Monday, February 18, 2013

The red glass plate story.  It's one of my all time favorite stories. Here's the short version.  My friend, Bible School teacher and mentor, Bill Kaiser, was eight years old.  His mom took him to the circus and he won one of those cheap prizes you can win by playing the games.  It was a red glass plate and Bill was so proud of it.  It was getting dark,  he and his mother started for home.

Mom told him that he should let her carry the plate so nothing would happen to it.  However, Bill insisted he could carry it just fine .  Just before getting home, Bill tripped on a curb, fell, and the red plate shattered into many pieces.  Bill cried himself to sleep that night.  The next morning he woke up with the idea that maybe he could glue all the pieces back together.  He ran outside just as the neighbor was sweeping up the last of the little bits of glass.

Fast forward, several decades.  Bill is now born again, spirit filled and a full time missionary.  He is visiting a friend in Germany when the friend abruptly gets up.  He returns with an expensive red glass plate.  He tells Bill that the Holy Spirit has prompted his heart to give the plate to Bill.  For the first time in a long time, Bill remembers the red glass plate he broke.  Then the Holy Spirit says to Bill, "Bill,  do you know why you went to Ohio State University and got an engineering degree?"  Bill stumbles in his answer.  Then the Holy Spirit says, "Bill, what kind of engineering did you study?"  Bill answers, "glass engineering."  Again, the Holy Spirit says, "Bill, do you know why you studied glass engineering?"  For the first time in his life Bill understood some of his major life decisions.  He was trying to fix the red glass plate!

The Lord had one concluding comment to Bill that I will save for next time.  Makes me think, do we have any broken red glass plates in our lives?        

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