I love to learn using object lessons. The Bible is full of them! Jesus must have appreciated object lessons, too. He taught in parables, which is nearly the same thing. I looked up synonyms for “object lesson” and found – concrete illustration, deterrent example, lesson, practical demonstration, proof, and visible evidence
I found these so interesting! All of these meanings, I believe, are just what Jesus was trying to do in His parables.
Yep! I love a good object lesson! Tom laughs at me and says I can turn nearly anything into an object lesson. Last summer he challenged me to write an object lesson about TICKS! I shook my head and laughed it off at the time, but come on! That’s not even a challenge!
My brothers and I grew up as country kids. Our dogs were country dogs. Meaning they had ticks. And sometimes we did, too. As adults, my brother has confessed that as a kid he’d sometimes set a tick loose on his body because he liked the feel of that tick being plucked off. Today, he is an amazingly normal guy – even without therapy! But wow! KIDS!! How do they survive?
My other brother had a rhyme he made up for me using my nickname DeeDee.
DeeDee Doo
Pumpkin-Poo
Little girly
Squirrly.
He would say it in a sing-song voice with affection, and he still does even today!
My tick-twisted brother used that same rhyme. But he tweaked it a bit.
DeeDee Doo
Pumpkin-Poo
I’m gonna smash this tick
On you!
He said it to terrorize me. And as he said it, he would chase me with a big, fat, gray dog tick. He also says that rhyme to me today (minus the tick chase!).
Ticks! They are nasty little blood suckers. Especially the big, fat, gray dog ticks. They attach to warm bodies and fill up. They completely fill themselves up.
So what do we fill up on? I’m not talking about cheese. Or sugar. Or carbs. Oh, health is definitely important, but I’m talking about the things we fill our lives with.
We are such a busy society! I’m only 43 and it seems like even in MY childhood, life was slower and more simple.
Today we fill ourselves up with work. Things. Shopping. The latest and greatest. We fill up on music and movies. Home decor and clothes. Marathons and workouts. We fill up on gardens and being green. Basketball and Little League. Our days and lives are completely filled up.
When these are the treasures we are storing up, when we find ourselves hungering after “the stuff,” thirsting after the elusive “more,” we find ourselves full, yet so empty!
The Lord Almighty talks about this in the tiny book of Haggai. He warns in verse 5, “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it… Give careful thought to your ways.”
We’ve got to turn our eyes back on Jesus. We have to stop storing up treasure on this old Earth. We must start filling up on what is lasting.
We are commanded to give careful thought to our ways! So. What are we filling up on?