First story: “We humans are a mess, aren’t we?”
A woman was sharing with her weight-loss group: “I had cooked a cake, my family’s favorite. Later, I saw they’d eaten only half of it. So I sat down and ate a slice. And another. Soon the entire cake was gone. Now I began worrying about what my husband would think. He liked the cake but he’d really be upset if he knew I’d eaten the entire half.”
So, we’re going to pause here and ask our audience a question. Whether you get this or not will reveal your grasp of human nature.
What did the woman do? And what do you think her husband did when he got home and found the cake gone?
She said, “He never found out. I made another cake and ate half of it.”
Human nature is a corrupt, self-destructive thing, isn’t it? We are often our own worst enemies. The consistent message of Scripture is not only that “God loves you,” but that “He loves you more than you love yourself, did far more for you than you’ve ever done for yourself, and is far more ambitious for you (in the right sense) than you ever were for yourself.” Romans 8:31-32 is a favorite statement of His being for us.
Second story: “We’re sent to be fruit-bearers, but of a particular kind.”
A fellow I was reading enjoys telling something that he and his brothers did as children (my notes did not record his name; sorry).