Sermon Illustrations

WHAT I DON'T WANT TO BE

I recall a conversation I once had with a precocious little boy we once had in the church I pastored for 10 years in Wiesbaden. I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up.

"Well," he replied, "I don't want to be a fireman."

I'd never had a kid tell me what he was NOT going to do when he grew up so I asked him, "Why don't you want to be a fireman?"

"Because," he said, "they make too much noise."

I chuckled as he continued, "And I don't want to be a preacher either."

"Oh, and why's that?"

"Because they make too much noise too!"

All his friends chuckled when he said that. Finally, he got around to what he wanted to do. He said he wanted to be a trash collector! I thought that was a curious goal in life, but my second oldest son also used to want to be a trash collector, so I wandered if it was for the same reason. Sure enough, it was.

I asked him, "Johnny, why in the world do you want to be a trash collector?"

He said, "Because I want to ride on the back of the truck like the trashmen!"

Children often speculate what they are going to be when they grow up. As children of God, there are also some things that we ought to NOT want to be and some things we SHOULD want to be.

(From a sermon by Charles Sligh, 3 Things I Don't Want to Be; 1 Thing I Do Want to Be, 4/20/2011)

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