{"id":1813,"date":"2016-07-08T16:47:37","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T21:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/?p=1813"},"modified":"2016-07-08T16:47:37","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T21:17:37","slug":"gold-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/07-08-2016\/gold-star\/","title":{"rendered":"You get a gold star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I got in on the tail end of gold stars. They had quit giving them for Sunday School attendance, and I only received stickers on good work for two school years. I don&#8217;t think they were stars, either. Anyway, most people understand the concept of gold stars; you did something to the best of your ability, and you get a sticker in return. A sticker that won&#8217;t last all that long, but you feel mighty good about getting it. Adults don&#8217;t expect to get gold stars from their bosses, but we do from God.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, I imagine that last phrase has stirred some denial, and I&#8217;m joining in. We wouldn&#8217;t expect God to give us a sticker for praying every day, or giving money to a charity. That is crazy talk. Yet we do it. Be honest with yourself, and tell me that you have never said something like this, &#8220;God, you know that I gave money to that group that helps orphans, so do You think that I could maybe get\/do ______?&#8221; We did something good and then want something in return.<\/p>\n<p>If God had a chart for each of us where He put gold stars, I don&#8217;t think I would really want to see mine. I&#8217;m sure that it would also show where I could have gotten one but didn&#8217;t. God wants us to do our best, but He isn&#8217;t going to shower us with praise and then let us go back to our seats. We should continually strive to improve the skills and talents He has given us.<\/p>\n<p>Just a random thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I got in on the tail end of gold stars. They had quit giving them for Sunday School attendance, and I only received stickers on good work for two school years. I don&#8217;t think they were stars, either. Anyway, most people understand the concept of gold stars; you did something to the best of your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1814,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813\/revisions\/1814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}