Froggie in a Wash Pail

Anyone who has experienced High School Science Class has heard about the experiment where the frog in a bucket is placed under a slow heat: he sits there even while the temperature is turned up until finally it boils. The strangeness here is that the frog does not perceive this slow change and dies under the heat.

Most of us entertain sins something like that. We start out small, increase them daily as we grow bold until we find ourselves swamped by our progress into our path of destruction. We are unable to perceive these slow changes until the course of events overwhelms us.

This is generally true with drug addicts who soon learn to over-estimate their abilities and are ‘tricked’ into thinking they are invincible. Yet, as true as this is with various drugs, it is also true under the tension of other vices.

We witness those at the top who fall, victim of their own pride. Daily we read of a death of some celebrity who struggled with the battles of their own vanity and fame.

Neither are we any different and subject to the same flaws.

This is easy to view or illustrate with someone like a Hitler or a Saddam Husseim or other narracists who succumbed to their pride, but we also share their fate when we ignore simple advice.

This might involve ‘simple’ drinking bouts, or womanizing or buying sprees or even a small thing such as putting another person down while elevating ourselves.

Eventually we find ourselves boiling in a pail of water with our friend, Froggie right there beside us.

We go ahead and charge our charge cards, knowing we have already maxed them out.

We attempt to ‘flirt’ with another one last time, knowing really what we should do and decide to defer it to a later time.

Finally, there is no ‘later time’ and we discover we are in a quandary, a jam we can not climb out of.

For those such as the Prodigal Son who finally came to his senses, we drop to our knees and seek out the Lord.

The real question here is why should we wait until we are in dire straits before going to our Creator? Why should we continue to boil in water, knowing many simply don’t even make it out?

To this question we must be honest with ourselves: we are not quite as smart as we think we are and too, our deeds will be found out.

In Fact, there is no period of discovery with God as He ALWAYS know what we do.

So then, our choice is to live as we know we should without excuses or to die along with the frog.

And as many times as I screw-up on my own, I would hope just as you that we learn from our experiences. There is only one way in this life and that true way is a narrow one. Shall we walk together on that highway to heaven or will we all find ourselves sitting together with the frog? I would hope we are smarter than that frog.

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