Squirrel Sense

On the back dock of my kitchen we leave a five gallon bucket that we toss scrap food into so the kids can feed the pigs we have. We also have a family of squirrels that have taken up residence on the small hill behind the kitchen.

These squirrels have a pretty sweet set up, they have free food almost anytime of the day, and have to do absolutely nothing to get it. But regardless of how lazy they have become, or maybe more appropriately, because of that laziness, I have learned two lessons from them.

The first one is pretty obvious to anyone who watches these squirrels. They don't have to work for anything. They live 20 feet from unlimited food. In our lives we can become lazy like these animals if we don't work towards some type of goal. If we have no opposition, we grow soft and helpless to do what really matters.

The second lesson has to do with that pig bucket we have. Every day the same thing happens without fail. A squirrel climbs up on the edge to get something out and falls in. The real problem starts when the squirrel falls in, because it then gets stuck in the leftover food and becomes so weighed down by it that it can't jump back out. We have to go out and tip the bucket so it can climb out and run away.

Like the squirrel, we sometimes find ourselves in situations that seem really easy to jump into and they entice us with the ease with which we can get what we want. The squirrels don't have to put much energy into jumping up on the bucket and then jumping into it to get the food, but the energy it takes to get back out is overwhelming. We can very easily slip into sin or wrong doing and only then find out we are too weighed down to get out. Like the animal in the bucket we then must rely on someone else to help us get out. How often do you feel like the squirrel in this picture?