Yuk, I Feel Stuck!

Good morning on this rather sticky Friday. What a day to wade into combat in the garage. Just me and my trusty shovel versus the remains of dead bunnies. Tempting as it was to bop the perpetrator of this crime with my trusty shovel first, the cat is intact and unharmed. Phew! Nothing like a good humid and warm morning to bring out the bouquet of dead beast. I guess Snoopy and his bunny friends will remain on the comics page. My pet is certainly no friend of bunnies. I wonder about that temptation though. Does that make me like God? Was the Lord tempted when He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah? Was the saving of eight people a salve to the Lord's conscience for the Great Flood? Now I tread on dangerous ground.

Of course, I cannot judge the Lord and am certainly far from qualified to do so. We know from the Word that God is not tempted to sin as we are. Perfection does not have to justify itself to the fallen creation. My temptation to bop my pet a good one is related more to the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah, and stands in contrast to the holiness and perfection of God. I cannot make God more like me by bad comparisons. In comparing myself to Him, I must and will fall utterly short. Religion is that same attempt by man to become God through a bad comparison and then a climb up an artificial ladder of achieved goodness.

When I think of the door standing open in Heaven that John saw, I often think of religion as man grabbing the tallest ladder he can find and attempting to prop its upper end on that door sill. As man attempts to climb the religion ladder through the various means, the ladder falls and the man ends up 'climbing' across the surface of the plain old earth. We cannot climb a ladder to Heaven, we must depend on the Good Shepherd to carry us there. Jesus can make us more like Himself. I, on the other hand must set aside the bad comparison and trust in my Lord's sanctification process. Praise God that He isn't like any of us, He is Himself.

Glory and praise to God our Father on this day,
Bucky