Bricks of life

A parent and a child embarked on a journey walking hand in hand.  At first the child was content to walk alongside the parent, surveying the landscape and jabbering like the small birds they passed.  They had gone some distance, the actual value unknown when they started encountering others, also on a journey.  Curiously the child watched as more and more people joined them on the road.  Finally the child asked, “Where do you think they are all going?”  The parent replied, “Nowhere and anywhere.”  The child thought for a moment, “What does that mean?”  The parent replied, “The people you see all seem to be in a hurry to get somewhere, but once they arrive they don’t know what it was they came for, so they leave and hurry onto the next place.  They never seem satisfied.”  The child seemed content with that answer and they continued to walk and talk about the things that were important in life.  Things like God, love, honor, respect and sacrifice.

As the walk continued, the child and the parent both began to age.  The child no longer was holding the parent’s hand, instead bending to pick up an occasional rock and skip it ahead of them.  The youngster had become a slightly sullen teen who remarked once again about the people walking the street with them, “where do you think they are going?”  The parent once again answered, “Nowhere and anywhere” and the teen looked at the parent and said, “That’s a dumb answer.”  The parent just smiled and they kept walking, conversations all but nil.

Off in the distance they started seeing the streets turn to a golden color, they gleamed in the brilliant sun.  Curiosity got the better of the teen and the teen asked, “Why are the streets turning yellow?”  Before being able to answer, people began flying by them pushing wheelbarrows.  They were empty heading towards the yellowed streets and they were full on the return trip.  The parent and child didn’t know what to make of this, so the sullen teen stuck out his foot and tripped one of the returnees.  When the person who had been tripped stood up, the teen asked, “What’s in your wheelbarrow?”  The person replied “Bricks of gold, hurry go get a wheelbarrow; they seem endless in supply, hurry before too many people catch on and they run out.”

The teen looked at the parent, who smiled noncommittally and said “Don’t listen to him, let’s just continue our walk, we have everything we need, it is God who provides.” The teen looked at the wheelbarrows seeing the possibility of great fortune and then turned and shrugged at the parent and ran off, collecting a wheelbarrow as he went.  The parent continued walking, now alone.  The teen passed the parent making several trips back and forth carrying wheelbarrows full of the golden bricks, each trip producing a greater smile than the trip before.  Years went by and the gold bricks piled up back at the young adult’s house showing the earthly prowess.

One last trip and then once again the two were walking, again showing the signs of age.  The adult child held the aged parent’s arm as they slowly continued their walk, seeing less and less of the brilliant gold bricks and noticing less people crossing their paths.  The road seemed to end abruptly but only in front of the adult child; the brilliantly colored gold bricks beckoned only the aged parent’s pathway.  “What do you think this means”, said the adult child.  The aged parent turned to the adult child and said; along our walk I tried to teach you that money was not the only thing to value.  Go home to your yellow bricks and see if you can possibly re-lay them in time, because what I was trying to tell you was that the bricks were your life’s trail to spending eternity with God.  Instead you sought only to gather and keep all of your bricks at your home, and now, as you can see, your road is too short to bridge to eternity.  Looking ahead, the adult child and aged parent saw heaven’s gates parted where the streets were once again lined with gold and God’s hand reached out to the aged parent.  The adult child gasped realizing the enormity of the mistake that was made, a tearful farewell was bid to the aged parent; the adult child then tried to run home but because of the aging process, the rate of speed had decreased.  Every step taken backwards seemed to be a step taken in place, would the adult child re-lay the path before the end of the road beckoned?

Moral of the story – Money allows for many things in life but it won’t stop you from dying and it can shorten your ability to reach God’s eternal bounty if you put more stock in it rather than your relationship with God.

Looking up!~ Barb