Leapfrog had a hard choice ahead of him; he had to choose who would go with him on the next part of the quest for candy-flavored pop! Trixie’s Grandpa had told him that he must choose wisely. Of course, Toenail wanted to go with Leapfrog, so he put on his shoes and socks (from the jogger) and set out to impress Leapfrog.
First, Toenail got a big group of people together to watch him, and he went to Leapfrog and stood on his head (this was easy to do, because he still had the pizza box glued to his head) and he said,
“Please, please, please, please, take me with you Leapfrog, I want to go very, very, very, very, very, very, very, much! Please, please, please, please, please take me with you Leapfrog; I want to go very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very much! Please, please, please, please, please take me with you Leapfrog; I want to go very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very much! Please, please, please, please, please take me with you Leapfrog; I want to go very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very much! Please, please, please, please, please take me with you Leapfrog; I want to go very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very much!”
Toenail kept repeating this same sentence for 25 minutes. Because he was standing on his head, his ears turned purple, and his lips turned blue, so at least he was very colorful! Leapfrog was not impressed with Toenail’s begging he still did not know who to take on the journey.
Toenail then tried something different! He rolled on the ground in front of Leapfrog and said,
“If you take me with you, I will always be a good boy, I will always wash the dishes, I will never complain, I will always carry everything for you, I will always wear purple underwear, I will always eat lumpy oatmeal, I will always sing for you, I will always give you all my money, I will always keep my feet clean, I will always sleep when I am not awake, I will always breathe, I will always like you, I will always stay with you, I will never have another best friend, I will always give you candy, I will always brush my teeth, I will never forget your birthday, I will never step on your ears, I will never take your fingers, I will always use a Kleenex when I blow my nose, I will always wash my face, I will always do my homework, I will never cheat, I will always read my Bible, I will always go to Church, I will never say bad things about people, I will always use soap when I take a bath, I will always share my food, I will be nice to girls (even creepy ones), I will wash all the trees, I will take all the seaweed out of the ocean, I will never put ketchup on a raw airplane, I will even change my socks at least once a year!”
Leapfrog still did not seem too impressed, but all the people were laughing at Toenail because he was making so many promises that he could not possibly keep.
Toenail decided to try something else that might get Leapfrog’s attention. Toenail fell on the ground and began kicking his feet in the air and screaming. He was throwing a temper tantrum. He said, “If you do not take me, I will keep screaming until the police come, then you will get in trouble for making me so mad!” Leapfrog did not pay any attention to Toenail, and the police did not either, they were laughing at Toenail. Toenail kicked his feet harder and screamed louder, and then something unexpected happened! A fly went by! But it did not really go by! It went right into Toenail’s wide-open, screaming mouth. Toenail was so surprised that he swallowed that fly! Toenail wanted to make sure that the fly was not alive inside him, so he began to energetically hit himself in the stomach with a fly swatter. The fly swatter hurt his stomach so bad that he began to cry! Leapfrog saw him crying and said, “Quit your crying or else I definitely will not take you along!”
Toenail immediately quit crying and said, “If you do not promise to take me with you, I will hold my breath until I turn blue!” So, Toenail held his breath, but instead of turning blue, he turned orange, Leapfrog and all the people laughed at Toenail because he was orange. Toenail decided to try again, so he held his breath again, and this time instead of turning blue, he turned green! Again, everyone laughed at him, so Toenail decided to try one more time. This time when he held his breath, he turned orange and green striped! All the people were laughing so hard that they were rolling on the ground.
Trixie came up quietly to Leapfrog and said to him, “You have always been friendly to me. Even when Toenail did not like me, you still liked me and treated me good. Do you think that I could go with you and share in this great adventure with you? I really would like to help you.”
Leapfrog said, “I was hoping that you would want to go on this adventure with me. I like having you help me.”
Trixie then said, “I have one more favor to ask from you. Do you suppose that we could take Toenail with us? He does show off a lot and sometimes he is mean to me, but I feel sorry for him. And he really does want to come and help. Maybe we will not be able to find the Candy-Flavored Pop without him!”
Leapfrog said, “I agree with you! I want to take Toenail with us, he is my friend too. I am glad that you want to have him along. I would have told him right away that I would not go without him, but it has been fun to watch him do all those ridiculous things to try to get my attention!”
So, the three friends were ready to go on to the next stage of the great adventure of finding the secret recipe for Candy-Flavored Pop. Toenail has the shoes and socks that he got from the jogger, and a pizza box glued to his head, Leapfrog still has one rollerblade, and Trixie still looks like a normal seven-year-old.
They opened the envelope that had the clue, and the clue said to…
Application:
In the Bible in Mathew 6:5-15 Jesus says:
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
This, then, is how you should pray:
‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
In this story, we can learn a lot about praying the way that Jesus taught His disciples to pray. Prayer should be like a conversation with God, but there is a right way and a wrong way to have a good conversation.
Toenail demonstrated the wrong way to have a conversation:
- Do not show off for other people, Toenail gathered a group of people and tried to impress them
- Do not keep repeating the same things over and over, Toenail kept repeating himself and it drove the people crazy
- Do not try to get your own way by making a bunch of promises, Toenail made all kinds of promises and ended up looking foolish because he could not keep those promises
- Do not try to intimidate the other person, Toenail tried to intimidate Leapfrog by saying ‘… if you do not do what I want, I will hold my breath until I turn blue’.
Trixie demonstrated the right way to have a conversation:
- Start off the conversation by saying something good about the other person, Trixie started the conversation by telling Leapfrog how much she appreciated him
- If you need to make a request to the other person, just make the request, do not try to trick the other person into doing what you want. Trixie did this, she wanted to go with Leapfrog on the adventure, and she just simply asked him if she could go
- Do not think only about yourself, think of others also. Trixie asked Leapfrog if Toenail could go on the adventure also.
Praying to God is very much like having a good conversation with another person.
- Do not try to draw attention to yourself when you pray.
- You do not need to use fancy words, talk to God just like you would talk to a good friend.
- Start out by telling God how much you appreciate Him (this is called praising Him).
- God wants us to request things that we need and even request things that we just want, but do not need (He will answer these requests in the best way possible, even if the answer is ‘no’).
- God also wants us to pray for the needs that other people have, prayer should not just be about you.
- God also wants us to pray about the sins that we are struggling with, only He can forgive sins and help us to overcome sin habits, but He also wants us to forgive other people when they sin against us.