Photo by Jenny Venturo
Once upon a time, there lived a marmot. A marmot is a large type of rodent that lives high up in the mountains. This marmot had a very cozy home under a rock. The top of this rock was his porch, and every morning he sat there and had breakfast while he watched the sun come up over the snowy peaks where he lived. Sometimes, he liked sitting there, all by himself, watching the sunrise. But sometimes, he felt lonely. One day, he felt especially lonely. This was because today was Mr. Marmot’s birthday, and Mr. Marmot realized that he had no one to make him a cake or give him a present or play a game with him. Mr. Marmot realized that a birthday is not much fun without these things. Mr. Marmot sighed and said aloud, “How I wish I had a friend to celebrate my birthday with me!”
Now, all the way on the other side of the rock field where Mr. Marmot lived, there was another rodent-like animal. This furry brown creature, however, was much smaller than Mr. Marmot. He was a pika. A pika is a little like a mouse, but it is larger than a mouse and it doesn’t have a long, wiry tail. This pika lived under a rock as well, and, just like Mr. Marmot, loved to sit on top of it and watch the sunrise. And just like Mr. Marmot, Pika had a problem. Pika had no friends. All the other little pikas that scurried over the rocks had friends, but not Pika. No one wanted to be friends with Pika.
One day, Pika felt so lonely, he decided to go for a long walk. He walked all the way to the other end of the rock field. Looking up, he saw a large brown marmot sitting on his porch, gazing up into the sky. The Marmot sighed and, still not noticing Pika, said, “How I wish I had a friend to celebrate my birthday with me!”
Pika’s ears pricked. He barely stifled a squeak. For Pika had a perfect idea! Pika ran home. All day long he was busy in his little cave-house. At the end of the day, a huge, beautiful birthday cake stood in Pika’s house. It was taller than Pika himself! It had a big red candle in the middle. It was perfect.
Pika had a hard time bringing the giant cake to Mr. Marmot’s house. But he worked hard and, little by little, managed to drag it up to Mr. Marmot’s front door.
Imagine Mr. Marmot’s surprise when he opened the door and found a big, beautiful birthday cake and a tiny brown pika waiting on his porch! He immediately invited Pika in, and they had a very wonderful birthday party together.
Now Pika and Mr. Marmot are best friends. They spend time together every day, and every morning, you will see them sitting together on Mr. Marmot’s front porch, watching the beautiful sunrise over the mountains.
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Pika and Mr. Marmot were friends. Do you have friends? Maybe you do and maybe you don’t, but did you know that God wants to be your friend? He loves you and He wants you to be with Him in Heaven. There’s a problem though. God is perfectly good—so perfectly good, in fact, that He cannot even look at sin. So you have to be perfectly good to be His friend. The trouble is, that, according to the Bible, you are not perfectly good (see Psalms 14:3). When you lie, steal, hate, gossip, or disobey your parents, you are breaking God’s laws and sinning. You cannot be His friend. You deserve instead to be punished. This punishment is death in Hell.
But here’s some good news! God loves you and wants to be your friend even though you sin. So this is what He did: God became a man—Jesus—and died on a cross to take your punishment. He was punished instead of you! He was buried, but came alive again and went back up to Heaven. Now you can be His friend! If you ask Him to, Jesus will forgive your sin and clean it away. You must trust Him to do this and stop sinning. He will help you do this. You can learn more about Him and what He wants you to do by reading His Words in the Bible and talking to Him by praying. After all, that’s what you do with your other friends. You talk to them and listen to them so that you can know them better. And that’s how you get to know God better! So when are you going to decide to become God’s friend?
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