Horace the Hippo

The value of this short Christian story : Envy

“What do you mean you aren’t pretty?” Terrance asked his friend Horace. Terrance was a toucan and since he was pretty sure he was very pretty, he felt sure everybody thought that they were pretty. But in his private thoughts, he did think Horace was pretty awful looking. Horace was a hippo.

“Well my mom always said I was pretty but then again, she was a hippo too. Terrance, hippos are just not pretty. Not like giraffes or peacocks at least.” He said jealously.

photo credit: Stig Nygaard

“Ok, well if you could pick one thing about a giraffe that you would want, what would it be?” Terrance said. Terrance, like all toucans, could cause wishes to come true for the people who they love or like a lot. That’s why people like having toucans for pets. It isn’t because they are nice birds. It's the dream granting thing that makes them great.

“Well if my neck was long and elegant, why all the pretty giraffes would love me and I would have tons of friends then.” Horace said his voice full of envy.

“Ok, it’s yours.” Terrance said, he flapped his wings wide and then said ‘BAKKAH!” which is the spell.

“Hey, HEY what’s happening?” Horace said in a panic as he felt his big hippo head begin to shoot high into the sky under the most beautiful giraffe neck that was growing from his hippo body. When stopped, Horace stood there not really knowing what to do with this much neck. Then, slowly at first and then faster, his head began to sway back and forth like an out of control carnival ride. His big hippo head was too heavy for that tiny neck. All of a sudden, it toppled downward. All around the jungle, the animals heard Horace yelling for help as the ground grew closer and closer and then WUMP! It hit the ground.

“Murmph mr murtle mu” Terrance heard his friend say.

“Just a moment, let me get your head out of the sand.” The toucan said and he pulled Horace’s head back until it popped back into the air and he laid it on its side with that big giraffe neck just winding everywhere back to his body.

“This isn’t working Terrance. Not only is it dangerous, I think I look foolish with this huge neck attacked to my big fat head.

“BAKKAH” Terrance squawked and Horace was himself again.

“I still want to be pretty. Like the Pelican with those beautiful long legs. They can even sleep on just one leg. I wish I could do that,” he said lifting one of his squatty hippo legs and then putting down before he fell.

“Ok, let’s try that.” Terrance said and out went his wings “BAKKAH”. Said the bird and the spell took effect.

“Here we go again.” Horace said gasping as he shot into the air with his legs growing long and skinny under him. When he stopped, he was standing tall enough to see over the grass. He peered down at his four pelican legs quivering trying to hold up his massive hippo weight. “Wow, Terrance, my legs are so pretty.” Horace said with admiration and he started to walk toward the marshes where the other pelicans stayed. But the pelicans didn’t see Horace as pretty because of his long legs.

“Yikes!” many screamed and took flight thinking it was some kind of monster. Other’s laughed thinking Horace had come up with a strange costume. Others ran to him with Band-Aids thinking he was the scene of a terrible collision between a bird and a hippo.

“Oh Terrance, nothing is working.” Horace said bitterly.

“BAKKAH” Terrance said flapping his wings and Horace was back to normal.

“How will I ever stop being ugly?” He said with great sadness in his heart.

“Horace I told you before, you are already pretty. When you say you are ugly, you insult God our creator. Way back in the beginning of time he made hippos. He made toucans and pelicans and giraffes and even humans and each of them was perfectly made for what God wanted them to be. We are not made to look pretty to each other. Look to your friends, the hippos and be at peace that you are what God made you to be. Envy is a way of saying ‘God you did a bad job’ and that makes God very sad indeed.” The wise bird counseled his friend.

“Well I don’t want God to be sad. I want to be all He made me to be, not what he made someone else to be. I want to be the best Horace the Hippo he ever made.” Horace said his big hippo chest sticking out proudly.

“Oh Horace?” Horace and Terrance both heard a melodic female voice sing out. Just then, Henrietta Hippo stepped from behind the grasses. “Will you take me to the waterfall today?” she said looking at him with big eyes that were full of admiration.

“Wow, she is pretty.” Horace said to Terrance and then he waddled her way doing a dance to make himself more pretty to her. Off they went as Terrance looked on in amazement.

“Those are two ugly hippos,” he said to himself. Then he flew back to his tree to see if there was a pretty toucan there who might like a trip to the waterfall too.

The Rumor with Furry Feet

The value of this short Christian story : Gossip

You wouldn’t think Christian people would say bad things about each other. But they do. At Eric and Pammy’s church, some of the kids gossiped a lot. Usually it was silly stuff but sometimes some of the kids acted snooty to some of the other kids in the Sunday School class even though Mrs. Wallace the teacher talked to them a lot about Christian unity and loving each other. Gossiping is not love, that is one thing the kids knew. But it happens.

Then a gossip got started that was really really awful. Pammy heard it from Nicola. Nicola leaned over after Sunday School and whispered, “You know Erin? Well somebody at school saw her with an older boy and…..” she continued to whisper things in Pammy’s ear that just couldn’t be true. Erin was a good girl and the rumor suggested she was being very naughty with a boy. Well Pammy didn’t repeat the details but she told her brother Eric about it and Eric was very worried.

“Erin is one of our closest friends and she loves Jesus with all her heart. This kind of rumor could ruin her reputation and hurt her really bad.” But the rumor kept spreading and soon it got to Erin. The day Pammy say Nicola whispering in Erin’s ear, it just crushed her inside to see what happened. Erin burst into tears and ran from the Sunday School room and didn’t come back for weeks.

Both Pammy and Eric felt awful about it. But they didn’t say anything even though they both imaged how Erin was feeling all alone at her house thinking everybody thought she was such a sinful girl and she wasn’t. That night Eric had a dream. It was really frightening and he woke up with a gasp and had to sit out in the living room with a glass of water to try to get it out of his head.

“I dreamed about the rumor that hurt Erin last night Pammy.” He told his sister the next day.

“What happened in your dream?” she was dying to know.

“Well we were at church and the kids were all whispering that rumor to each other. Suddenly, the rumor jumped out of the mouth of Nicola and became a monster. It had a huge round body and a tiny little head but huge lips on the front. Its fur was long and full of tangles and dirt and filth because it never cleaned itself. It had legs like a duck with big huge feet like bigfoot has and the feet were covered with nasty black fur and he could run really fast all over spreading himself, the rumor to everybody he could hunt down.” Eric said his eyes wide like he was dreaming it again.

“Then it started chasing kids down and when they couldn’t run fast enough, he jumped on them and fell on them with his big nasty fat lips and put the rumor all over them so they could never get rid of it. Finally it go to Erin and when it got to her, it ate her completely up and she was gone and we never had her in Sunday School again.” He finished. Both Eric and Pammy’s hearts were racing from the dream. While it was a silly monster, the damage the rumor did was so scary because they knew the damage was real.

“We will lose Erin if we don’t do something. We have to tell dad.” Pammy concluded. As soon as she said that, Eric knew she was right. When their dad got home from work, they told him everything. As soon as he heard that Erin had stopped coming to church he called Pammy and Eric’s mom in.

“We can’t let Erin get hurt like this.” He said. “I am sure Erin’s parents don’t know why she won’t go to church.” Then he told Eric and Pammy’s mom to call Erin’s parents and tell them what was going on and that they weren’t going to take it lying down. Eric and Pammy’s pride in their parents just burst from them. Then their dad called Mrs. Wallace and let her in on it. Before the evening came, a plan was in place. The next Sunday Mrs. Wallace confronted the rumor face to face.

“This rumor about Erin is false.” She told the Sunday School class. “You all know Erin is a good girl. Satan uses rumors to destroy the church and if we don’t stop Satan, he is going to destroy someone we love, Erin. We aren’t going to stand for that are we?”

“NO” the kids in Sunday School roared. Mrs. Wallace nodded to Eric and he went out and got Erin.

“The weapon that defeats rumors and the devil is love. We all owe Erin an apology and we need to pray that she forgives us, that we forgive each other and that God keeps us honest and helps all watch out for each other that rumors don’t hurt our brothers and sisters again.”

The prayer ended the rumor and Erin was as happy as ever.

“I had another dream last night.” Eric told his sister the next day.

“About the rumor?” she asked.

“Yep. The rumor with the furry feet walked into our Sunday School class to attack more kids and it was faced with Mrs. Wright leading us all in prayer. It grabbed its chest and dropped dead right there on the spot. Then from its useless body, beautiful flowers started to grow and continued to grow until we couldn’t see the filthy monster at all, just the pretty flowers that grew from its body.”

So their Sunday School class got stronger and grew closer because they knew what to do when God’s enemy tries to hurt someone in the church with a rumor. And now you know too so if you see the rumor with the furry feet, you can kill him and share all the pretty flowers that grow from his stomach with everyone in your class.

What Odd Creatures God Made

The value of this short Christmas story :    Creation and the Fall

Ariel and Serena were angels.  God gave them all kinds of interesting assignments which they loved doing because they were created by God for the sole purpose of doing his bidding.  But for as long as they could remember, they had never had such an interesting assignment as this one.

“Where are we going?”  Serena complained to Ariel as she drug her out of her angel apartment right in the middle of her nap.

“Listen, we need to hurry.  God is about to do something completely new.  He is going to create a whole new universe and he is going to do it in just seven days.  Not only that but word on the streets of gold and silver is that God is going to create a whole new being, not like angels or anything we have seen before.”  Ariel said breathlessly trying to get her friend to hurry up.  “God wants all available angels there to witness it and create songs of praise about what he is going to do.”

So Serena hurried and they got pretty good seats on the edge of the universe so they could see everything.  “What’s wrong out there?  The whole place looks like chaos.”  Serena observed.

“It is but God is about to fix that.  Watch”.  Then as the two angels watched, the voice of God could be heard commanding “LET THERE BE LIGHT” and there was light.  Then he created sky and the dry land of this new world that was named “earth”.

“See now that’s where I would have done things differently.” Observed Serena.  “I would have made the universe and the stars and suns and all that first and then make the earth last, in some sort of big bang or something like that.”
photo credit: acbo

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“Yeah, well good thing you aren’t God then, Serena” Ariel criticized.  “Because that is a dumb idea.”

There wasn’t much time for discussion because God was moving fast.  “Wow it’s like he had this all planned out” Ariel said with awe.

“Since the beginning of eternity, some say.”  Serena observed.

“How can eternity have a beginning, its eternity?”  Ariel nit picked.

“Stop you are going to hurt my head.”  Serena responded.

God was moving fast.  He created the planets and then the stars and moons and seasons.  It was all falling into place one thing after another.  “I think He is done.”  Ariel speculated.

But God was far from done.  He filled the oceans he just made with fish and whales and a huge variety of living things and then he turned around and did the same thing to the land, populating with a dizzying assortment of animals of every imaginable shape, size and color.

“Wow, God is so creative.”  Serena said with a low whistle.

“Well, he is the creator silly.  Do you think that thing with the long neck is the special creature he is going to make that we talked about?” wondered Ariel.

“No, that’s an ostridge you nut.”  Serena corrected her fellow angel.  “This new creature will rule this world.  Ostridges can’t rule, they spend too much time with their heads in the sand.  Oh look, I think the time has come, God is creating his masterpiece.”

The process of creating this new creature was completely different.  God formed him from the dirt very carefully.  He seemed to be pouring so much love into this new design.  Finally, the shape was perfect and he named this new creature “man”.  But it was still a dirt statue when God did something completely unexpected.  He exhaled his own breath into the figure and it came to life.

“Wow, that means that man has God’s own life inside him.  Not like the other animals or fish or plants.  This “man” thing is a relative to God.”  Ariel said reverently.

It was so much fun to watch Man and then the companion God made for him, Woman, enjoy the wonderful earth and the special garden God made for him.  They seemed to be in paradise.  But something went wrong.

“Look, the woman is talking to that snake.”  Serena said with alarm.  “Get away form him, Eve.”  She tried to call out.  “He is nothing but trouble.”

But it was too late.  The evil one talked the woman and then the man into sinning and all of a sudden, all of God’s perfect creation started going to shambles.  God took his beloved creations, Man and Woman and they were thrown from the garden.  They started knowing disease and old age, and worry and decay and so did the wonderful creation God had made.

Serena was beyond consolation at what had happened.  Ariel had a terrible time getting her to come out of her room she was so upset.  “It’s ruined forever.  This is so tragic.”  Serena wept.

But then, suddenly, they heard the voice of God as he condemned the snake for his role in the Fall.  “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

“Serena, did you hear that?  Do you know what that means?”  Ariel said with a barely held in excitement.

“No Ariel, it was pretty hard to understand.”  Serena answered.

“God is promising to save mankind.  He is giving them a promise that some day, God himself will come to earth and die for the sins of man.  The son of God that we love so much here in Heaven, he is going to go down and bring salvation to all lost men and to the fallen earth and universe too.  And when it’s all over, it will be better than it ever was in the first place because God’s people will know better than to disobey and they will follow God willingly and be his family and that is what God has wanted all along.”

“Well then,” Serena concluded.  “Let’s get busy and help man all we can.  When Jesus brings them salvation, the glory of God will be greater than it ever has been through all eternity.  Come on, Ariel, we have work to do.

Abe and Zack

The value of this short Christian story:  The Story of Abraham and Israel

The following is a modern rendition of when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only son.  Keep that in mind as you read it because it will seem somewhat odd to your listeners and you should be prepared to explain it to them if they get confused during the telling.

Abe and his only son Zack loved to camp and fish and hunt.  They usually set aside a couple fall or early winter days for the outing.  This time, they were out just a week before Thanksgiving.  Usually when they hunted, they didn’t care if they shot a bird or just took pictures of one.  But they brought guns because there were bears and large cats in this area of the country.

The first night, Zack hit his sleeping bag early and Abe was enjoying a quite fire in the cool of the evening when he felt God speaking to him.

“God?” Abe said to the inner voice that was guiding him with very specific instructions.  “I am listening.”  He whispered.

“Take Zack to the top of the mountain tomorrow.” He felt the spirit was saying.  “There you will use your gun you will offer him to me to be the special kill that will be used to honor the Lord your God this Thanksgiving Day.”

What an odd instruction.  How could God ask him to kill his own son, a son that God gave him after many prayers and one that God had promised to make into a mighty servant of the kingdom of God?  Should he argue with God?  No.  Somehow, despite a very confused mind, he knew that obedience was the right thing to do.

In the morning, they broke camp and Abe told Zack about his prayer time.  “God wants us to go to the top of the mountain where we will kill a very special prize to be used for our Thanksgiving meal this year.”  Said Abe.

“God said that Dad?”  Zack said skeptically.  But Zack trusted God and trusted his dad with everything so finally he said.  “Ok, if that what God wants, that is what we will do.”

They hiked along quietly with Zack in the lead.  As Abe cradled his gun, he knew it would be so hard to turn his gun on his son who he loved more than even his own life.  Finally, they got to the top of the mountain and Zack crossed the clearing.  “Ok Pop, did God have any specifics about where this special prize was or what it would be?  Is it a turkey or a boar or something else?  You know mom doesn’t like surprises.”  Then Zack turned back toward his dad and froze.  There directly opposite was Abe holding his rifle to his face and pointing it directly at him.

Still Zack did not believe that his dad was going to kill him.  His mind raced.  Abe loved him more than any human in the world and Zack knew that God loved him too and had a wonderful future for him.  So why was his dad pointing that gun at him?  “Uh dad?  Is the kill behind me because you know, I don’t mind ducking.”

“God will provide the kill.”  Abe said solemnly and he brought back the hammer of the gun.  Zack’s head was directly in his sights.  As he began to squeeze the trigger, a powerful anointing from inside his heart surged up from his spirit.

“To the left!” the Holy Spirit said and without a moment’s hesitation, Abe turned the gun to the left and fired.  The recoil of the gun knocked the old man down.  He was afraid to get up but he knew God was in control.  When he sat up, there stood Zack with a huge turkey in his arms killed with one precision shot from Abe’s rifle.

“That was some shot dad.  I didn’t even see you aim.  For a minute I thought that gun was pointed at me and I was all, you know dad, I can clean my room better, no need to get so dramatic but they you fired and….”  Zack's happy voice continued on but Abe just bowed his head and thanked God for honoring his obedience.  Zack did go on to a great career, a ministry that brought salvation to many.  In their old age, Abe finally told his wife about the hunting trip.  Before she could get upset he told her the lesson he had finally come to from that amazing outing.

“God honored my obedience and the obedience of Zack.  Since then I have walked with God as a friend.  But friendship with God is always grounded in obedience.”  He said.

The Angel Child

The value of this short Christian story:  Angels.

“GLORY TO GOD, GLORY TO GOD, GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST” The angel choir sang in the skies above Bethlehem that very first Christmas night.  All of the Shepherds looked on in wonder as they heard from the choir of angels that filled the night sky of the coming of the Messiah, the Christ Child, Jesus who would save his people from their sins.

David watched from the hill not far from the flock and his uncle and dad who were tending the sheep.  He had been coming out with his male relatives to learn how to be a shepherd under their care and teaching.  They had sent him off to find a lost baby sheep that had wandered off.  David knew exactly where the little scoundrel sheep was because he had chased her many times.  He had given the sheep a name, Spunky and it had become David’s special pet in all the herd.

As the Angel Choir finished, David heard Spunky baa not far from where he was sitting.  Spunky liked a little cove where some sweet herbs grew and only she knew about them.  But she must have gotten caught in the brambles.  Sure enough, there she was, all caught up and very unhappy.
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