Skip to main content

A Lesson From The Dolphin







Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.



I was sitting in the break room talking with a friend that just migrated back north for the summer.  She told us of the place where she had stayed down south.   It was right on the ocean, and they encouraged dolphins to stay near the shore because the sharks stay away from them.   Somehow, never sure how, we started talking about how some animals sharks, in particular, will look for the weak and wounded and attack them.   I have to confess I was lost for the rest of the conversation because I was thinking about how sometimes we, as people are not that much different than the sharks.  We don’t attack someone strong, but the poor, the defenseless, the new person at work, one who has no way to fight back.  I have to confess, I was nauseated and saddened at the thought.  I know that, sometimes, I have been guilty of doing the same thing.  I had to stop right there and ask forgiveness for those times because I know God says to defend the helpless, look after the poor and needy, to be a friend to the friendless.  I tuned back in as she was saying that dolphins would try to help the people.  If they are swimming and get into trouble, the dolphins will signal lifeguards that the person is in distress.  Wow!  A lesson from the dolphin.  That is exactly how God wants us to respond as Christians.  He wants us to look out for those around us.  Not just the Christians, but the non-Christian as well.  He wants us to have compassion on them, to be their voice, to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves. 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Live Fearlessly

                                   As I was driving home today, I passed a person walking on the side of the    road.  Since it was cold, and snowy, I thought I should stop and offer the person a ride.  As I drove on by, I was irritated with myself for not stopping.  I could have and should have but I didn't. Why?  I was scared! Maybe that wouldn't bother you, but I'm willing to bet there are things that make you afraid.  It may be snakes or spiders that send the ticker into  overdrive.  Or maybe it's your job and finances that keep you up at night when you should be resting.  Then again perhaps it's relationships that consume your thoughts and energy.  As followers of God, we know that we are told not to be afraid.  Yet we often are afraid despite everything we know.   As I was driving away from a misse...

Tragedy: A Christian Response

I want to start by telling you a story.  We were new parents.  When Our oldest, a son, was about eighteen to twenty months we had another baby, a girl with brown hair and huge eyes.   One day as I went to feed her, my son who may have been two at the time wandered off to another part of the house.  The next thing I heard was a thud.  I grabbed my baby girl and ran to see what happened.  There was my son with a table on top of him.  He had pulled it over on himself and more blood than I had ever seen was running all over.   We put him in the car and dashed for the ER.  It was not a fun trip. He had a skull fracture and many stitches.  Fast forward about fourteen or fifteen years, I’m at a stop light and watch my youngest daughter about ten start across a street on a bike start across a street just as a truck comes around a corner into the path of the bike.  She hit the side of the truck and bounced onto the road....

Just A Word of Praise!!

  On Sunday, after church, we went to a town about thirty minutes away.   On the way we drove through an area where they were working on the road.  It was no big deal.  We had lunch, bought some food for the week, and drove back home.    Later, as we were on our way to church for the evening service, I heard the ominous flapping sound that a tire makes when it’s flat.  Yikes!  I pulled over and while I was debating how I was going to change a tire.  A car coming in the opposite direction drove by and stopped.   As the driver appeared from the vehicle, I recognized him as a neighbor and fellow believer.  He approached the car, and asked if I had an air compressor to inflate the tire.  My answer, “Yes, but I’m not sure how good it is.  I’ve never actually managed to inflate a tire using it. I may not be using it properly.”   I produced it from the trunk of the car and handed it to him.  Within...