I was asked by Ean’s school to be Santa. He attends Frank McCoppin Elementary School that has 215 students attending. I got to sit with every kid and ask them about what they want for Christmas. Every boy but maybe five said that they wanted Bakugan. It seemed like every other little girl wanted an Easy Bake Oven Microwave. The other girls wanted a stuffed puppy, cell phone or iPod. It was a thrill to see the excitement in all of the children’s eyes.
A couple of observations I thought were interesting besides the uni-mind that kids get around Christmas presents. First there is such a difference between the age groups in regards to Santa. The pre-schoolers were students in the special education program. One of them was in a diaper and had a load in it. Anyway most of those kids were petrified of Santa or were way way into seeing him. Then the Kindergartners were all on board with Santa. Each one came up and told me what they wanted. The kids in Ean’s school are broken up into two classrooms. There are non-English speakers who are trying to learn English and keep their Cantonese, and there are the English speaking and non-English speaking kids who are learning the basic kindergartener stuff. Any way the English speaking kids simply came up and told me what they wanted, again either Bakugan or an Easy Bake Microwave. They knew enough about Santa that they knew he was going to bring them something, really any toy out there, they only needed to ask. Ean came up and asked for, yes you guessed it, 5 Bakugan’s.
The non-English speaking kindergarteners were a little confused. Julie and I bought a bag full of candy canes for Santa to hand to each kid. So I was handing them out. Every one of these children asked for, not a Bakugan nor an EBM but asked for a candy cane instead. They could ask for any toy and they asked for a candy cane. Maybe they asked for a candy cane because they could see it and realized that the probability was high that if they asked they would get it. Maybe they did not know the tradition of asking Santa for toys, maybe they wanted what they wanted right now and did not want to wait seven days? It got me thinking.
Then the older kids, third and fourth graders came and were real shy around Santa. I could tell that they wanted to come and ask Santa but they were afraid of looking too interested in case their friends started to laugh. Slowly they came up and made their request known. What was funny was that they hemmed and hawed on their way up to see Santa, but as soon as they sat on my lap they were right there, just talking to Santa telling them what they wanted, what they hoped for, what was on their mind.
The fifth graders were way into it. They all came up almost mobbing me. The deal was that only those who paid to get their picture were supposed to come see Santa. The older kids balked so we made a line and got up there. These big 10 year old boys waiting in line to see Santa and tell him what they wanted for Christmas, they really did not care what others thought, they did not care about the rules, they simply wanted to get to Santa and tell him.
I thought about prayer, specifically my prayer for these kids. It is my belief that most of the kids that I saw today do not know the love of Jesus, they do not know anything about him other than he makes a pretty good swear word. I would love for every kid in that school to know Jesus. If it is what I want then I should go to my Father with my request.
Jesus taught that prayer is like a child going to ask their father for something.
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
Jesus to his disciples Matthew 7:7-11
But I hesitate to pray sometimes. Sometimes I stick to praying for the easy stuff, the stuff that I know probably will happen no matter what, but fail to pray for the hard stuff, the impossible stuff, like revival starting in a small elementary school in San Francisco. I am like the kids settling for the candy canes when I could choose from any toy ever made.
Instead of settling for candy canes I started to pray for the kids as they came up. “God reveal yourself to them, make your love evident in their lives, help me God to live the life of Christ in such a way that these children would know that you are God and that you love them.”
Then I started to feel foolish to write about it to you. Really, I thought that you would see the impossibility of such a prayer. But the more I focused in on God and what he can do, the less I worried about you or anything else for that matter. I thought of those boys, hesitant to let their friends see them come see Santa, but they came anyway. I realized the key to this was to keep my eyes on the Father and what he is able to do and not on what others think. I kept thinking about the impossibility of a babe in a manger being the King of Heaven, 12 unlikely guys being the foundation to a world changing movement, a kid form Catharpin, Virginia ending up in San Francisco, pastoring a church. God is in the doing big business.
I know that the kids at Ean’s school can come to know God’s love, so I will continue to ask, keeping my eyes on the one whom I am asking and not worry about those around me. I will also pray big prayers, radical prayers, prayers that have no way of coming true unless God’s hand is on it.
Do you have a prayer like that? That is so big that you are afraid to even pray it?
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