THE HARE

One of the funniest speeches (which I couldn't get through after the first few sentences) was of Madonna where she was being honored at an academy award show.  She said that when she was a struggling music artist in New York, her apartment was broken into so much that she quit locking her door.  It struck me as odd that instead of heightening security, she would choose to welcome the thieves in.  But what was funny was that she was struggling but yet she had something in her apartment that was valuable enough to get broken into so much.

The whole scenario reminds me of one of the funny stories of Aesop's fables where the hares were in constant danger from predators that they decided to drown themselves.  However, upon reaching the edge of the lake, they found that the frogs were afraid of them.  They decided instead to hang out at the lake and frighten the frog because they now feel empowered.  How silly!

But in all seriousness, we often respond to dangers of our environment in the same manner.  When troubles strike, most people turn to self-destructive behaviors not only to themselves, but also sometimes to others.

When the Israelites got tired of waiting on God their responses to that situation was one of self-destruction. They began to feel sorry for themselves and turned to lust and destruction.

Imagine the horror that met Moses when he came down from his meeting with God!  But Moses was smart and had a heart after God's that instead of anger and disgust, he prayed.  He prayed for God to spare His people and he did not give into defeat.  The same should be applied in our lives.  When circumstances beyond our control plague us, the first thing we should do is pray.

It is so easy to be self-reliant.  That seems to be the first human reaction we do.  But when we are spiritually mature, we look beyond ourselves and focus our vision straight up to the heavens.  We need not look around for answers, the answer will always be above us.

Until my next rant... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!