A BROTHER LIKE THAT

A man named Paul received an automobile from his brother as a Christmas present. On Christmas Eve when Paul came out of his office, a street urchin was walking around the shining new car admiring it. "Is this your car, Mister?" he asked.

Paul nodded. "My brother gave it to me for Christmas." The boy was astounded. "You mean your brother gave it to you and it didn't cost you nothing? Boy, I wish..." He hesitated.

Of course Paul knew what he was going to wish for. He was going to wish he had a brother like that. But what this lad said jarred Paul all the way down to his heels.

"I wish," the boy went on, "that I could be a brother like that."

Paul looked at the boy in astonishment, then impulsively he added, "Would you like to take a ride in my automobile?"

"Oh yes, I'd love that." After a short ride, the boy turned with his eyes aglow and said, "Mister, would you mind driving in front of my house?"

Paul smiled a little. He thought he knew what the lad wanted. He wanted to show his neighbors that he could ride home in a big automobile. But Paul was wrong again. "Will you stop where those two steps are?" the boy asked.

He ran up the steps. Then in a little while Paul heard him coming back, but he was not coming fast. He was carrying his little crippled brother. He sat him down on the bottom step, then sort of squeezed up against him and pointed to the car.

"There she is, Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him for Christmas and it didn't cost him a cent. And someday I'm gonna give you one just like it...and you can see for yourself all the pretty things in the Christmas windows that I've been trying to tell you about."

Paul got out and lifted the lad into the front seat of his car. The shining-eyed older brother climbed in beside him and the three of them began a memorable holiday ride.

That Christmas Eve, Paul learned what Jesus meant when he had said: "It's more blessed to give..."

BRIDGES

Once upon a time two brothers who lived on adjoining farms fell into conflict. It was the first serious rift in 40 years of farming side by side, sharing machinery, and trading labor and goods as needed without a hitch.

Then the long collaboration fell apart. It began with a small misunderstanding and it grew into a major difference, and finally it exploded into an exchange of bitter words followed by weeks of silence.

One morning there was a knock on John's door. He opened it to find a man with a carpenter's toolbox. "I'm looking for a few days work" he said.

"Perhaps you would have a few small jobs here and there I could help with? Could I help you?" "Yes," said the older brother. "I do have a job for you. Look across the creek at that farm. That's my neighbor, in fact, it's my younger brother.

Last week there was a meadow between us and he took his bulldozer to the river levee and now there is a creek between us. Well, he may have done this to spite me, but I'll do him one better. See that pile of lumber by the barn? I want you to build me a fence - - an 8-foot fence -- so I won't need to see his place or his face anymore." 

The carpenter said, "I think I understand the situation. Show me the nails and the post-hole digger and I'll be able to do a job that pleases you."

The older brother had to go to town, so he helped the carpenter get the materials ready and then he was off for the day. The carpenter worked hard all that day measuring, sawing, nailing. About sunset when the farmer returned, the carpenter had just finished his job. The farmer's eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped. There was no fence there at all. It was a bridge -- a bridge stretching from one side of the creek to the other! A fine piece of work handrails and all -- and the neighbor, his younger brother, was coming across, his hand outstretched.

"You are quite a fellow to build this bridge after all I've said and done."

The two brothers stood at each end of the bridge, and then they met in the middle, taking each other's hand. They turned to see the carpenter hoist his toolbox on his shoulder. "No, wait! Stay a few days. I've a lot of other projects for you," said the older brother. "I'd love to stay on," the carpenter said, "but, I have many more bridges to build."

A DESPERATE MAN

There was a man who had everything you could want, everything but happiness and hope. He had a good business and more money than he could count, houses all over the world, and owned an island in the South Pacific Ocean. He had a loving wife and four children, two boys and two girls. He was constantly putting on parties and all sorts of affairs trying to find what his younger brother already had. You see his younger brother had been ask to become a partner in the company several years earlier but turn it down because he was already a partner in something bigger. 

The younger brother did not own a fancy house instead he and his wife rented a small three-bedroom house in the country where they were raising their three children, one son and two daughters. The younger brother was happy with his life; he had everything he needed. You see the younger brother had found Jesus Christ and was living life the way God wanted him to. 

The older brother could not understand how his younger brother could possibly be content with the life he had chose, little or no money, always struggling to make ends meet. The older brother thought that money was the answer to all the troubles in this world; he thought that if you had enough money you could buy happiness. He was wrong the more he gained the more he wanted and happiness seemed to elude him at every turn. 

He began to search elsewhere in places like bars and nightclubs. He even started looking at other women thinking that maybe that is where I’ll find happiness but all that did was cost him more grief. The younger brother had tried for years to get his big brother to go to Church but he refused saying that there was nothing for him in a Church; to him Church meant giving his money to a bunch people that were to lazy to work. 

As time passed the older brother found out that he had cancer and was dying, the soaring medical cost was fast depleting his resources, and because of the turmoil he was going through he drove a wedge between himself and his wife and kids. Soon his wife told him she was leaving until he could get thing strait in his life. His company began to suffer large losses and he became more depressed. The younger brother tried again to get him in Church without any luck. A year went by with things getting worse every day and then the news the older brother dreaded most came; his money had ran out, his company was bankrupt and he had lost his island and all of the houses. 

Now broke, alone and desperate with nowhere to turn he went to his younger brother for help, he found out for the first time just how happy his brother really was. He was welcomed and his younger brother went out of his way to make him comfortable. He began to see God working in his brothers life, how he prayed twice a day and before every meal. And he noticed that his younger brother always prayed for him, and he also noticed how his health seemed to be getting better. When his younger brother left for Church one Sunday he found a Bible lying on the coffee table, he picked it up and began reading it. As he read in the New Testament about Jesus he could feel God touching his heart but he thought, "I am not worthy of God's love", yet he could not put down the Bible. 

When the younger brother and his family came in from Church they found him sitting on the couch holding the Bible crying. The younger brother went to his big brother and asks if he had found what he had been searching for, Christ. The answer was yes and he explained how God had touched him while he was reading. He told about the joy and sadness he felt, sadness that he had wasted so much time and joy that he had found Jesus. The younger ask him if he would come to Church with the family that night, he agreed. Once they got to Church that evening the older brother could not believe how much he felt the presents of God. It was hard for him to contain his emotions as God let the light into his life. At the end of the service even before the Pastor started the invitation he was on his way down the isle of the Church, almost in a run, he could wait no longer. When he had confessed his sins and accepted Jesus into his heart he made a promise to serve God. 

Two years later the younger brother still lives in the rented house and is now a deacon in the small Church where he saw his brother saved. The older brother is now a minister who travels around helping desperate men and women find what he had over looked for so many years. 

We need to live a life that makes people say I want what he or she has. A life that will make us proud to say I am a Christian and my Lord is Jesus Christ.