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from 6/12/2010Mr Vining was my Sunday School teacher when I was 12 years old. Mr Vining made Sunday School interesting (he described folks in the Old Testament riding around on "Camel-lacs") and something to look forward to. When the time came to move on to a different class at the end of the year, I didn't wanna.
Mr Vining, who worked for a well-known electronics company, was also a big part of the church's Audio/Visual department. I'm not sure it was even called the A/V Department back then, but someone had to handle the service's sound reinforcement (
not PA) system and make tape recordings for shut-ins. I spent lots of Sunday mornings watching how things worked.
Mr Vining always seemed happy and had a great, entertaining sense of humor. But one Sunday morning in the choir room where the big A/V gear cabinet was installed, something
seemed different. Even Mr Farmer, the man who adjusted mixer knobs before and after choir solos, noticed and eventually asked Mr Vining what was wrong.
Mr Vining said, "When I was driving to church this morning I saw a dog trotting down the sidewalk. He was a stray ... but he was prancing along like he didn't have a care in the world.
"It got me to thinking, that dog wasn't worried what he looked like.
"He doesn't know where his next meal's coming from and he wasn't worrying about how he's going to pay his bills. He doesn't have a home or know where he's spending the night, or whether he'll even be alive tomorrow.
"But that poor mangy dog just kept trotting along, happy as can be."
Mr Vining raised his hands up to his chin, like paws, and made happy panting sounds as he looked back and forth across the room. It was easy imagining the dog just as he described it. Then he looked at us and said,
"And all the time you hear people cry, worry and complain '
But I don't have anything.'"
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Of course people aren't dogs, but don't lose the point.
Because we were created in God's image the Father gave us an awareness of Self that's not shared with the animal kingdom. Our unique sense of Self is how we know "I exist" and why we're able to make personal choices and informed decisions.
But it's that sense of Self ... combined with trying to
please Self by putting
I and
What I Want ahead of God's will ... that leads us away from God and into sin.
Because sin's promises are empty, we get frustrated and remain preoccupied with
expecting more ... instead of thanking and praising God for what we already have.
And I'm not just barking about material stuff.
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God gave us free will, but living as though that freedom entitles us to make sinful choices defies His authority and is abhorrent to Him.
Every one of us makes choices every day, and yet we have such a hard time figuring out why
the consequences of our choices so often leave us confused, depressed, bitter, angry and empty ... and sometimes wishing we could swap places with that carefree dog prancing its way down life's sidewalk ... without a worry in the world.
Guess what.
We have only our
Selves to look to and hold accountable for the consequences of letting
Pleasing Me become more important than loving, honoring, worshiping and
obeying the Creator.
