The Day Santa Hit My Car
November 4, 2020
A year ago, on November 4, 2019, I had a hair appointment at my niece’s salon, “DO or DYE”. A few things happened while I was sitting in my niece’s chair. First, a professional Santa Claus backed into my car with his Lexus ‘sleigh’. Secondly, Santa walked into my niece’s salon, as he had an appointment with her to trim his beard and get him spruced up for his gig as Santa Claus in a major Mall. The third thing that happened was that Santa did not mention the incident in the parking lot.
However, another stylist in the salon, happened to be standing by a window near the parking lot and witnessed the whole ordeal. She told me what happened, but she did not want to confront Santa about it and she did not want me to either. I understood. How do you confront Santa, the model of goodness and kindness, the keeper of the naughty and nice list, the one who knows when we are sleeping, and being bad or good? How do you confront Santa who is my niece’s best friend’s father? Why was he being naughty and not telling what he did? Who of us was courageous enough to point out Santa’s misdeed?
Eventually we came up with a plan which involved my leaving the salon, discovering the damage, and walking back into the salon to declare to my niece, in front of Santa, that someone hit my car. However, before I could get the whole sentence out, Santa, with tears of contrition, confessed, “I hit your car!” At that point, Santa genuinely felt bad about hiding the truth and so he ‘outed’ himself.
My Santa story reminds me of King Saul in I Samuel 15. The prophet, Samuel, told Saul that God wanted Saul to utterly destroy the Amalekites for attacking Israel, 400 years earlier, as the Israelites were making their exodus out of Egypt. God’s command to Saul was clear:
“3Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” – I Samuel 15: 3
However, while Saul did attack the Amalekites, he was selective about obeying God’s command. Saul took Agag, king of the Amalekites, alive and spared the best of the sheep and oxen.
“But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them.” – I Samuel 15: 9
Saul did not obey the “ALL” of God’s command, and when confronted as to why he did not obey the LORD, he made excuses. He spiritualized his disobedience, clung stubbornly to his exclamation of obeying the LORD, and spared the plunder in order to sacrifice to the LORD.
“20 And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. 21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”
I Samuel 15: 20-21
However, Samuel reminded Saul that to obey is better than sacrifice:
“22 And Samuel said, ‘Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,’” – I Samuel 15: 22
We can offer a thousand sacrifices, work a thousand hours in service to God, or give thousands of dollars to His work. But all of those sacrifices mean little if there is not a surrendered heart to God, shown by simple obedience. The best sacrifice we can bring to God is a broken and contrite heart, and our bodies surrendered to His service for obedience.
“16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
Ps. 51: 16-17
Like Santa, on the day he hit my car, is there an area of disobedience or untruthfulness in your life about which you should be broken and contrite?