Crayola Crayons and life

I don't know what makes a person but I propose that a lot of small things make you what you are.  I remember grade school when we had Big Chief tablets and number 2 pencils and Crayola Crayons were the required school supplies.  Big Chief tablets were 10 cents and pencils were I think 5 cents.  I don't recall the crayons price but that is what I want to talk about here today.

Jon Tanny Olsen came to school with 64 crayons in his Crayola Crayon box.  It even had a sharpener.  I was jealous!  My dream was to own a set of 64 Crayola Crayons with a built in sharpener.  How could life get any better than that?  I could not imagine.  Then there was Joy Frank and Denise Logue who colored on their Big Chief tablet and kept it in the lines every time!  In fact they could put down the color so there were no lines from pressing too hard.  Mrs. Snyder and then Mrs. Casselman and then Mrs. Shumate would rave about how great they could color.  I felt like an outcast!  I tried as best as I could to please them in my coloring skills.  Now I had two problems:  no 64 Crayola Crayon set with a built in sharpener and no raw talent to use them.  I propose it was not the talent I wanted but the affection and compliments of my teachers who I desperately wanted to please.  

So here I was encased in an over sized body, 5 foot 2 inches in the 3rd grade, and no ability to color without pressing too hard on the page and having my lines show plus only 16 or was it 8 Crayola Crayons to choose from.  I was marginalized as a human being, prejudiced against and humiliated.  You would think I would grow up to think that the government should take those 64 colors from Jon Tanny and distribute them amongst the want-a-be's.  He did nothing to deserve those colors?  His parents gave them to him.  They should take their money and give it to everyone else so we could all be equal.  Isn't that fair?  What do you think?

But how could I take away the talents of Joy and Denise and get them distributed to us less fortunate ones who did not have the talent.  You would think that as I grew up I would think that if they became rich off their talents they should give me some  of their money as they did not deserve to have more just because they had more talent.  How could a loving God give them more than me?  

But what if I took my talent or over sized body and became an NFL football player who made millions of dollars, would I be obligated to give them a fair share of my money?  By the way I did not have the speed or talent to play in the NFL.  Let me propose it another way.  What if I grew up and worked harder and in fact worked a full time job at about 60+ hours a week and then took a job like selling Amway products on the side with my wife and did that for another 30 or 40 hours a week and made a lot of money and saved that money then invested it in real estate and other investments that created jobs.  Should I have to pay a higher percentage because I worked harder and longer and had less vacations than anyone else?  It seems to make sense that I would get to pay a smaller percentage because I did not spend the money buying stuff I did not need and in fact created more jobs because I invested it in something somebody else got to call a job and they made money off my money.  

That IS my story.

I got out of college and took it to heart that God created us all equal but not in talent but in grace.  God gives grace to everyone who wants it (John 3:16), freely.  I had two primary principles that I wrote down when I was in college:

• Give 10% to God which I will honestly say I was not always doing 
• Save 10% so that I would be prepared for opportunities and could always take care of my family and self which I honestly did not always do

I think wanting and needing, at least in my mind, those Crayola Crayons and wanting the talents of Joy and Denise is what made me have a passion to do well.  Obviously the values of my parents made a huge impact as well as those teachers and friends and everyone I grew up with especially my brother and sister.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• A little WANT is good for everyone
• We are all created equal in God's eye, we just screw it up when we think about everything
• Everyone makes decisions on what they do with their talents and it is their decision on what they make of it, not the Government!  YOU decide who you are!

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com