I used Tootsie Roll Pops as an object lesson one time with
the teens in a youth group. We called it
“Dissection of a Tootsie Roll Pop.
Sounded cool and kept their attention anyways to get a message
across. I had seen some other ways to us
a Tootsie Roll Pop in teaching about the layers of the earth to using it in a
graduation speech on getting through High School. The one I used was on how we have different
layers to us and how much we let some people in our lives.
Each one got to choose what their favorite flavor was. A choice they got to make. For some, there weren’t any certain flavors
left, so they had whatever was left. I explained that none of us really got to
choose who we were when we were born, but we choose in how we become in our
life. That colorful wrapper on the outside is what
we look like to others around us. We may
try to impress others with our outer show and we let them get to know us just
to that level. We don’t always trust everyone, so some just
get to look at our wrapper.
The hard candy shell is where we stick to most of the time
with our friends and family. Our flavor
shows to others that it’s who we are, get to know us and come a little closer
but we are guarded as this layer is kept hard to not hurt that special soft Tootsie
Roll center that is inside of us. That’s
the best part of us and we try to keep it all to ourselves….never letting
others in.
We think at times no one knows the real core of us and we
want it that way…..but just like the factory that makes the Tootsie Roll
Pop….the maker of the candy knew and placed that soft center there for a
purpose. It’s the heart of the Tootsie
Roll Pop….or it would be called something else.
God is our maker and He knows your inner core, your heart, the real
you. He made you who are and he knows
all about your inner being. Many of us
are like a Tootsie Roll Pop to God….we will let him look at the wrapper but we
make sure we stay hard toward Him and not let him be a part of our inner
soul…..but we only fool ourselves because He is the Master who made us,
wrapper, hard shell and center. He just
wants to be there in your soft center….your heart. What does he see in your heart?
“But the Lord said to Samuel,
“Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t
see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but
the Lord looks at the heart.”
(1Samuel 16:7 NLT)
