kids think the darndest things

When I was little, I remember sitting in church and watching the contribution plate being passed and wondering what it all meant. Even at a very young age, I understood that all things belonged to God because He made them. So it was, of course, a mystery to me why we were giving Him our money. In my mind, God didn't need money. He already owned everything. How could our currency have any value to an all-possessing God? So, as a child, I thought this passing of the money-plate was a strange ritual indeed. Even stranger to me was contemplating how the money got from the collection plate to Heaven. I imagined everyone leaving the auditorium after services, and the lights being cut, and the doors being locked. I imagined the communion table at the front of the room, sitting there all alone in dark, waiting for every soul to vacate. And then, somewhere in the middle of the night, the money would begin to magically float up out of the golden plates and into heaven - a transition complete with fairy dust and stars. And that was God's way of "taking up the collection".

But I still, for the life of me, could not imagine what He was going to do with all that cash when He got it up there.