The Other Letter
According to Wikipedia, IKEA is a multinational group of companies that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture (such as beds, chairs and desks), appliances and home accessories. As of January 2008, it is the world’s largest furniture retailer.
IKEA Spain recently conducted an experiment with 10 families that included children. They asked each child to write a letter to “The Three Kings” (Santa Claus equivalent). When asking Santa for a gift, the kids focused on material items and toys. Responses included: “I want… a game … a guitar … a Wii.” One little girl pointed to several items on a page of a Christmas catalogue and said, “This, this, this, and this.” “A piano” and “a unicorn” were some other items that children requested in their letters.
Then the children were given these instructions: “And now you’re going to write another letter: to your parents. What would you ask your parents for this Christmas?”
At first, many of them were a little confused. But after thinking about it for a bit, each of them wrote “the other letter.”
The parents were then given the letters that their children had written to them. They were amazed by their children’s words. Here are some of the children’s requests:
“Dear parents, … I want you to spend more time with me … that we do more experiments at home.”
“I’d like it if you paid a little more attention to us…”
“I’d like it if you would have dinner with us more often…”
“I want you… to tickle me…”
“…and read us a story.”
“I want us to be together one whole day…”
“I want to play, Mama; I want you to play cowboys with me…”
Overwhelmingly, the kids just wanted to spend more quality time with their parents.
The parents were asked if they were surprised by their children’s requests. After some reflection, they indicated that they really were not surprised at all.
When asked what they had learned from their child’s letter, one couple responded:
“To spend all of the time we have, the most that we can, with our children.”
“Imagine! You want to give them the best you can and the best is YOURSELF.”
Another “Letter” (actually a book of letters, the Bible) reveals that God loves us so much that He wants to give us salvation from sin and eternal life (John 3:16; Romans 6:23).
These gifts required the giving of Himself. God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ to be “God with us” and to die for us so that we might be reconciled to Him and live eternally with Him (2 Corinthians 5:17-21). At the heart of this Good News is that God wants YOU to be His child and to live with Him forever.
In order to accept God’s offer of salvation, eternal life, and relationship, one must place his faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from sin in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and be baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). Then, as one follows Jesus faithfully, the blood of Jesus continues to cleanse him from all sin (1 John 1:7).
In the IKEA experiment, the children were also asked, “If you could only send one of the two letters, which one would you send — the one to the Three Kings or the one to Mom and Dad?”
One little boy responded, “Wow! That’s a very difficult question!”
But after some thought, he replied, “The one to my mother.”
“The one to my parents,” another girl said.
“To Mom and Dad.”
They ALL chose the second letter: the one to their parents. *
Won’t YOU choose to accept God’s invitation to become His child and live with Him forever?
David A. Sargent