Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI. ANGEL FOOD. LITTLE TALKS TO LITTLE FOLKS. A CIRCLE OF FRIENDS. Let me tell you this morning about a sick lady I know.
She is ninety-three years old. That is pretty old, isn't it? Well, for the past fifteen years this old lady has never been able to leave her bed. She has been living in a room with a bed of the old lady.
Day and night, day and night, for fifteen long years this poor old lady has been lying in bed. You would be surprised to see how happy she is. She never finds fault. She never complains about God.
She spends a lot of time each day saying prayers. The old lady likes company. She is delighted to have people come to see her. She doesn't like it if her friends stay away. Do you know what she does?
She has a prayer book with the prayers printed in big letters. Into the prayer book she puts a piece of paper on the first day of each month. She makes her daughter draw a circle on the piece of paper. Whenever someone comes to see the old lady, she makes her daughter write the person's name inside the circle.
But the friends who do not come to see her, their names are written outside the circle. Now why does the old lady do this? Here is why. The old lady says hundreds of prayers every day. If her friends visit her, their names are written in the circle and she prays for them.
If her friends do not visit her during the month, their names are not written in the circle and the old lady will not pray for them the month they miss seeing her. That's how the little old lady keeps track of her friends. Believe me, everybody tries to see her at least once a month so that they can get their names inside the circle.
No one wants to be outside the circle. The old lady calls this scheme of hers, my circle of friends. I think that God does something just like that. I think that God has a circle of friends. Wouldn't it be too bad to find our names written outside God's circle?
But I'm afraid that that is just what we would find if we could see God's circle. You know, boys and girls, our Lord is just like this old lady. Our Lord also has a circle of friends. Up in heaven our Lord writes down in a big book, and it must be a very big book, the names of all His friends.
He writes down the names of all those who love Him, the names of those who do not forget to pray to Him often, the names of those who do not forget to visit Him in church. Boys and girls, I think this is a great idea. Just think, down here on earth, maybe nobody knows or cares who we are, and yet up in heaven, God and the angels know who we are.
We are so important that God in heaven writes our name in His book of friends. We belong to God's circle of friends, and that makes us mighty, mighty important. Now, what about these people whose names are not written in God's book? Why, they are the people who always forget God. If you forget God, God forgets you too.
He doesn't write your name in His circle of friends. He doesn't even want to know your name. How terrible that is. Here is God, locked up in our church all day long and all through the night. How many of us boys and girls ever think of stopping in the church to see God, to pay
Him a visit? Don't you think that God ever gets lonesome? Certainly He does, and God must do an awful lot of wondering. He must think of all the nice things that He has done for us, how He made us and gave us such a good father and mother, how He keeps us well and warm and gives us enough to eat,
how He made holy communion for us and how He suffered and died on a cross for us. He must think of all these things, and God must wonder and wonder. It must be pretty hard for God to understand us. He waits and waits for us, and we never come. I don't think that any little boy or girl wants to be mean to God or make God suffer.
It's just that we don't think. We're selfish. We think only about ourselves. We don't think about God. Now don't say that you haven't got time.
Here you come to school every day, and the school is right next to God's house. Why don't you drop in to see God after school every night? It would only take you a few minutes, and it would make God very happy. You've got lots of time after that to play MIBS and baseball and roller skate and all the rest.
God doesn't expect you to stay with Him an hour. He knows that you like to play, but can't you give God just a little bit of your time? Let's get into the habit of stopping in the church when we are near it. Even though you only stop for one minute to talk with God, it will make God happy. And remember, every time you stop, God will write your name inside His circle, and that's
just where we want to be, inside the circle of God's friends. End of chapter 16
