Bumper Stickers

I have to put this out there for those of you who don't know: (Warning - I am a jerk) I hate most bumper stickers. Sometimes I want to put them on the back of my car, but I never really get the guts to. Why? Well, first it's a big commitment, kind of like a tattoo...most of them lack creativity...even the ones that people like enough to buy seem to trap them in being limited in definition by what's on the back of their car. I feel they really force people to judge you right off the bat. "A democrat would cut me off!" "This guy with the Jesus fish on the back of his car parked in a handicap spot!?" All of a sudden I have judged democrats and Christians because of these bumper stickers, and next time I see someone with one of those bumper stickers I just might go ahead and expect them to be awful people because I have been trained like Pavlov's dogs not to trust them...but I'm getting off point.

There is really just one bumper sticker that gets under my skin more than all the rest: it's that blue one with the yellow lettering; a big letter K with the phrase "I have a terrific kid." Barf. Look, I appreciate that the parent is proud of their kid. I don't even doubt that their kid is terrific. What gets under my skin is that the bumper sticker is implying that the Kiwanis Club(which is what the K stands for) is what makes their kid terrific. The Kiwanis Club is a worldwide group that helps people through educating and service projects. Potentially great program right? I was never in the Kiwanis club but it sounds kind of like the Boy Scouts, which brings me to my point: the Kiwanis club, the Boy Scouts, Private School, Public School, Home School, Little League Soccer - None of them can make a kid terrific; they are all neutral. They all have great advantages in gaining worldly wisdom, learning how to look good on the outside. They might lead you to pats on the back, college scholarships down the road, or maybe even a job you want at some point...but they will never change your insides.

Even if we wrote the golden rule "Love others better than yourself" above our doors and gave it a good luck tap as we entered the world every day, like the Fighting Irish about to play a game in the crisp fall air, would it work? The answer is undeniably NO. We sign our kids up for programs that will make them "terrific", even after we have all learned that being a boy scout does not change you into a good person. Some of the most underhanded people I have ever known were boy scouts, me and a couple of my closest friends being in that group. I think the apostle Paul put it best when he wrote a letter to people in Rome: "So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

Ah, that is our hope! I will not sign my kids up for growing programs and service projects in hopes that they will be transformed into someone who always remember the golden rule. But I do look forward to the hope that one day they will see their wretched Sin, when they will cry out to Jesus who wants all men to be saved, and when they start to love back the One who has been loving terrifically all the while. They can be boy scouts, soccer players, do-gooders. My bumper sticker would say "I have a terrific kid because they are being changed from the inside out." And then I would cut somebody off and that person would never trust people who's kids are being changed from the inside out ever again.