“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” (James 1:5)
Evan and Patience were best friends, oddly enough. They had only two things in common: They both loved being outdoors, and their moms were in the same women’s Bible study group. The other three ladies in the group did not have kids, so Evan and Patience had the church playground to themselves two Saturday mornings a month.
They were actually far too adventurous to stick just to the playground, and they were allowed to go anywhere, as long as they could still hear their moms call. So one morning, they started exploring the church graveyard. They knew that it was rude to walk right over the graves, so they walked through the aisles instead, squatting down every once in a while to read the name and dates on a tombstone.
And they walked along the fence, where there were some small trees. Evan was climbing one of these trees when he discovered a robin’s nest with three blue eggs in it! He looked around for the robin-eggs’ mom, but he didn’t see any birds at all.
“Look! There’s more!” cried Patience, pointing at a nearby tree.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“We could collect some and take care of them until they hatch!”
Evan bunched up his jacket on the ground and they used that to hold their treasure. They climbed all the trees they could and plucked eggs from every nest they found. Altogether, there were 21.
When it was time to go home, they decided that Patience should keep the eggs because Evan’s family cat might want to eat the baby birds once they hatched.
“I just thought of something,” said Evan suddenly. “How will we keep them warm while we’re in school?”
Patience thought about it. “Maybe we should ask my mom to take care of them?”
“No way! Our parents wouldn’t understand something like this. We can’t let your mom see them till they’re hatched – then she’ll fall in love with them because they’ll be so cute.”
“I’ve got stuffed animals and doll blankets for keeping them warm,” Patience said. “I could set everything on my bed in the sun while we’re in school.”
And that is what they did. Every day, Patience made a “nest” for the eggs, wrapped up snug in doll blankets, hidden under a pile of stuffed animals on the bed in the sunlight.
But three weeks went by, and the eggs still had not hatched. In fact, they started to stink really bad! One day, Patience came home to an awful mess all over her doll blankets, and she did not know what to do! Trembling, she shook the broken-up shells into the trash can and buried the blankets deep down in the laundry hamper so no one would smell them.
The next Saturday morning, Evan and Patience sat sadly on the church steps.
“When my mom found the blankets,” Patience told Evan, “she cried! And she said that what we did was really foolish and we should have asked her first. She kept saying it – ‘If only you’d asked me! If only you’d asked me!'”
“But we were so careful! Just like science class – we even made our own ‘incubator’! I mean, how were we supposed to know that it wouldn’t work? Huh?”
“I don’t know. I just know that there’s 21 little birds dead now, and it’s all our fault.”
Evan had already cried himself a little, and he wasn’t going to do it again in front of a girl. “So what you’re saying is….”
“Next time we want to do an experiment like this, we’ll just ask our parents first. OK?”
Evan nodded. “Asking first can’t be that bad. It can’t be this bad, anyway.”
Parents have lived longer and seen a lot of things that can help them help their kids with good advice. Have you ever tried to see into the future or figure out what you ought to do? Have you ever needed some help knowing what would be the best and right thing to do in a certain situation? The Bible says that the Heavenly Father offers wisdom freely to anyone who is humble enough to ask for it in faith.
Have you ever thought, “I’ve got common sense! I can handle this on my own!” – only to find out that you really could have used some wisdom greater than yours? God has given parents and teachers and His Word to help guide us, and it is never wise to set those gifts aside. Running ahead of God and relying on your “own understanding” can bring really terrible results sometimes – far worse than the trouble Evan and Patience got themselves into.
The God of the Bible is the kind of God who gives wisdom to His people when they ask. Do you believe He is that kind of God? Do you believe He can help you know how to respond to things He brings into your life? Ask Him, believing He will answer, and He will. God knows everything, so He is the wisest Person you could ever ask for help. He promises to share His wisdom with those who ask in faith.
The God of the Bible is the kind of God who gives wisdom to His people when they ask.
My Response:
» Do you believe God can help you know how to respond to things He brings into your life?
» Ask God, believing that He will answer, and He will.