"Gotcha Ya!"

“Gotcha Ya!”

Jimmy was a little boy, in the fourth grade, who had reddish, brown hair, big, brown eyes and freckles all over his face. Something else about Jimmy you need to know is Jimmy loved Jesus with all his heart, and a few months back, he had prayed and asked God to forgive him for ALL the bad things he had done.  And Jimmy was a BOLD witness for Jesus to all the kids at school.

He would walk around, telling everyone, “Jesus loves you!”  He always asked the blessings over his food at lunchtime, and prayed hard over every test he took.

Well, there were two boys, who didn’t like Jimmy very much and they were always picking on him, and whenever he would say, “Jesus loves you!”  They would say an ugly word back at him, but that didn’t stop Jimmy.

When it was Jimmy’s birthday, he asked his mom if he could do something a little different for his birthday at school.   “Sure if that’s what you want to do?”  She said.  So they put their heads together and came up with a plan.

They bought treats for all his classmates, but before the kids got the treat, they had to solve this riddle:  “What’s brown and red, rough not smooth, it’s used to prove Jesus loves you?”

So the kids all got in a line and one at a time they had to whisper in Jimmy’s ear their answer.  When Jimmy read the riddle out loud, the two boys that had said the ugly words to him whenever he told them; “Jesus loves you!” hung back and decided they weren’t going to play that silly game. They said, “we don’t care whether we get a treat or not.

So the two boys walked away until they saw that the treat was a big, yummy, melt-in-your mouth, and chocolatey chocolate bar.  YUM! YUM!

Those two boys came running to Jimmy, “Ok, what’s the riddle, we changed our minds.”  So Jimmy told them the riddle: “What’s brown and red, rough not smooth, and is used to prove that Jesus loves you?” 

The two boys looked at each other, then shrugged their shoulders and they started to walk away.  Then Jimmy, called them back and reached into the big gift bag and pulled out two, big, sweet, melt-in-your-mouth, chocolatey candy bars and on the wrapper was printed, “Jesus loves you!”, he handed the candy bars over to each of them , they looked at him and one of them said, “but we didn’t have the answer to the riddle!”

 It’s ok, think about it,” Jimmy said, “and by the way, “Jesus loves YOU!” 

Do you know the answer to the riddle? Think about it!!    (ans. The cross)