Everyone in the World Has a Bucket

As any new year approaches, it is common to offer re-caps and “best of” lists. This week I’m revisiting a column which garnered many positive comments the first time it appeared three years ago at the beginning of another new year. As we’re leaving a year which has seen its share of heartbreak and destruction, it is more important than ever for each of us to immerse ourselves in the wisdom which is at the heart of this simple message: 

I'm convinced that children have a better grasp of theology than almost any adult I know. Scripture solidifies that opinion when quoting Jesus as saying, ". . . Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18:3-4) Children, it would seem, may have the upperhand, spiritually. When they speak we probably should listen.

When my grandson is asked what he learned at school, usually he'll say something along the lines of, "Same old thing." But one day, not long ago, he had a new thing to say. His teacher had read something to the class which one of his friends had brought to school.  "Everyone in the whole world has a bucket," he told me with the wide-eyed, earnest enthusiasm of a seven-year-old who had just found a way to express a great truth he had always known. There's no telling exactly how the story went originally, but he continued with his interpretation.

"Some people are bucket-dippers, and some people are bucket-fillers. When someone is a bully and they say or do mean things, they're a bucket-dipper, and they're trying to empty someone else's bucket so they can fill up their own. But they can never fill up their own bucket by being mean; it really just makes their bucket empty. When someone is a bucket-filler, they do nice things, like say hello to the mailman or smile at everyone. When they do that, they're trying to fill up other people's buckets, but they're really filling up their own bucket, too. Being nice is the only way to fill up your bucket."

Psalm 8:2 says, "From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength because of Your adversaries, to make the enemy and the revengeful cease." 

If we all try to be strong by being bucket-fillers every day, eventually the bucket-dippers will be silenced, because everyone's bucket would be full. And when everyone's bucket is full, there won't be any reason to fight.