I was bad at times. Really, I was downright rotten. In fact, I can now relate this story since it's been so many years:
When I was a second-grade student at the Dallastown PA elementary school, I had actually conned kids into thinking that we were creating a basement railroad city in our little home. I had just come back from a summer family retreat to see Roadside America, a huge model railroad city of tiny trains and miniature houses. I was enthralled by the scenery, and I carried the whole vision back to Dallastown, and openly lied to the little schoolyard gang that my dad and I were laying out the mountains, streets and tunnels in preparation for a whole line of railroad trains.
Here's the kicker: anyone who wanted to come and be an engineer in our soon-to-be railroad city could earn a pass by helping us pay for the completion of the village.
That's right - I was a con man in the second grade. I had kids handing me nickels and dimes and even an occasional quarter in the hopes that they might sit alongside me and direct a Sante Fe freight line around the countryside.
Man, Ponzi schemes had nothing on me.
I cannot believe I did this. I am still ashamed of what I did.
Even worse, I was a pretty fair shoplifter, and I can now count on my hands the things that I pilfered from stores or other places as I went through childhood. I don't need to line-item them; what good would that do?
I do remember, however, going into a local supermarket and scouting out the Brach's candy display - you remember the one that had an "honor system" bucket, where you threw a nickel in and took a piece to taste for yourself right there? Well, not only did I grab a bag and start loading pieces of candy as if I were taking samples ( I might steal two pounds or more) but I also would steal the money out of the Honor Bucket.
And that was just my childhood. How could God find any good in a wretched kid like myself?
As a teen I had heard a clear message about salvation but I had serious reservations about whether God could forgive a person like me. There were, of course, even worse things. Could this Jesus forgive the things I had done?
Yet there it was, again and again in the Bible: Jesus took seriously the people who seriously sought Him and followed Him...
"...to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’" Acts 26:18
