The Greater Gift 

  

Jesus answered and said unto her, 

If thou knewest the gift of God, 

and who it is that saith to thee, 

Give me to drink; 

thou wouldest have asked of him, 

and he would have given thee living water. 

— John 4:10 

              

She's very beautiful, meek and mild, soft-spoken, but highly intelligent. She's my new friend as of this past summer. We both worked at a phonics camp for inner-city kids, and had a blast getting to know one another. 

  

Now, my skin is of the pinkish-beige persuasion. Hers is chocolate-gold. I am a babbling brook, and she is like the still waters that run deep. I'm a night owl; she's an early-morning person. But in the most important sense, we're exactly alike: we both know and love Jesus Christ, Who is all of the above, and more. 

  

So it was fascinating to hear how she came to faith. All those with a young teenager in their lives, who's a little wobbly right now, might get a clue: 

  

She was about 14. Her sister was a little older. They were both very close to their grandmother, but she died that summer. Their father distributed all of Gram's worldly possessions according to her instructions. When it came to the two granddaughters, the grandmother had bequeathed her favorite necklace to the older girl . . . and her well-worn Bible to my friend. 

  

The young teen didn't say anything. But she could tell her father was disappointed by what he saw on her face as she accepted the Bible rather grudgingly, and watched her sister skip off to try on her beautiful new necklace. 

  

What rotten luck! How lame is that? Who needs a crummy old Bible? Think how gorgeous that necklace would look on ME! I wish I had gotten the necklace! Gosh, Gram . . . thanks for nothing. 

  

Plunged into guilt by what she was feeling, she slammed her bedroom door and threw herself onto her bed, sobbing and still jealous and angry. 

  

Gee, God. I'm not so sure You even exist. All the stuff in that old Bible - it's just a bunch of myths and stories. Satan? The powerful enemy of our souls? I don't buy that claptrap. I know Gram did, but she was an old lady. Kids in my generation are a lot smarter! If you expect me to believe that You are real, God, and that Satan is real and is in this world fighting against us, then You're going to have to do a much better job of showing me. HUNHHH! 

  

And with a few more sobs and haughty sighs, she fell asleep. 

  

Now, my friend says she has NEVER napped during the day, before or since. It was highly unusual. And she NEVER has dreams, bad or good. But on THAT particular day, BOY, did she have a dream . . . scary and bad and as real as they come. 

  

She dreamed that Satan was coming at her with fire - jabbing at her with fiery torches of some kind. She didn't remember what he looked like, or what the surroundings were like. But in her dream, she just knew that he was Satan, he was completely bad, and he wanted to hurt her and kill her with fire. 

  

With a start, she woke up, surprised to find herself in her cozy bed drenched in late-afternoon sunshine, instead of in some kind of a war zone dodging fiery torches. 

  

Suddenly, she became aware of a dull pain on her left forearm. She looked down. There was a mark, about an inch and a half long. 

  

It was a burn. 

  

Instantly, she thought of her dream. Could it be? But how? 

  

She hadn't been near anything hot that day - no curling iron, no stove burner, no equipment, nothing. There were no buttons or zippers on her clothing that could have left that mark while she napped, nothing on the bedspread, nothing between the bed and the wall, nothing on the windowsill. That burn mark hadn't been there before she fell asleep. But it was certainly there now. 

  

Ohhhhhhhh. She remembered being a smart-aleck, challenging God to prove to her that Satan is for real. That dream, and this burn mark, must be His answer. 

  

She fell to her knees and bowed her head, sobbing with a new kind of purpose and awareness, and gave her life to Jesus at that moment. They call it "getting born again." 

  

This happened in mid-summer, which was perfect timing. She didn't have school, and she was too young to hold a job. She showed her family the burn mark, and they all agreed that it was mysterious and fascinating. So she spent the next month doing nothing but reading her grandmother's Bible, searching for answers, praying, and thinking - establishing and building her relationship with her Lord for the first time in her life. 

  

In the decades since, in countless ways, He has shown her that He is real and that He loves her and everybody else . . . and that He is perfectly able to protect her from those fiery darts that the Enemy throws at us, each and every day. 

  

You can't see the burn mark on her arm any more. But her relationship with Jesus continues to grow today, and is the biggest blessing in what she calls a very blessed life, all around. She still reads that same Bible and cherishes it above all other possessions. 

  

With her typical sweet and gentle style, she looks back on her offended adolescent self, pitching a hissy fit over getting the Bible instead of the necklace. It took a while, but she now understands what God and Gram were up to all along. 

  

"I know that I received the greater gift," she says with a smile. †