June 11, 2008
Lessons from the Prairie Dog
Recently I was at a meeting with an official from a neighboring community. He told the crowd about their prairie dog problem on the floor of a prominent valley. Explaining his situation he said, “The answer is water.” As a snicker went through the audience he said, “No wait, we don’t drown them! We just have to water the grasses. Really… there are people out there that study these things. When the grasses get so high that the prairie dogs can’t see over them, they can’t communicate and then they move on.” Ah-ha, maybe that’s part of the communication problem in the church - the grass is so tall we’re cut off from one another.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----I find it interesting that grasses are a big part of the prairie dog diet, and they use them for insulation in their tunnels as well. If the grass was completely removed, the prairie dogs would also leave. The church began as a simple gathering of those who had placed their faith in Jesus. Through the regeneration of their hearts, God grew into their midst understanding, exhortation, mercy, generosity, kindness, goodness, care, and honor for one another such that there was service to one another just by the nature of what they had become. If these could be removed from the church, it also would disappear.
-----But Satan knows these things can not be removed from the church. So his strategy has been to twist simple fellowship into programs and functions of church organization, then grow amongst it an abundance of superficies. The generosity, care, and kindness of an individual is funneled into a process to be dispensed under scrutinizing control. Be sure, the grass is still there, the hearts are still full of desire to be kind and generous, but the process becomes more the point than does the brother in need of help.
-----Near the end, then, if Satan’s strategy were to work, we would find the church full of religious doings, but empty of real fellowship. It would hold the riches given by innumerable generous hearts, deceptively retained rather than kindly dispensed. It would be proud of its self, secure in its wealth, and would feel no need for anything more. But it would really be “…wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” (Rev 3:17)
-----Somewhere in between we find our churches today. God’s people are still given the gifts for healthy fellowship in the body, and even if through programs and over-control, many of those gifts still reach their proper destination. And like prairie dogs gnaw the grass down when it gets too thick, many in the church, also, gnaw the grass down and fellowship with their neighbor.
Love,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment