I read an essay by J.B. Priestley, about two boys playing with a new gadget, and it brought back memories so familiar I could just sense the fascination and joy.

  "I remember that when I was a child, the boy next door was given a tiny printing machine, a gasping, wheezing affair that would print nothing but the blurred image of three ducks. He and I, however, collecting all the paper we could lay our hands on, would spend hours, hours full to the brim, printing ducks, thousands and thousands of ducks, and while we were engaged in producing this monotonous sequence of dim fowls we asked nothing more from life beyond the promise of suety meals at odd intervals."

I couldn't help but smile when reading that, remembering how when a young boy I could busy myself with the most rudimentary task or toy for hours or days. It brought to remembrance a comment from a young Christian I know, who said, " I have so much to learn!" I wonder if some of us are a little like the boys in the story, we have found the joy of being a Christian and we begin to read and love the Bible. In our enthusiasm, we study, listen, go to Bible groups and talk and speculate, and churn out thousands and thousands of verses from memory, like my son calls it, "verse-a-blenders." And then the years go by, the study goes on, but the resolution of the duck pictures does not increase, they are still but a vague representation of the real thing. The words of Christ are not only to be reproduced in the heart, but then they are meant to go into the world to touch, heal, and reproduce.