The parable of the empty pockets. There once
was a boy who lived in a town. He was a very
poor boy and he only had clothes on his back.
And he would walk through town and he would see
all these people with much greater wealth than
him. And he would look at all their possessions
and their fancy horses and carts and clothes.
and all he had was a shirt and a pair of pants
with empty pockets. And he felt shame and he
felt self -consciousness over these empty pockets
as he looked around and saw those that had so
much and he had so little. So he decided that
he was gonna take control over this feeling.
and he was gonna put rocks in his pockets. So
he filled his pockets with rocks to make his
pockets look full. And he stood with his chest
out and his pants full of rocks and he walked
through town and said, look at me, my pockets
are full. I have all kinds of things. I am not
poor. I am not the little boy with empty pockets.
And... For a moment he felt good about himself.
He felt like he wasn't that poor little boy with
empty pockets. He had taken control and filled
himself with things that made him feel absence
of that feeling of poverty and poor. So he walked
around the town with his pockets full of rocks
and he, for a moment, felt different. He felt
like he wasn't that... that poor boy with nothing
but empty pockets. And then he realized he had
filled himself with things that were of no use
to him. He didn't have anything in his pockets
that could really change the way he felt about
himself. So he took the rocks out of his pockets
and he went back to walking around town with
empty pockets. And he decided that He wasn't
going to fill those pockets with things that
were useless. Instead, he was going to let God
fill those pockets with things that would truly
make him feel good about who he was and how he
was. And he walked through town and he came upon
an old lady and she was carrying her bags. She
had some bags from the market and she was struggling.
She had a cane and she was carrying these bags
and he was a good -hearted boy, so he stopped.
He took her bags and he carried them to her house
and dropped them off in her house. And she was
oh so grateful for what he did. And he walked
away from that. And all of a sudden, he felt
different about himself. And he checked his pockets,
but there wasn't anything more in them than had
been in them before. They were empty, but yet
he felt good about himself in a way that he hadn't
before. So he continued to walk through town.
and he noticed as he walked through town that
there was another young child who had lost his
kite up in a tree that was not a big tree but
it was taller than him and so he grabbed that
kite out of the tree and he got it down for the
small child and the small child was so thankful
for that and just was so gracious and thanked
him again and again for thank you for getting
my kite I wanted to fly my kite and I couldn't
and thank you so much and he he of course was
happy to do it for that child and he walked and
all of a sudden he felt a fullness in him again
that he hadn't noticed before and as he carried
on he realized that in the end his pockets didn't
need to be full of money or possessions And his
life didn't need to be full of these things that
appear to make you look full and make your pockets
look full. Instead, your life needs to be full
of experiences where you are of service and you
help another person and you do something to make
the world better in some small way. And those
are the things that you carry with you. And the
best part is you carry them with you in your
heart and you don't even need pockets in your
pants to carry these experiences. you carry them
with you in your heart and in your soul, and
it makes the world a better place in a way that
possessions cannot. Here ends the parable of
the empty pockets.