Welcome to the seventeenth edition of the Question of the Week! Please consider sending me your ideas for future questions :)
Spiritual insights. Realizations. These little insights "aha" moments can pop up anywhere and everywhere as you're living life. And they can often be found in unexpected places: Life. Music. Books. Movies. TV Shows. Family. Friends. What have you learned (realized) lately?
My answer (and the inspiration for this question): I was reading and reviewing a series of picture books for my Young Readers blog. One of them--Where's Tumpty--really struck me. The first half of this adorable little picture book features a glasses-wearing elephant named Tumpty. He is hiding from his friends.
Tumpty
had his eyes
closed.
Tightly closed.
"Hello, Tumpty,"
said Tilly.
"What are you
doing?"
"I'm hiding," Tumpty said.
"You can't see me."
But Tilly could see Tumpty.
So Tumpty tried hiding
under a large cardboard box
with his eyes tightly closed.
The gag continues for a handful of pages. He eventually ends up trying to hide "upside down, behind a plant, under a large cardboard box, with his eyes tightly closed." But his friends can always still see him.
I think that we can be a lot like Tumpty when it comes to God. To having a relationship with God. I think we try to deceive ourselves and God sometimes. Perhaps without putting much thought into it. Without realizing it. I think we try to hide ourselves, our sins, our secrets. I think sometimes we like to pretend that if we can't see God, God can't see us.
Spiritual insights. Realizations. These little insights "aha" moments can pop up anywhere and everywhere as you're living life. And they can often be found in unexpected places: Life. Music. Books. Movies. TV Shows. Family. Friends. What have you learned (realized) lately?
My answer (and the inspiration for this question): I was reading and reviewing a series of picture books for my Young Readers blog. One of them--Where's Tumpty--really struck me. The first half of this adorable little picture book features a glasses-wearing elephant named Tumpty. He is hiding from his friends.
Tumpty
had his eyes
closed.
Tightly closed.
"Hello, Tumpty,"
said Tilly.
"What are you
doing?"
"I'm hiding," Tumpty said.
"You can't see me."
But Tilly could see Tumpty.
So Tumpty tried hiding
under a large cardboard box
with his eyes tightly closed.
The gag continues for a handful of pages. He eventually ends up trying to hide "upside down, behind a plant, under a large cardboard box, with his eyes tightly closed." But his friends can always still see him.
I think that we can be a lot like Tumpty when it comes to God. To having a relationship with God. I think we try to deceive ourselves and God sometimes. Perhaps without putting much thought into it. Without realizing it. I think we try to hide ourselves, our sins, our secrets. I think sometimes we like to pretend that if we can't see God, God can't see us.
Anyway, I know that wasn't the intent of the book. At all. It's a cute and adorable picture book about a silly elephant. But to me, it spoke a little spiritual truth.
© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible
1 comment:
The biggest "aha!" moment I've had in a long time came yesterday when I was talking to a friend about some of my worries regarding my son's unreadiness to leave home for college. She said she'd been reading about Abraham and how God told him his promised son would be the father of nations BUT that that same nation would be held in slavery for 400 years.
She said, "Abraham accepted the gift of the son knowing that there would be huge suffering ahead." We have no guarantees with our kids, but we take the gift of their lives with humbleness and gratefulness. I loved that!
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