Don't You Wish Everything Was Free?

That's what my eleven year old asked me the other day. I thought about it before answering. She asks questions sometimes that sound really ridiculous to me, but if I take the time to think about them I understand the perspective they're coming from. She was wanting to buy a Kinect and had a lot of saving to do. Saving is a daunting task for all of us. We get so spoiled with our credit cards - and our debt.

So I thought a minute and then I said that no, I did not wish that everything was free. If everything were free then everything would be boring. It's the anticipation and the desire that makes a thing exciting. If everything were free our houses would be bursting with junk that we got bored with quickly as we moved on to the next thing.

Besides that (I went on to explain), it just wouldn't work. The people who make things have to get the materials to make them with and where would it come from? Everything just can't be free. I told her that instead she could maybe wish that she could win a Kinect. That idea made more sense to me (the poor child is saddled with a mother whose imagination wears concrete boots).

And then I thought of heaven. Sometimes I wonder about heaven. What will it be like? We will have no worries? But working through problems is what makes life interesting. Isn't everything free in heaven? Will heaven be boring? What is this "joy" that we will experience in heaven? It is obviously something beyond my comprehension. I don't wish everything was free. Heaven must be something more. Way, way more.

Happy Easter.