The Good Gift

What a plastic parachute toy taught me about the Holy Spirit

My wife and I were in a department store when it caught my eye. I grabbed it off the rack and said, "I've got to get this!"

"This" was a parachute toy, the kind with a little plastic man that you toss up and watch float down.

A concerned frown knit my wife's brow. "You have to have that?"

"Yes!" I declared. So we bought it.

I can still remember when I had first seen a toy like this one. However, back then I didn't want it.

I must have been eight or nine years old. As my father and I browsed through the toy section of a large department store, he spotted a parachute toy in its attractive packaging. Pulling one off the rack, he examined it with interest and then turned to me and asked, "Hey, Mike, would you like me to get this for you?"

I looked at the toy for a moment, but something else had piqued my interest. In large wire baskets near the floor were plastic soldiers of different nationalities. I already owned quite a collection of them, but I had spotted several that I didn't have. Picking one up, I told my father, "I want this."

My dad was taken aback. "But I want to get you this."

I held my choice a little higher in case he hadn't seen it clearly. "I want the soldier."

My father was getting irritated. He took the soldier from me, stooped down beside me, and held out the parachute toy. "Mike, this is a better and more interesting toy, and it's something you don't have. You can do a lot with it. Not only that, but it's more expensive." (It cost a dollar while the soldier was only five cents.) "This," he held out my choice, "is just a cheap piece of plastic, and you have plenty of them. Why don't you let me get you this other toy?"

I just didn't understand. Why wouldn't my dad get me what I wanted—especially since it would save him money? I looked at the two toys in my father's hands, snatched up the soldier, and repeated, "I want this!"

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