April, 2005

Who Switched The Price Tags?

T

ony Campolo tells this story from his childhood that illustrates an important spiritual truth.

In the city of Philadelphia, the night before Halloween is always designated Mischief Night. You can imagine what bad little boys do on that particular evening.

Two of us broke into a five-and-dime not far from my house. We didn't steal anything. We did something far worse. We went around and changed the price tags on just about everything in the store The next morning, people found that radios were selling for ten cents apiece, while bobby pins were priced at ten dollars. What was valuable had been made cheap, and what was cheap had been made valuable.

That story is indicative of what has happened to America. It is almost as though someone has broken into our society and changed the price tags. We are not willing to invest very much in what is really precious, and we seem to spend all of our time and energies on that which is worthless.

The wisest way to live is to treasure the things that God declares to be valuable rather than giving our lives in exchange for what is worthless.