Preparation:
Fill backpack with soft unbreakable items. |
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| Grace |
Phew! (panting hard) This sure is a long
hike. How much farther do we have to go? |
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| Alison |
Are you kidding? (Laughs) We just got into
the woods five minutes ago. I thought you liked hiking. |
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| Grace |
I do. (groan) I do like hiking. (Another groan)
I'm just ... just ... tired of carrying this pack. |
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| Alison |
Goodness! What do you have in that thing, anyway? Hey,
there's a shady spot under that tree. Let's have a look. |
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| Alison & Grace |
(Both sit down and open pack) |
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| Alison |
Grace! You packed half the world in here. |
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| Grace |
What? (Confused) Did I take too much stuff? |
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| Alison |
(Laughing hard) You packed three combs, five
pairs of socks, I don't know how many sets of batteries, your best
shoes, one of your brother's shirts, CDs, headphones ... is there
anything from your room you didn't bring? |
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| Grace |
Oh yeah! I left a whole bunch of stuff. |
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| Alison |
Good. Well it's time we left a few more things. (Starts
dumping things out) |
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| Grace |
(Shouting) Hey! What are you doing? (Grabs
pack) |
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| Alison |
We're only camping for one night, Grace. And it's already
starting to get dark. You don't need all this junk! (Takes pack
away from Grace and dumps it out) |
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| Grace |
(Still shouting) Junk? It's not junk. These
are my prized possessions. They're my life! |
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| Alison |
(To audience) Pretty sad life. |
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| Grace |
Why, these things are the most important ... (Turns
to Alison) Hey, Allison, what did you say? |
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| Alison |
Um, never mind. What I meant is, we came out here to
get away from all this stuff. (Starts putting things back in
pack) If we wanted to play music and dress up in fancy clothes,
we should have just stayed home. I thought we wanted to simply have
a good time with each other. |
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| Grace |
(Sits and thinks) You know what? (Jumps
to her feet) You're right. (Picks up pack and zips it
closed) You're absolutely right! (Throws pack to the side)
We don't need any of that stuff. (Turns to Allison) And
without that big heavy old thing, I could run for miles! Let's go! |
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| Alison |
Awesome. Let's go! |
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| (Narrator comes and takes center stage, and both
girls stand along side the narrator) |
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| Narrator |
Stuff. We all sure have a lot of stuff, don't we?
The problem is, Jesus didn't tell us to collect stuff. "Go
therefore into all the world and collect as much stuff as you
can." I don't think so. That verse actually reads ... well
let's look it up.
Mark 16:15. He said to them, "Go into all the world and
preach the good news to all creation."
A little different than "Get a bunch of stuff," eh? |
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| Grace |
The thing with stuff is it weighs us down. Like trying
to hike with a bunch of things you don't need. |
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| Narrator |
We're the same
way. We can spend our lives trying to get the latest video game
or talking Mom into buying just one more snack. As soon as we have
it, though, we want something else. There is no end to our
greed. |
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| Allison |
Now, having stuff isn't bad. If we have a lot of toys, we can
share them with our friends and have a lot of fun playing with
them. But like Grace discovered, it isn't things that make us
happy. It's people. And the person that will give you the most
joy, no matter what, is Jesus. |
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| Narrator |
We must be cautious that our stuff doesn't get in
the way of our relationship with the Lord. Don't be so concerned
about all the things we have that we forget to spend time with Jesus.
I discovered that this summer when I reorganized a bunch of stuff
I had stored all over the house. It was just that ... stuff! I didn't
use half of it, and I didn't need any of it. It just got in the
way. I could have used that time more wisely by spending it reading
the Bible or praying. Now my quiet time with the Lord is much better.
I have learned my lesson. I pray you will, too. |
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