“Today we are going to draw a picture,” Timmy’s kindergarten teacher announced.

Good, Timmy thought. He liked to draw pictures. He could draw lions and tigers and trains and boats. He took out his crayons and began to draw.

But the teacher said, “Wait, it’s not time to begin.” She paused until everyone looked ready. “Now,” she said, “we are going to draw flowers.”

Good, Timmy thought. He began to draw beautiful flowers with his orange and pink and blue crayons.

But the teacher said, “Wait.” She drew a picture of a flower on the blackboard. It was red with a green stem. “There,” she said, “now you may begin.”

Timmy looked at his teacher’s flower. He liked his better, but he didn’t say anything. He just turned his paper over and made a flower like the teacher’s. It was red with a green stem.

A few days later the teacher said, “Today we are going to make something with clay.”

Good, Timmy thought. He could make all kinds of things with clay—snakes and snowmen and elephants and mice. He began to pinch and pull his ball of clay.

But the teacher said, “Wait, I’ll show you how.” And she showed everyone how to make a dish.

So Timmy rolled his clay into a ball, flattened it, and made a dish like the teacher’s.

Timmy learned to wait and watch and make things just like the teacher’s. And pretty soon he stopped making creations of his own.


Then one day Timmy’s family moved to another city, and Timmy started at a new school. On his first day, Timmy’s new teacher said, “Today we are going to draw a picture.”

Good, Timmy thought. And he waited for the teacher to tell him what to do. But the teacher didn’t say anything. She just walked around the room. When she came to Timmy, she said, “Don’t you want to draw a picture?”

“Yes,” said Timmy. “What are we going to draw?”

“Well, I don’t know until you draw it,” the teacher said.

“How should I make it?” he asked.

“Why, any way you like.”

“And any color?”

“Any color,” the teacher said. “If everyone drew the same thing in the same color, how would I know who made what?”

“I don’t know,” said Timmy. And he began to draw a flower. It was red with a green stem.

When Timmy was very young, he was robbed of his creativity. His teacher told him that there was only one way to draw a flower or shape a lump of clay.

You may be more like Timmy than you realize. You have the potential to draw outside the lines, to be creative, to use your talents and gifts in a remarkable and unique way, but the world has told you that you can’t do it.

The world we live in conditions us at an early age to believe that we all have to look the same, act the same, and think the same. The world tells us that we must walk in lock-step with them, through the seasons, through whatever it is. And we often blindly follow along. So, when we(I mean society, not the church) ring in the new year, we have to be at a party, dancing, drinking and waiting for that magical moment when one year rolls into the next. Next comes the month of love, and you are supposed to give out cards and candies with printing on them and be especially sweet to your special love. Then later on, when it’s time to party at Carnival, society says, go ahead, be vulgar and crude. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you do it in the name of fun. And if you’re a bit inebriated and do some really wild things…well, that’s just part of it. After all, this is your last chance before Lent and you have to be all spiritual for awhile.

Then there’s Easter, and we all pause to remember Christ rising from the tomb and we dare to imagine if God’s grace might cover us for all the stupid things we did at Carnival. But once that slips behind us, there’s a call to be a little wild at Spring break, and who are we to argue? Then it’s be nice to mom day. So we run buy cards and chocolate and some nice gift. When those hot summer days come, the world says, especially to the young…stay out late and explore. Do what you want, because after all, it’s summer. And many even in the church, follow that call. And in the middle of that, we stop and have a be nice to dad day. When society says that it is time to be patriotic, then we stand at attention and chant the pledge of allegiance and watch fireworks. Next we go back to school with little to look forward to except remembering those who work and remembering those who died in battle. When the season calls for halloween, society says buy candy and dress up, and do a few devilish tricks or be downright rotten and show a little of your dark side. And then, a few weeks later, when the calendar says be thankful, we gather and kill the fatted turkey, and talk about how thankful we are for all of God’s bounties…or at least for our own hard work that put all of the money in the bank and the food on the table.

And finally, we come to the Christmas season, and the norm is to act a little nicer, be a little more generous, let a few more things go that ordinarily we would nail people for, and of course, buy, buy, buy, so that our loved ones and significant people on our list will know that we love them, or at least would consider it a major faux pax if we were to not get them something. And then we start the cycle over again. And the scary thing is, the church is not far behind the rest of society in these things. What am I saying, that we shouldn’t celebrate holidays? Not at all. But we must recognize that we, like Timmy, have been programmed by society. And often, we go through the holidays and do everything the world does and never stop to think that we have been called to more. And when Jesus calls us to be different, we find it difficult, if not impossible, to respond to his call.

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). If we are going to live the miracle of Christmas all year, that is, live in the joy of Jesus all year, we have got to allow Jesus control of our lives and break out of the mold the world is trying to squeeze us into.