Halloween and Crosses

When I was maybe five years old—I very well could have been four or six, I can’t quite remember—I learned an important lesson: When you live down a long, dark, and creepy street, trick-or-treaters don’t tend to stop by your house.

Growing up my family didn’t celebrate Halloween but as an ever acute child I knew that for most kids Halloween meant a grand time acquiring endless amounts of tooth decaying joy. I’m fairly certain that God gave humans baby teeth for the sole purpose of allowing children to eat as much candy as they want with few regrets.

One certain Halloween, although we had no candy at the house, I didn’t want to disappoint all of the potential trick-or-treaters who I eagerly expected to stop by. So I grabbed some construction paper and scissors and cut out paper crosses. As many crosses as my little hands could cut.

Then I took the crosses and asked my mom to write something on them. I could write decently but my lettering would’ve been too big to fit all the words I wanted to on the cross.

“Please write, ‘Just as you are knocking on our door tonight, Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart’,” I asked my mom.

And then I got on our computer, started up Windows 3.1, and wrote out Revelation 3:21.

“To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.”

I printed out that verse for as many crosses I’d made. And the verse would be used to tie the crosses together. And I’d give a completed cross to every person that stopped by my house. And I prayed that all who got a cross would come to know Jesus. And I waited ever so excitedly for the first knock at our door.

But no one came. All night and not a single trick-or-treater stopped by our home.

My mom says I cried. “With big tears, quiet sobs and this look of devastation,” she says.

This story has been on my heart a lot recently. Even now my heart is heavy as I think about it. It would be easy in reflection for me to question God. Why would you let a young child who wanted nothing more than to see you kingdom spread know such disappointment? But before I can even think the question God speaks to me.

Remember the prophets, whose lives were spent speaking words to a nation that refused to listen, God says to me. Remember my martyrs and missionaries, like Jim Elliot, who were not only ignored but were killed for proclaiming my name. I promise you though that Ezekiel never knew such a delight in all the earth as when I gave him my word and it was like honey to his lips. And I assure you that Isaiah never knew such ecstasy as when he saw my glory.

God is teaching me to be satisfied not in what I do or what I see, not in even what I see God doing in front of me, but to be satisfied in Him alone. “Whom have I in heaven but you?” the psalmist proclaims. “And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.”

God is teaching me who He is. He is teaching me how to be found and fulfilled in the person of Christ. And it’s a fearful joy that has begun to consume me.