Legos and the Gospel

My nine year old son owes me money.  $14.00 exactly.  His income sources of occasional birthday bucks and tooth money don’t allow for much cash flow.

But he had his heart set on a Lego set.  I added some “above and beyond” chores to his load and agreed to pay him an hourly rate for digging up dandelions, roots and all.  Still, he is $14.00 shy from the coveted building bricks.

However (true confessions!), in a moment of Amazon expediency, I had ordered the set and it came before he had earned enough to pay for it and it sat in that smiley-faced box and he just knew what was in that box!

The negotiations began.  “Could I just build it and not play with it?” he asked.  Hmmmmm.

Then, in one of those moments when a parent just wants to give good gifts to her children, I exclaimed, “What if I just forgive your debt?!  You can have it now—all the rights and privileges of ownership.  You can build it and play with it!”

I suppose you could argue that I’m not teaching my son about hard work and responsibility, but perhaps in a small way, I am teaching him about the gospel.

He chants the refrain in church, week after week—“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”  Ours is a debt we can never repay.  The sum is too great.  The debt must be forgiven.

And only One can both pay and forgive the debt—the God Man, slain for us. 

Can a child’s plaything teach us the gospel?  Oh yes!