Last week I wrote about a story I had read in school a long, long time ago. I mentioned that, as the reader, I was supposed to "finish" the story. These were popular exercises given us by our teacher when we would wrap up an assignment early. If you didn't already know, the school I attended for grades 1-5 was one where you never changed rooms and you never changed teachers, except for Gym and Music. Our one teacher for the year taught us all subjects, and the 29 other kids in the room with me were a mixed bag of ability. Some were good in math, some were good in reading, some were good at everything. Of course, some were also poor in math, poor in reading, and poor at just about everything else. Those who got done early were not going to just sit around and wait for the rest to catch up. No, you had to go get one of these little booklets from the back and a numbered form to go with it. You read the story, which had no end, and then you were supposed to "make up an ending" following certain rules spelled out on the card. Then you would put the booklet back, and turn in your form. Sometimes the story actually had an ending, and you would be allowed to read it if you solemnly promised not to tell anyone else so they had a chance to make up their own ending without bias.

The little booklets were color-coded, red/yellow being the easiest and purple being the hardest. There was a whole spectrum of colors in-between. Hardly anyone bothered with the red/yellow ones, they were too easy (for sissies!) but if you just grabbed purple ones all the time you found out fast that they were too hard. You kind of had to work your way up to them, solving the easier stories first. Everyone wanted the purple ones, of course, but usually you'd botch up the ending because, like the spaceman story (which was a purple) any solution seemed impossible! There are a couple of these that have stuck with me all these years because, if you managed to think of the same solution as the answer sheet had on it you felt like you had done quite an accomplishment. Yes, my answer was very much the same as the "real" ending, and for a 4th grade kid that was a BIG deal!

Think about the spaceman story again, if you read it. The "rules" on the card said he was marooned on this planet. No one else was allowed to come to rescue him. You had to "save" him with what he had on hand. One classmate of mine suggested he found a whole graveyard of crashed ships, and ate all their food, but the booklet author actually brought this up and said that wasn't good enough, it just delayed his death. It seemed impossible to solve!

I would submit that we live our lives this way. I mean ALL the way. Many decisions come at us constantly, and we have to "solve" them. We have certain rules we must follow, for instance we can't solve a bad situation by doing something bad, we have to overcome evil with good. When we first start out as a Christian, perhaps as a young person of 20, we immediately try to solve all the hardest problems first. I guess that's the "kid" in us. After beating our head against the wall for a while, eventually we realize perhaps we should start with learning the easy answers first, moving up to a fuller understanding of the more moderate problems and their solutions. Once we master a bunch of those, then maybe we're ready to consider the purple ones. Of course we can always ask someone who's ahead of us in the program (an elder, for instance) for the answer, unlike my grade school that is not considered cheating, but even then sometimes we get the answer and we don't like it so we have to go out and learn it for ourselves. Different Christians have different strengths, too. That is obvious when we're in a bible class and a point is brought up that draws a lot of discussion. Some in the class seem genuinely baffled at the conclusion, while others may seem impatient to move on to the next point.

People used to go around wearing WWJD stuff, like shirts and sweatbands. I still see this collection of 4 letters around, the other day at the dollar store they were selling spiral bound notebooks with this slanted across the cover. What would Jesus do? He would do the right thing, of course, which is why we ask ourselves this question. That's the only answer there is - the right one. You might ask how we know which answer is right, and I would suggest that if you read your bible and learned the way he answered everything else you'd know.

By the way WWJD could also stand for What Would Job Do? The devil didn't come and ask to tempt Job (Job must have been a purple booklet for the devil!) but God brings him up like a challenge, as if God is trying to teach the devil. Seems to me that the devil fails, Job was too hard for him. But I wonder, if we were booklets for the devil to try and solve what color would we be?

Randy