What Jesus did when he was a child...

"And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him."Acts 10:38

       The New Testament tells us many things about Jesus after He became a man. It does not say much about the child Jesus, so we ought to study and treasure very carefully everything that is said about His boyhood.
       What kind of a place did Jesus live in when He was a boy? It was a very small town and a very poor and very dirty town. The streets were so narrow in some places that a woman could reach her hand out of her window on one side of the street, and shake hands with the woman, who was standing in her window, on the other side of the street. If a cart or a camel came along one of those narrow, dark streets, the children had to run into the houses to get out of the way.
       The streets were also very dirty. There were no sewers then, or garbage wagons, and there was rubbish and filth everywhere.
       The only time that the streets were cleaned was when it rained very hard.
       Jesus lived in a very poor little house. The walls were bare and there was almost no furniture. He had none of the comfortable and pretty things that you have in your homes. He was a very poor boy. There were no beds or chairs in His home, and when He went to sleep at night He lay on the floor on a little rug.
       Nowadays sometimes we hear boys and girls grumble and complain because they haven't as much as some one else, but there is not one of you who has not a better home, and more to make you contented than Jesus had when He was a little child.
       What did Jesus do when He was a child? I think that He did pretty much the same things that boys do now. He was like every other healthy boy. He loved to run and play and have a good time. Some of the games that we play now are thousands of years old. "Hide-and-seek," "fox and geese," and some of our other out-of-door games, were played in Nazareth in the time of Jesus, and I have no doubt that some of the very games that you enjoy so much, Jesus used to play long ago when He was on earth.
       But Jesus did something beside play. We are told that He went about doing good. That means that everywhere He went He tried to make people happier by helping them.
       There was an old English admiral, long ago, who always carried with him a pocketful of acorns. Whenever a chance came he would plant one. Some one asked him why he did it. He replied, "I want to have plenty of oak trees to make ships for my country."
       Wouldn't it be a fine thing for every one of us to carry goodness and happiness about with us, and leave a little everywhere we go? That was what Jesus did. " He went about doing good."
       There was a man of whom I heard, who rode out every evening from business to his home in a railroad train. There isn't much fun in standing every day for three-quarters of an hour on a crowded train. But this man has a good time doing it. Let me tell you how he does it. Every day there are many people on that train who have to stand. Among them are tired women, and old men, who cannot hurry enough to get there before all the seats are taken. This man said to himself: ''I am big and strong and every night, when the rush comes for seats, I am going to get a good seat and hold it for someone who needs it more than I do."
       So every evening when the crowd pushes through the gate, he is one of the first on the train, and always gets a good seat. Then when it is crowded he gives that seat to the most tired person that he can see, who has not been able to get there in time to find one.
       He said, "I used to think hard of the railroad because they do not give us enough seats to go around in the rush hours, but I am glad of it now, for it gives me a fine chance to help some one else."
       There is a little verse that we all ought to know, said to have been written by William Penn, "I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not neglect it, or defer it, for I shall not pass this way again." Hutchison.

Do good for others "He went over to him...he took care of him."
 Luke 10:34