Editorial December 25, 2017 Issue

God’s gift to humanity—and what we can do with it

Barbara Vining

As someone who works with ideas every day, I was intrigued when I walked by a bookstore window and saw a children’s book on display with this title: What Do You Do with an Idea?

I went in for a closer look and found its message by Kobi Yamada irresistible, and its illustrations by Mae Besom imaginative and beautiful. It’s been on my sofa table ever since, to share with friends, and to remind me of its delightful message—that we can learn to love an idea that seems small at first but won’t leave us alone, even one thought odd by others, but which grows to reveal itself as blessing the whole world. At the end of the book, the featured character (a little boy) arrives at the answer to “What do you do with an idea?” He exclaims, “Then, I realized what you do with an idea …. You change the world.”

The book’s message points me to the meaning of Christmas—God’s great gift to humanity: “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (I John 4:9).

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Bible Lens—December 25–31, 2017