor Tim Burt
http://www.freshmanna.org

Proverbs 18:24 “A person that has friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother”

In this third grade classroom. there is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk. Awkwardly and suddenly, there is a puddle between his feet. The front of his pants is wet.

He thinks his heart is going to stop and he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It’s never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they’ll never speak to him again as long as he lives.

The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, “Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I’m dead meat.”

He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered.

As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy’s lap.

The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, “Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!”

Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out.

All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else – Susie. She tries to help, but they tell her to get out. You’ve done enough, you klutz!

Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Susie whispers back, “I wet my pants once too.”

May God help us see the opportunities that are always around us to be that awesome friend.

In His Love,
Pastor Tim Burt http://www.freshmanna.org/