A few years ago,<\/p>\n
At the end of a talk I was giving in France,<\/p>\n
A man came along and asked me a question:<\/p>\n
–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018my son doesn\u2019t want to come to church with me,<\/p>\n
he spends all his time with his #*@#!<\/strong> computer games.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve tried reasoning with him again and again: it\u2019s like talking to a brick wall!<\/strong><\/p>\n What should I do?!\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I looked into his soul and replied:<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018play with him!\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As he was left open-mouthed by my comment, I went on:<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018how do you expect him to be interested in you (and your church),<\/p>\n If you<\/strong> don\u2019t take an interest in what he does?\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pensive (and a little disappointed) he went on his way.<\/p>\n I expect he would have preferred it had I exorcised an evil spirit from his son’s computer games \u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Your sons will return<\/strong><\/p>\n Another time, at the end of a talk,<\/p>\n (everyone will think that I only do the ends of talks!)<\/p>\n I was giving an elderly man a lift back to his house.<\/p>\n When I switched the engine on, the CD player came on automatically too.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was the passage where Jacob, now very old, talks to his son Joseph, whom he\u2019d given up for dead for so many years:<\/p>\n (no, Joseph hadn\u2019t recorded a CD, it\u2019s just an audio bible)<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018I never expected to see your face again, and now God has allowed me to see your children too!\u2019 (Gen 48:11)<\/p>\n Without stopping to think, I said to him:<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018this is a message for you\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n And I don\u2019t really know why,<\/p>\n but the Lord\u00a0 prompted me to tell him the anecdote I told at the start of this email.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lost in thought,\u00a0the old man said:<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018My kids and I used to make dens in their bedrooms with sheets and things. We made up this whole new world, full of adventures\u2026\u00a0\u2018<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018That\u2019s great! I replied, you must have had loads of fun together\u2026\u00a0\u2018<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No, he said, bitterly, because instead of playing with them, I told them off and told them to tidy their bedroom\u2026(pause)\u2026 You know, my children no longer want anything to do with our faith\u2026<\/p>\n All was quiet for a while\u2026<\/p>\n then I broke the silence:<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018it\u2019s not too late to tell them you\u2019re sorry\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I would have liked to have finished with \u2018and they lived happily ever after\u2019 (well\u2026something along those lines)<\/p>\n But I don\u2019t know if they did\u2026<\/p>\n All I know is: that I\u2019m going to go and play with my kid\u2026<\/p>\n Bye!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Alain<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few years ago, At the end of a talk I was giving in France, A man came along and asked me a question: –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018my son doesn\u2019t want to come to church with me, he spends all his time … More…<\/a> More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.auderset.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.auderset.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.auderset.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.auderset.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.auderset.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.auderset.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1758,"href":"https:\/\/www.auderset.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757\/revisions\/1758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.auderset.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.auderset.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.auderset.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}