Can I Get This Kit Kat Bar?

There’s a corner store in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn that I’ve gone to many times.

It’s a typical corner store. Maybe you know the type…

It has everything.

They sell milk and bread, laundry detergent and bicycle padlocks. They carry snacks and cigarettes, pre-paid cell phones and subway passes. If you don’t see what you’re looking for in the store, they have it behind the counter.

Serious. It has everything.

Imagine a child going into this store and selecting some candy…

He walks up to the front counter and asks, “Can I get this Kit Kat Bar?”

The cashier says, “How much money do you have?”

“Thirty-five cents” the boy replies.

“I’m sorry, those are seventy-five cents. Why don’t you look around and find something else that’s cheaper.”

OK, stop. Let’s talk…

This little exchange is how most of us understand faith.

We want something. We hope we have enough faith for it. We fast and we pray. We make the right confessions. We memorize all the Bible promises.

And when we don’t get what we want, we assume we’ve brought a seventy-five cent candy bar to the cashier with only thirty-five cents of faith in our pocket.

There’s a problem with this picture of faith…

It’s all about us—what we have, what we bring, what we can afford, what we’ve earned—and it’s not about God.

This is unfortunately how most Christians view their faith. It’s an earnings-based, self-help, “pick yourself up by your bootstraps,” “do these things and you’ll be blessed” approach to life.

The truth is, you don’t even need God in this approach.

Let me offer another view:

“Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus… All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing!” (Ephesians 2.7-9 MSG)

I wanna say that a little louder: WE DON’T PLAY THE MAJOR ROLE.

Going back to the story of the child wanting a Kit Kat bar, let’s change up the details of the story a bit…

The child is the son of the store owner.

He may not even realize it yet, but everything he has is the result of what his Father owns and provides for him.

He goes up to his dad and says, “Can I get this Kit Kat bar?”

Now, the Father may smile and say, “Yes!”

Another possibility—He might smile, but say, “Not now son.”

Confession time: I don’t always get what I think I need—or what I want or ask for. I don’t always know the reason(s) either. I do know that my Heavenly Father is good, and every good thing I have comes from him.

Jesus, while talking about faith and asking God for things, used the example of children coming to their parents (not customers coming into a corner store with money in their pockets).

“You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.” (Matthew 7.9-11 NLT)

So, for a quick review:

• We don’t play the major role.

• God isn’t some cosmic corner store shopkeeper.

• He is our good Heavenly Father. Every good thing we have comes from Him.

• Even when He smiles and says, “Not now son,” He is still good and He is still our provider.

• It’s not about us—it’s not about seventy-five cent faith -vs- thirty-five cent faith. It’s about knowing who He is and who we are in relationship to Him.