Have you ever thought what it’s like to be a kid at the grocery store? Mother is rushing, and she takes the kid and stuffs him into the steel seat and says, “Sit there and be quiet. I’ve got to pick up a couple of things.” Now when mother says “a couple of things,” that means a couple of things from each section.
“Now, son,” she says, “you can’t have anything. Just sit there and be quiet. I will roll you up and down the aisles, and you can see all the wonderful things to get, but you can’t have anything. I will get everything I want, and not only that, you will have to sit on what I get.”
Well, to a kid that’s like sitting on McDonald’s lap and not getting a Happy Meal. Children are not happy campers in the grocery store.
I have a friend who was with his son in the grocery store. His son kept asking him if he could be a dog. Finally the dad said, “Fine, be a dog. Just leave me alone.” Later he saw his son, Jake, run up to a man and lick his leg. Horrified, my friend ran to apologize to the man. The guy took it well and said, “I’m just glad he didn’t think I was a fire hydrant.”
A lady told me about going grocery shopping with her young son. She was in a hurry, so she put her son in the cart and told him to be quiet. As she hurried along, putting stuff in the cart, the kid spotted some chocolate chip cookies. He said, “Mom, please may I have some chocolate chip cookies?” She said, “No! I told you to be quiet.” About the fourth aisle the kid asked again if he could have just a few chocolate chip cookies. Again, she told him no and to be quiet. About the sixth aisle he asked, “Mom, could I just have one chocolate chip cookie?” Again, she said no and said to hush or she would have the manager put him in the big freezer.
When they got to the checkout line, the line was long. The mother glanced down and saw a gleam in her son’s eye. She knew something was coming, but she didn’t know what. All of a sudden, the kid stood straight up in his seat, lifted his hand straight toward heaven and in his loudest voice hollered, “In the name of Jesus, give me some chocolate chip cookies!” The place erupted in applause, so he said it again. More applause. The mother didn’t know what to do with everyone clapping, so she ran to the shelf and got him the chocolate chip cookies.
Now what can we learn about life in the grocery store? As an adult, I learned that sometimes when I go to the store I get things I don’t need and I don’t realize how much they cost until I get to the checkout. It’s kind of like life. If you live by distraction instead of direction, and don’t have a list of priorities to go by, it could be that when it’s time to check out you realize some things cost you a whole lot more than you thought they would.
We can learn something important from the little boy in the grocery store. In a simple but powerful way, his story teaches us that when you come to the checkout of life with no resources and no hope, you, too, may need a higher power. Maybe you are ready to check out on a relationship. Maybe your feelings are dead. Call on the name of Jesus. This Jesus has been known to bring dead things back to life.