No Foolin'!

Let me get a couple house-keeping things out of the way up front here.

#1-I recently had a friend ask my permission to share the blog with others. Wow! (Here's me, nodding my head up and down, silly grin on my face.) Please do! My writing is my hobby, my passion, and my career, so the more people that read it, the better for me. Share this site and share my fan page on Facebook.

#2-As you know, on Fridays we look at character. We have finished our overview of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and this week we will review Judger/Perceiver and I'll give you some more info. on the Indicator. Then, starting next week, we will begin to look at the sixteen types starting with ESTP. If you follow Getting Into Character and would like to read about your type sooner rather than later, drop me a note and tell me your label. We'll study each one in depth, looking at possible career choices, spiritual disciplines by type, strengths/weaknesses, and lots of other interesting stuff.

Okay, enough of that. Let' move on to today's topic, no foolin'.

Have you ever played a really good April Fool's prank? I mean, like people-still-talk-about-it-years-later good? I pulled a fast one on my family a few years ago and every year they still laugh about how I fooled them. It also got me to thinking about God and His steadfast devotion to us and our welfare.

On April 1, I made dinner for my family like usual. On the menu was homemade pizza, meatloaf, and mashed potatoes. I know, that sounds like an unusual combination, but hear me out. For meatloaf, I used aluminum cupcake liners and baked them. Then I whipped up a batch of mashed potatoes, divided them into three bowls, and tinted one pink, one green, and one blue. I "iced" the meatloaves with the mashed potato "icing".

Next, I rolled out sugar cookie dough on a pizza pan and baked it. I spread a mixture of strawberry jam and apricot preserves on top, shredded white chocolate with a cheese grater, and added "toppings"--cashew "mushrooms", green fruit roll-up "peppers", and black licorice "olives".

I called the family to the table and asked who would like to eat dessert first for a change. All four of them (the kids and hubby) yelled a resounding "Yes!" I brought out the "cupcakes" and they each chose a colorful, foil-lined handful. I waited a moment as they each took a bite.

"Hey! These aren't cupcakes!"

"What is wrong with these?"

"These are meatloaf!"

"You tricked us!"

They laughed when they realized I had fooled them and clapped when I revealed our "pizza" for dessert. A fun night, a harmless trick, and nobody the worse for wear. But I'm sure the next time I ask if they want dessert first, they will not be taken so easily. Did I ruin my trust with them? No, not really. They understood it was a joke. But, in some ways, did I place doubt in their minds about their ability to trust me? Yes, somewhat.

Fortunately for us, God never tricks, teases, or fools us. He is always trustworthy and we never have to doubt His Word is true or that His promises will ever fail us. He gives us good gifts and blesses us with life abundant. He never changes--His mind, His ways, His love for us as His children.

Matthew 7 tells us, "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!" That doesn't mean God gives us anything we ask for, it means He gives us all we need.

And even though I can tell my kids that I changed our long-standing rule of eating our healthy food first before our dessert, we never have to wonder if God has changed His mind or changed the rules on us. He says in Numbers, "God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?"
Make sure if your kids play an April Fool's prank on you, you laugh right along with them. And if you decide to play one on them, make sure you remind them of the Father who is always trustworthy and always fair.