God and the Rice Krispies Treat
My twin brother, Keaton, and I played T-ball for a couple years when we were 5 or 6 years old. We played at the old Redmond schoolhouse on dirt fields. (Actually, the fields were a mix of sand and dirt.) Our team was called the Sea Dogs. My grandpa liked to make noises like this “arf, arf, glug, glug” and said it was the sound of the Sea Dogs.
Our good friend, Josh, also played with us. T-Ball was kinda ok but really the best part of playing T-ball was the treats after the game. Each week, we’d have really cool treats plus water in a brown paper lunch sack. And the Rice Krispies treats were the best. After our game was over, we’d high five the other team and race over to where the parents were waiting with the treat bags.
On one sunny afternoon, the treat bag contained a Rice Krispies treat. I’m not talking about homemade Rice Krispies treats but the treats in the blue package. On this particular day, each treat bag contained exactly one of those blue-paper-wrapped treats.
Except that one bag didn’t. Josh’s bag had NO Rice Krispies treat. We all supposed that the treat had gotten placed in some other bag so someone had two Rice Krispies treats. We carefully checked everyone’s bag but nope. There was no extra Rice Krispies treat in anyone’s bag, so Josh had to go without.
Except that he didn’t. Because I gave Josh my Rice Krispies treat. I honestly have no idea what I was thinking at the time because it was a gazillion years ago, but Josh was pretty bummed and I just wanted to help him out. Keaton, Josh and I were still eating when we piled into the back seat of our black suburban. Mom and Dad were in the front seat, with Dad driving.
We’re driving along and I look into my bag and . . . there’s a Rice Krispies treat! Shock! Now I had definitely checked the bag at the game and there was only ONE Rice Krispies treat in it, and I gave it to Josh. But, suddenly, on the drive home, a Rice Krispies treat appeared in the bag out of nowhere!!
We were surprised and excited. I remember my mom saying something like, “Oh it’s a miracle. God must have rewarded you for your generosity.” It made me think, “Oh, that’s crazy!”
There are perhaps, those skeptical people in the world, who would say, “it was in there all the time, and you just didn’t see it.” But, hey, I have good eyes, and trust me, the treat bag was not so incredibly large that you couldn’t see right down to the bottom in about one second flat. No. There was one Rice Krispies treat in the bag. I gave it away. And now there was another Rice Krispies treat in that bag. We just had to thank God.
We know God does this kind of thing. Right? Remember the story in the gospels when the people hung around with Jesus until late in the day and were very hungry, and Jesus said to His disciples, “YOU feed them.” 5,000 people or so! The disciples were astonished. But, then one of them, Andrew, stepped forward and said, “There’s a boy here.” And the boy had 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.
Jesus made enough food to feed 5000 people out of that little bit of bread and fish. (John 6:9-13)
So we know what God can do. We thanked God then, a gazillion years ago. And we can still thank Him today for doing something amazing just for us by multiplying a Rice Krispies treat.