A week before the classes were to end, I got a very special surprise from one of my kindergarten students. One morning, Gavin came up to me very excited. He said, "I have something for you! I have something for you!" Thinking that he's discovered my "addiction", I was hoping to get a bag of chocolates from him. While he was getting that "something" from his bag, I looked at his class teacher and raised my eyebrows silently asking her if she knew what it was. She just giggled and said, "Yes, he has something for you!" Gavin finally came back and gave me that "special something" - ants.
I laughed out loud and lovingly said "thank you" to Gavin. It was so funny, there I was expecting a bag of chocolates but what I got was a plastic of ants, 2 big black ants to be exact. I hugged Gavin and proudly showed the plastic of ants to his classmates. I saw how proud he was of himself. He even offered to explain that those ants were "guard ants". For me it didn't matter what his gift was, the thing that mattered was "his heart" when he gave it to me. I will always treasure Gavin's gift to me.
This made me realize how God must feel for us. He must feel much love for us when we try to do things for Him. He treasures everything that we do even if these things may be very feeble. Most of the time we fail in our endeavors, but I know that He still lovingly looks at us and tells us that He appreciates our efforts. 'Cause He doesn't look at the whats of our efforts but He looks at the whys of our efforts. The only thing that He wants from us is a relationship with Him not our ministry, not our accomplishments, not our worldly successes. He wants all of our heart, not just a part of it but ALL of it. So the next time that we go to God and try to do things for Him, we have to remember that it doesn't matter what we do or whether we succeed or fail 'cause He will always be like a father to us. He will always be proud of us 'cause He knows our hearts.