🎵Prompt Response: Love Showing Mercy 💝
with help from Gemini Nano Banana and Photo Studio Pro
What’s one thing you know now that would have saved your younger self a lot of pain?
From the first time I read the following Bible verse, I wished I had read it far earlier in my life. It is a simple, strong, deep, and excellent capsule of truth for a happy life and a happy walk with Our Heavenly Father…
“He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Some people jump through hoops to be loved. Some jump through hoops to prove their love to God or to other people. But no one’s hoop jumping can even compare to what God has done for us through His mercy and grace on the cross at Calvary. Paul the Apostle figured it out when he said:
“But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved!
✨✨✨
For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. ”
When I was young in my walk with The Lord, I tried to do everything on my own to please Him and live a life worthy of the gift of grace and mercy He gave me. But when you try too hard, and especially if you find it to be difficult sometimes, it can cause you to look at others who aren’t working as hard and feel a bit jealous. But whether we look at others to compare works, or ourselves to commend our own works, we have taken our eyes off of The One who paid with His works and Precious Blood to make us His own. Looking at YahShua (Jesus) makes showing mercy much easier. It also makes it easier to walk humbly with The Lord.
I’m still learning, and I’m still harder on myself in my failures than I should be. I need to just K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Sweetheart) and think of Micah 6:8 more often. Am I being just? Am I drawn to showing mercy to others the way I want it shown to me? Am I humble in my walk with God?
And this means I have to share one of my favorite ApologetiX songs since it’s about that verse, a parody of a favorite band and song from my youth, and has a great title: Don’t Bring Me Cows. (Parody of Don’t Bring Me Down by ELO.) Oh, and yes there are cows mooing in the song. Prepare to smile.
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🎵 Prompt Response: Good Morning … This Afternoon 🌅🌤️
with help from Gemini Nano Banana and Photo Studio Pro
Tell us about your morning routine.
A Years-Long Pattern
Looking back at ten years worth of almost daily journals, I can see the night pattern established and ingrained. Trying to change to a morning person has only resulted in shorter stretches of sleep even though I truly try to do everything it takes to both go to bed and get up earlier. Whether I’ve blamed it on Spanish lessons, blogging, or whatever else, it’s just a thing that I’ve struggled with for years. Maybe it was from being up late, and sometimes all night, for the drama that always happened after dark in my childhood, or maybe it was my years of working graveyard shifts. I’m not sure of the cause, but it’s not about desire. I really want to be able to go places and do things with my morning friends, but it seems impossible to reset my circadian rhythm. I wonder, though, am I supposed to?
Every Day
Still, even with my quirky schedule, I do have regular routines established that work even with a later schedule. When I first get up, hubby actually says, “Good Morning” to me—even though it’s late afternoon. I still make myself a dark roast coffee ☕ and enjoy the morning aroma. Just before drinking it, I put a little something on my stomach to absorb the acidity and be nice to my tummy. Usually, it’s a few bites of banana or 2 thin, mini rice cakes with a little butter. Plus, I drink my first glass of water for the day and add some tinctures to it like milk thistle, slippery elm, rye seed (in the form of Iberogast), and dandelion root. By then, I’m fully ready for my time visiting the in-house outhouse. 😉🚪
That’s where I relax and take time to listen to my daily Bible study from the YouVersion Bible app with the one-year plan by The Bible Project. And though some of the readings are pretty long with a video included, the timing is usually right to take care of all I need and be ready for my day.
Time for Worship
According to Scripture, all times are good for worship, but the common times for temple activities were morning and evening. I looked up verses and found a few encouraging texts:
Since it’s Sabbath, I’ll start here…
“A Psalm. A song for the Sabbath day. It is good to praise the Lord, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High, to proclaim Your loving devotion in the morning and Your faithfulness at night”
These two are nice morning devotions, but I think they can be applied as the first things to do at whatever time your morning starts.
“But I will sing of Your strength and proclaim Your loving devotion in the morning. For You are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.”
“Let me hear Your loving devotion in the morning, for I have put my trust in You. Teach me the way I should walk, for to You I lift up my soul.”
This one says that both dawn and sunset praise The Lord joyfully…
“Those who live far away fear Your wonders; You make the dawn and sunset shout for joy. You attend to the earth and water it; with abundance You enrich it. The streams of God are full of water, for You prepare our grain by providing for the earth.”
And I’m gonna use this one for preferring to get up in the afternoon. After all, who wouldn’t want to get up when the path shines the brightest? 😁
“The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining brighter and brighter until midday.”
What about you? Do you think that morning can start by just putting God first at whatever time you begin your day? And what tricks would you recommend for someone like me who loves both sunrises and sunsets and thinks the sleep between the two when it’s light feels better than the sleep between the two when it’s dark? Whatever the time, I do long for the Holy Presence of The Lord as it says in this verse:
“My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning— more than watchmen wait for the morning.”
I will pray for His Presence to walk with me in every moment, and I will do my best to pray without ceasing. That reminds me of the post I wrote on breath prayers called “Whisper a Prayer” that includes the lovely song of the same name. I love that it says in the lyrics that God answers prayer in the morning, in the evening, and at noon.
Now enjoy this older song from Psalm 5 where the writer says He will direct His prayers to The Lord in the mornings and he will look up to Him. It’s got beautiful nature video backgrounds and sings the melody 3 times.
Shabbat Shalom 🕊️
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🎵Prompt Response: Alien Communications 👽🖖
If aliens arrived tomorrow, what’s the first thing you’d ask them?
We Come in Peace
Wait, aren’t they supposed to be the first ones talking and telling me they come in peace? I know I’d probably feel better about talking to them if they started the conversation that way. But then if we’re both waiting for each other to speak first, it could get awkward.
So let’s just assume that, with or without an introduction, communication is easy and free-flowing. Maybe they’re asking about Earth or humanity, and I’m trying to think of a better ice-breaker than; “Are you offended by alien jokes?” 😂
Jokes
But just in case that was my first question, and just in case they said they were okay with them, here are a few just for fun.
- Why don’t aliens golf in outer space?
- There are too many black holes.
- How do aliens keep their pants up?
- They use asteroid belts.
- What kind of music do aliens listen to?
- Neptunes. 🎶
- How do alien poets write their poems?
- In Uni-Verse.
But In All Seriousness…
I like my husband’s idea the best. Remind the aliens that I’m an alien, too. After all, what does Scripture say?
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself, will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body.”
In another place it says:
“For here we do not have a permanent city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.”
So, once we’ve established some common ground, maybe then I could ask the aliens if they are familiar with The Creator of the Universe. I know I’d be surprised whether they said they knew all about God and interacted with Him frequently or whether they knew nothing at all but wanted to learn.
We don’t know for sure if there are aliens, what they look like, or what they know. But, if they exist, we know Who made them and we know He has a plan.
Like the aliens may be looking for a new place to call home because their original planets are facing troubles, we have our own share of troubles on Planet Earth, so a new home promise is a good hope. This life may be temporary, but God’s promises are eternal. Have you given your heart to The Lord, so you can also look forward to eternal hope?
And this is the perfect topic for a great old hymn:
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Prompt Response: Why Empathy is Important
with help from Gemini Nano Banana and Photo Studio Pro
What’s the most underrated life skill?
Thinking of Others
Thinking of others, caring for others, loving others, and understanding others are all very important life skills. But, sadly, each of them can be performed without having the genuine skill of empathy as a guide.
A person might feed someone because it makes them feel good to share, or they might feed them because they have personal experience with hunger and don’t want someone else to go through it. Or they might march for a cause because they belong to a group that supports it but not because they have real-world experience with the issue.
Learning to Understand
When I sit in a regular height chair, my feet will not reach the floor except maybe my toes. Two things happen then: a hard seat will push into the backs of my legs and cause pain, or the sciatic nerve that runs from my hip down to my knee will pull and create days of pain. So I’m always saying to my husband, “You normal height people have no clue what it’s like to live in a world that’s not built for short people.” Before knowing me, he might never have even thought about why some people carry cushions with them everywhere they go. Now, because of experience, his empathy developed.
Natural Empathy
There are some people who have more of a natural empathy skill, just like people who are naturally gifted artists. Those people can think of what someone else is going through without their issues having ever been part of their life experience. If their empathy makes them feel things like they are experiencing it with the person their heart is moved for, they’ve gone past being empathetic and into being empathic. But for most people, empathy comes along and asks them to get on board, and they either accept it or reject it. If they accept it, it’s a skill they can learn and even improve on with time.
Genuine Empathy is an Extremely Important Skill
So why would I say it’s one of the most underrated skills? Simply because it is a driver of many other skills. It drives people to stop what they are doing for themselves and pay attention to someone else’s needs. It drives people to dig into their savings to collect for someone’s provisions. It stirs up a what if that were me or my family or friends kind of vibe that drives a person to step up and do their part to remedy a problem. Without real empathy to drive helpful behaviors, good deeds can cause distress and lead to those scenarios where a person says, “I was only trying to help.”
Don’t Stop Helping
Even if you do not have natural empathy, and even if your efforts to help have sometimes created a problem, don’t stop being helpful. That’s its own wonderful skill. And those who get offended by someone’s effort to help that isn’t exactly what they would’ve wanted need their own empathetic skills, so they don’t hurt a person with a tender and helpful heart. But, it’s a good idea to examine both your motivations and your understanding to see if you can learn ways to improve your helpfulness.
The Best Example of Empathy Ever Given
YahShua (Jesus) once dwelt in heavenly places far above humanity. The Scriptures tell us that He left His throne on high to dwell as one of us and become able to share the human experience.
“Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross.”
He became our High Priest both to counsel and to sacrifice.
“Now since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil.
For this reason He had to be made like His brothers in every way, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, in order to make atonement for the sins of the people.”
And He told the disciples that the greatest love anyone could ever have was to lay down their own life for a friend.
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
The Life Skill of Genuine Empathy is Rooted in Real Love
It’s not always easy to think of others. The voices all around us remind us how much we risk if we think of others. “You might catch something.” “They may not be grateful.” “You better ask first.” The division and lack of unity created by living our lives on screens and in fear don’t help us to love others or even think of them without counting our own costs first. A scenario where some government organization fines groups giving out sandwiches to hurricane victims because they didn’t get a health license first makes people hold back on empathy and love for fear of getting in trouble.
But if we see these things, we can change these things. And we need to change them for future generations to prevent the divide from growing any wider. Many children are naturally empathetic, and that needs to be nurtured in them as much as possible. It’s okay to tell them they are talented or special, but not at the expense of them believing they are more special than everyone else. They MUST be taught to see through the eyes of others outside themselves.
It hurts me deeply when I see videos of a group of teens attacking an elderly person. I mean, any innocent victim being attacked and beaten is not okay, but knowing how brittle and sensitive someone gets with age makes those attacks seem that much more brutal. 🥺 If we teach the youth about the frailties of age, AND we teach them to love their neighbor, they shouldn’t be able to carry out those attacks without any thoughts of how the victims feel.
WWJD
Do you remember when those 4 letters were all the rage and becoming emblazoned on everything? That was a real effort to create real empathy by thinking what it would be like from inside the heart of Jesus and how He thought of the hearts of people with whom He interacted. I think it’s time to boost this life skill back up to the top again.
And this seems like a perfect place to share my scrolling poem called “Beyond the Mirror” again.
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🎵Prompt Response: My Guiding Light Principles
with help from Gemini Nano Banana and Photo Studio Pro
What’s a personal mantra or philosophy you live by?
Guiding Lights on the Path of Life
Life isn’t just one path from conception to death. It’s like that quilt poem where the underside has all these hanging and frayed threads that make it look messy and without form. But flip it over to the top side where The Artist is at work, and you’ll be amazed at the beauty He has put together when He gives it His own touch.
The Light of Grace and Mercy to Change
See, I know that I’m messy and fail often. Paul the Apostle said the same thing about himself.
“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do. And if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”
The Lord is My Editor
As a writer, that means I need to be edited, so that leads me to one of the lights on my path, the philosophy of letting God edit my writing. And, ultimately, I want Him to edit me as a person and as His child. The writer’s “mantra” is… The Lord is my Editor, I shall rewrite. That’s from a parody of Psalm 23 that I shared in the post, The Lord is My Own Personal Shepherd.
Rewrite My Life
In addition, the life philosophy of being edited is an idea I wrote as a short chorus many years ago but after the parody. It goes:
Edit me, Creator,
Edit me, My Lord.
Open up the heart of me,
And fill it with Your Word.
Write me as
A song of praise,
To lift Your name on high.
Please edit me, Creator,
Re-write my life.
The Desire to Please God
And the philosophy that lights my path and gives me a reason to desire God’s Hand of editing within it is simply that I desire to please Him. And you know what? Even that desire is a gift from Him. I love the way it’s written in the Plain English Version (P.E.V.), a Bible translation created for use on the mission field.
“God is the one that is working inside you. He helps you think the right way, so that you want to do the good things that make him happy, and he gives you the power to do those good things.”
For One Soul
Whether I’m failing or succeeding, reading or writing, listening or speaking, one thing I always want to think about is how I affect others. I’ve probably mentioned this quote from my original website domain before:
Live every moment of your life as if it could be… For One Soul!
That philosophy came in a moment of prayer where I was asking God if I was reaching enough people. After some time of conversation with Him, I came to the conclusion that if only one soul needed Calvary, He would still have walked that path and poured out His precious blood. And then I got the picture clearly that if I worked hard to minister to people (as a friend, a writer, a teacher, a singer/songwriter, or whatever else I do), I should do it as if it’s for millions of souls but know that if it only reaches one soul, it’s totally worth it. Just one moment in my small life could reach one soul that no one else has reached, and that one soul is precious to Our Lord.
To The Believers and to The Undecided
What about you? If you’re a fellow believer, would you live and work all the moments and days of your life if you knew at the end it would only touch one person? And would you keep on shining that light even after you’d likely reached the one?
I believe we have a loving Heavenly Father who is thrilled to share the joy of “catching souls” with us. We know that the angels rejoice more over just one new redemption than over 99 just men who don’t need to repent. So, if you are not yet a believer, I invite you to bring joy to God, to the angels, and to me, by turning to The Lord as the Guiding Light of your life today. 🛐
Jesus’ Parable of The Lost Sheep
“What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the pasture and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders, comes home, and calls together his friends and neighbors to tell them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep!’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous ones who do not need to repent.”
And though I’ve shared it before (back in February), this seems like the perfect time to share one of my favorite songs, “That’s When the Angels Rejoice.” I think maybe it could also be called The 4 1 Soul song. 😁 This time it’s by the original artist but without lyrics.
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Prompt Response: What Would I Wish?
with help from Gemini, Nano Banana, and Photo Studio Pro app
The genie grants you a wish. What is it?
Just one wish? I thought genies were supposed to grant you three wishes! 🧐🧐🧐 But I guess I shouldn’t be greedy, right? I mean any kind of free bonus is a benefit, isn’t it?
Well, maybe not. There is the story of three friends who found a magic lamp together, so the genie in that lamp said they could each have only one wish. The first friend jumped at the chance and asked for his own private island with a fancy resort and all the riches he could ever want. POOF! The wish was granted and the friend began his happily ever after. Not to be outdone, the second friend wished for a hundred billion dollars (after taxes 😂) and a private jet and yacht. When he wasn’t living on the yacht, he planned to visit his other friend’s resort. POOF! He got zapped to his new yacht and on the way to his friend’s private island.
But then, there was the third friend. A bit slow on the draw, he scratched his head asking himself what he should wish for while the genie waited impatiently. He would’ve asked his friends for advice, but they were both living their new dreams many miles away from him. When the genie told him to hurry up, he looked around at the empty chairs near him and said, “It sure is lonely here, now. I wish my two friends were back.” POOF! 🧞
Since it’s Sabbath evening, I’ll just leave it there except to say that I’ve already had a few conversations with The Lord about wishes, and it usually comes back to trusting His plan and provisions above all else. Sometimes, you get exactly what you ask for and find out it’s not what you wanted at all. Other times, you don’t get what you ask for at all only to find out later that you actually got what you needed instead. So whether you ask a genie (not recommended), or you ask Yahveh Almighty (your Father who only desires the best for you), ask according to His word, and trust His perfect will for your life.
A Few Scriptures About Asking
“Two things I ask of You — do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and deceitful words far from me. Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the bread that is my portion. Otherwise, I may have too much and deny You, saying, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or I may become poor and steal, profaning the name of my God.”
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
“And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures.”
And One Scripture Reference About Trust
“You will keep in perfect peace the steadfast of mind, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, because GOD the Lord is the Rock eternal.”
🙏🙏🙏
Shabbat Shalom! 🕊️
Last minute addition from my creative mind: What if a genie rubbed the lamp and a Holy Bible floated out as his answer?
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🎬Aesop’s Fables Month: The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg 🪿💰🥚
by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) via Gemini & Nano
Most People Miss the Real Danger
Most people look at The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg and immediately point to greed as the core lesson. But if greed was truly the only issue here, the couple could have easily built massive, lasting riches—albeit slowly, one golden egg at a time. The real villain of the story isn’t just the desire for wealth; it’s the impatience and lack of self-restraint that turned a steady, miraculous blessing into total ruin. They couldn’t govern their impulses, trading long-term provision for a reckless, impulsive shortcut.
Here. Judge for yourself what points you think the philosopher was highlighting with this story:
The Classic Fable Retold: The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg (Perry 87)
A certain man and his wife had the good fortune to possess a goose that laid an egg made of solid gold every day. But thinking the goose must be made of pure gold inside, the couple decided on a shortcut to riches. They killed the goose and cut her open—only to find that she was just like any other goose. Thus, the greedy couple, hoping to become instantly rich, deprived themselves of the gain which they could have had day by day.
The Moral: Covetousness often destroys the very source of its own sustenance.
I love how Scripture on the Berean Standard Bible changed “Labor not” to “Do not wear yourself out.” It highlights how restraint brings a blessing of less stress. And who doesn’t want that these days?
“Do not wear yourself out to be rich; be wise enough to desist.”
— Proverbs 23:4 (Β.S.Β.)
“Instead, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also… But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
— Matthew 6:20–21, 33 (Β.S.Β.)
Of course, humans chasing golden-yielding birds didn’t stop with ancient Greece. If you want a fun, chaotic 1970s spin on the exact same premise—minus the tragic ending, plus plenty of Disney slapstick—you can check out or rent The Million Dollar Duck starring Dean Jones and Sandy Duncan directly on YouTube.
Here’s the trailer for it …
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Aesop’s Fables Month: The Vain Jackdaw and His Borrowed Feathers 🐦⬛🪶🪶
by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) via Gemini & Nano
High Heels on Short Girls
My first brush with trying to make myself look as fancy as everyone else, as far as I can recall, was preparing for my sixth-grade culmination. (Yes, I can still remember the teacher making sure we knew we weren’t getting a graduation but rather a culmination. 🙃)
We had found the perfect long dress. My mom was so excited to shop for the fancy girly things that she kept using the word “debutante” and even had me practice my posture by standing next to a wall with a book on my head. It didn’t matter that we lived in the projects; I was going to be a fancy and proper young lady. 🦢
Now, all we needed was a nice pair of shoes to go with the dress. I’m not sure why we were in a shoe store in Hollywood, but we ended up with a salesman that got just as excited to dress me up as my parents did. He measured my feet and shortly came back with an adorable pair of white high-heels. He said they were the exact shoes worn by Mary Pickford when she stepped in the cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. (She and Douglas Fairbanks were apparently the first celebrities to leave their mark there.)
Looking back to that from adulthood, I’m gonna guess it might have been a lie about the shoes being the exact ones, but it seems we all believed it at the time. And we bought the shoes. I thought we even went over there and tried them to see if the heels fit in the prints there. I can’t recall if they did or not. I’m not even sure if they were four- or six-inch heels, but they were mine, and I felt like a princess in them. But, what I didn’t feel in them was tall. Lol 😂. When you’re 4’10”, even 6-inch heels make you only 5’4″. 👠
Beyond that moment, I’m certain I had brushes with vanity, though most of the time I’ve felt lesser or lower than most people, so maybe that was a type of reverse vanity. Our blackbird (jackdaw) in today’s fable proves that no type of vanity actually works.
The Original Fable Retold: The Vain Jackdaw and His Borrowed Feathers (Perry 101)
A certain Jackdaw, wanting to rival the peacock, gathered up the colorful feathers that had fallen from the peacocks and stuck them all over his body. Decked out in his stolen finery, he strutted proudly away from his own kind and joined the company of the peacocks.
The peacocks, however, quickly saw through the disguise. Recognizing him at once, they flew at him, plucked away his borrowed plumes, and pecked him mercilessly. Bruised and humiliated, the Jackdaw crept back to his fellow jackdaws. But they, deeply offended by his prior vanity and desertion, turned their backs on him and drove him away.
The Moral: Borrowed feathers may make a fine show, but they cannot change who you are.
The Trap of Comparison
Whether we are trying on borrowed feathers, chasing influencer trends (or trying to be influencers ourselves), or putting on any other kind of external facade to compare and contrast ourselves with others, it is a foolish and exhausting game. Vanity isn’t just about losing the approval of fickle crowds or alienating those around us; it takes our eyes entirely off the One who made us and who sees us through the unearned mercy and grace of His shed blood.
Here are a few things the Holy Scriptures say about comparing ourselves and about pride:
“Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.”
“For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own work. Then he will have reason to boast in himself alone, and not in someone else.”
“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
And now I’m wondering if Aesop or the philosophers who wrote this may have actually seen some Love Birds in the wild. Apparently, they actually do put items under their feathers that end up looking like extensions of their tails. Their reasons are less likely to be vanity (unless it’s mating season), and more likely to make it easier to transport nesting materials to their chosen location. There are a lot of fun videos of birds doing this, so here’s a selection of short ones to demonstrate and explain.
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Aesop’s Fables Month: The Farmer and the Stork
by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) via Gemini & Nano
Both my sister and I often carry a recurring vision in our minds: we see ourselves in a room full of tall men in suits while we are standing down near the floor, small and desperately tugging on jacket tails to try to get attention about something important. We both struggle with deep issues around feeling rejected, even when we have vital information to share. I’ve come to realize that this pain stems from past accusations leveled against us, even when we were entirely innocent.
I think my heart grabs onto the pain of being misjudged because of moments that left deep marks. For example, I remember going to a dentist’s office once, and because I’m a naturally curious person, I asked a lot of questions about a device on the counter—an electronic buffer like dentists use to shine teeth. Before I left, that device disappeared, and the staff asked to check my bag. I gladly obliged since I knew I hadn’t taken it, but I spent years feeling a lingering, undeserved guilt simply because I couldn’t prove who did take it. I hated even being suspected. To this day, I still get defensive over things that couldn’t possibly be my fault, because the thought of being suspected when I know I’m innocent is agonizing.
The Classic Fable Retold: The Farmer and the Stork (Perry 23)
This fable has a moral about being careful of the company you keep, but a second observation includes the protests of an innocent stork pleading with the farmer to believe that he was not a destroyer like the cranes:
A farmer set a net in his fields to catch the cranes that were eating and tearing up his crops. When he went to check the trap, he found a mix of cranes and a single stork tangled up together. The stork immediately began to plead for his life, explaining that he was a bird of excellent character, highly devoted to his parents, and entirely innocent of the crop-stealing.
The farmer wasn’t having it. He replied, “That may all be true, but I caught you in the company of these thieves and destroyers, and down you go with them.” No matter how much the stork protested his innocence, the blanket judgment of being in the wrong place at the wrong time sealed his fate.
Reflections…
It is a painful reality of this world: people in power often issue blanket judgments, lumping the innocent in with the guilty just because of association or surface appearance. Whether it’s society hastily pointing fingers or the sting of being wrongfully accused, it hurts to be treated unfairly no matter how loudly you protest. Scripture acknowledges this heavy reality of facing false charges and human condemnation:
“Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is there to condemn us? For Christ Jesus, who died, and more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God— and He is interceding for us.”
— Romans 8:33-34 (B.S.B.)
For the longest time, that room full of towering, dismissive figures felt final. But recently,a friend offered a profound perspective that completely changed the picture. They said that whenever I see that room in my mind, I should envision YahShua walking in, stepping past the towering figures, picking me up above the crowd, and holding me close. The Psalmist offers this reflection:
“For the cause of the oppressed and for the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says the LORD. “I will bring safety to him who yearns.”—
He doesn’t leave us trapped in the nets of other people’s snap judgments or false accusations. He sees our true hearts, steps into the spaces where we feel small, and lifts us out entirely. The prophet Nahum said it like this:
“The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of distress; He cares for those who trust in Him.”
Though we don’t see the innocent stork rescued in this fable, we know that our Almighty Creator believes in justice. Because of free will, innocents often pay a price on this Earth, but none of that happens without God seeing it and planning a righteous future. Still, wherever we are able, it’s important for us to be careful where we go and with whom we spend time. We have better promises by keeping our focus on The Lord.
“Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness like the dawn, your justice like the noonday sun.”
— Psalm 37:5-6 (B.S.B.)
We know that Yahveh’s eyes are always beholding both the innocent and the guilty, and that His plans include bringing balance and justice. But until that day comes, let us run to Him for strength and believe that He will, indeed, lift us up above false accusations and judgments.
“The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.”
— Psalm 9:9 (B.S.B.)
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Aesop’s Fables Month: The Bundle of Sticks
YahShua (Jesus) gave His followers a clear, unmistakable marker by which the world would recognize His grace:
“By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”
— John 13:35 (B.S.B.)
I recently spent a day with my brother and got to hear some background stories that inspired his ministry and some of his song lyrics. Between the testimonies of both him and my sister-in-law, I found my heart going out to the brokenness created in them by broken and unhealed people on their paths.
Maybe my heart grabs this because of the hurts I’ve experienced when I was an innocent victim. I don’t necessarily agree with the statement that hurt people hurt other people since knowing how it feels to be a victim has kept me from intentionally hurting others. Still, I can see how unhealed broken people can cause pain in others when they lash out as a method of self-defense or self-protection.
On top of pondering all these stories, today’s news took me to the protests in Spain where disconnected property buyers (referred to as “Vulture Capitalists”) are displacing the elderly and families by raising their rents beyond what they can pay. While I’m pro-capitalism for hard-working people with big dreams, I’m not at all on the side of greedy people who take whatever they want just because they can afford it. And it’s easy to see how allowing people to purchase properties at a distance without being a fellow countryman or neighbor inspires exactly that type of greed.
The distance between people, especially when distance becomes spiritual or emotional, causes them to stop being neighborly in their hearts. If they are physically distant, it’s even easier because they cannot see the effects of their amoral behaviors against real people with real needs.
But even without physical distance, humans who separate themselves from others by thinking they don’t need to respect every other person in their sphere of influence make a lot of decisions that deliver hurts well beyond those with whom they interact directly. There are too many scenarios to demonstrate this, like generations of family members grieving someone killed because a driver decided their own night out mattered more than human life, but I would urge people to look more carefully at how they affect others than at how others affect them.
The Classic Fable Retold: The Bundle of Sticks (Perry 44)
An aging father had a family of sons who were constantly quarreling and bickering among themselves. Despite all his warnings, they refused to live in peace, their divisions making them weak and vulnerable.
Weary of their strife, the father tied a bundle of sticks tightly together with a cord. Calling his sons to him, he handed the bundle to the eldest and told him to break it. The son strained with all his might, but try as he might, he could not crack the bundle.
One by one, the other sons tried and failed as well. Then the father untied the bundle, handed each son a single stick, and told them to snap it. In an instant, every single stick was easily broken in half.
“My sons,” the father said gently, “if you keep together and help one another, you are as unbreakable as this bundle. But if you separate, quarrel, and isolate yourselves from one another, you will become as fragile as these broken twigs.”
The Strength of a Three-Fold Cord
When people isolate themselves—whether through greed, a lack of empathy, or the cold calculation of treating human lives as commodities—they leave a wake of brokenness. But God has called us to something entirely different.
“Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
— Ecclesiastes 4:12 (B.S.B.)
May we choose to look out for our neighbors, to bear one another’s burdens, and to stand unified in the love of Christ rather than drifting apart in self-absorbed isolation!
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Aesop’s Fables Month: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse 🏙️🐁🛖🐀
by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) via Gemini
What Paul says here really matters because attitude can make or break the joy we experience in this life.
“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”
— Philippians 4:12-13 (B.S.B.)
If you’ve read parts of my testimony, you know I’ve experienced the low parts, but since many of them are before giving my life to Christ, let me fast forward to some moments after salvation.
Right after I got saved, I lived in a tiny airstream trailer without a lot of regular benefits you get with even a small apartment—like a shower stall. I paid $25 per week, which would be about $85 per week now, and that included utilities. My take home from working at a truck stop was about $35 per week, so that gave me $10 per week for food. I guess that would be about $35 now. So I would go through the grocery store twice: once to put everything I thought I wanted into my cart, and next to take out anything that went over my budget. And while that sounds excruciatingly difficult, it was simple, and I was happy.
As life got a little financially easier, I enjoyed the privilege of going out to eat now and then, but both the restaurant and the meal were chosen based on available cash. One restaurant we frequented dubbed our family “the biscuit and gravy bunch” because that’s what we could usually afford.
Later, I got a job where my paychecks allowed me to order from the menu without focusing on the price. Those paychecks didn’t make me rich, but in comparison to the days of biscuits and gravy, it felt like I was rich.
But here’s the one thing that was so different when I got those checks: I was content as long as my focus was on The Lord. I was no more content with more money and no less content with less money. There are moments when having what I need, or even what I desire, is a wonderful experience on this earth, and it’s tempting to even call it a blessing, but the most real “blessings” we can have in this life are the moments filled with real gifts like family, friends, joy, love—and especially the love of Christ. There is nothing that can compare to being contented with our salvation.
The Classic Fable Retold: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse (Perry 352)
A town mouse once visited his relative who lived in a humble hole in the fields. The country mouse served a modest meal of roots, grains, and acorns, nibbling sparingly while offering the best he had.
The town mouse turned up his nose and said, “My poor friend, you live like an ant! Come with me to the city, and you will see what real living is. A wealth of cheese, honey, fruit, and fine foods awaits us.”
Intrigued, the country mouse accompanied him to a grand townhouse. But just as they began to feast upon a luxurious banquet left on the table, the door flew open and heavy footsteps approached, accompanied by a prowling cat. Terrified, the mice scrambled for their lives, dodging shadows and claws.
When the coast finally cleared, the shaking country mouse whispered his goodbyes, saying, “You may have all your fine luxuries and rich foods, but I prefer my simple crusts in peace and safety rather than a grand feast seasoned with constant terror.”
The True Wealth of a Quiet Mind
The flash-in-the-pan illusion of luxury often comes with a hidden price tag of anxiety, stress, and constant fear. Just like the country mouse realizing that a safe, quiet home is worth more than a terrifying banquet, we learn that true peace cannot be bought in the marketplace.
As Scripture wisely notes:
“Better a dry morsel in quietness than a house full of feasting with strife.”
— Proverbs 17:1 (B.S.B.)
May we always remember that the simplest life anchored in Christ’s love far outweighs any worldly abundance traded for peace of mind!
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Aesop’s Fables Month: The Hare and His Ears 🐇🐰
Have you ever noticed how fear has a way of magnifying things until entirely normal, harmless things look like immediate threats? It’s easy to laugh at a creature running from its own shadow, but panic rarely stops to check the facts.
I haven’t counted them, but it’s said that instructions for not giving in to fear (such as the declaration to FEAR NOT) are mentioned in the Bible 365 times—once for every day of a year. But we also know that King David uttered the words “When I am afraid…” So fear is a normal part of being human, but what we do with it changes everything.
“When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.”— Psalm 56:3 (B.S.B.)
This fable is about overreaction to fear by multiple critters and the full cost of it.
The Classic Fable Retold: The Hare and His Ears (Perry 114)
A lion was severely gored by a goat’s horns, and in his pain and fury, he issued a royal decree banishing all beasts with horns from his kingdom, threatening death to any who remained.
A hare, catching sight of his own long shadow in the morning light, suddenly panicked. He convinced himself that the lion would mistake his long ears for horns. Shaking with terror, he decided he couldn’t risk staying a single moment longer.
As he fled past a cricket, his tiny friend tried to reason with him, pointing out that he was only a hare. But the hare cried out in panic, “If the lion mistakes my ears for horns, who is left to defend me? With all the horned beasts banished and gone, there is no one left to protect anyone!” Blinded by terror, he bolted headlong into the wilderness.
When Reactionary Laws Strip Away Protection
The lion’s overreaction in the fable highlights a deep flaw in how panicked leadership works. Driven by anger at a specific incident, the lion created a blanket ban that did nothing to address the actual threat, but instead drove away everyone else, including those who could provide defense to the innocent who might become real victims with no protection.
We see this same pattern in society when overzealous laws and sweeping restrictions try to legislate away every possible risk. When a person wants to do evil, they will always find a way—much like the many around the world who have turned ordinary vehicles into weapons. But we cannot logically ban every car or punish the law-abiding majority simply because a few have chosen to weaponize them. Overreaching bans don’t stop malice; they often just disarm and isolate the innocent and their would-be protectors.
Fear has a remarkable way of distorting reality. When panic sets in, we often begin seeing threats where none exist, letting our own shadows terrify us into irrational behavior—or anxiety at the least.
Looking Beyond the Shadow
Scripture reminds us that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind:
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
— 2 Timothy 1:7 (B.S.B.)
May we have the discernment not to let fear dictate our laws, our communities, or our hearts, and the wisdom to recognize that true security comes from trusting the Lord rather than running from threats!
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Aesop’s Fables Month: The Dog in the Manger 🐕🐂🌾
I recall often saying “Don’t be a dog in a manger” in my youth. It was usually directed toward my little sister or to anyone I felt was being selfish with something they could get more use out of by sharing—especially sharing with me. Lol 😂
I’m guessing it was because of learning this parable when I was really young, but it’s one that still has an effect on me. Now, especially as I am trying to get rid of items I’ve held onto for too long, I say this to myself to help me let go.
But the underlying human condition the fable targets goes far deeper than toy-hoarding or cleaning out a closet. It exposes a bitter, spiteful posture of the heart that refuses to let others be blessed by what we cannot even use ourselves.
The Classic Fable Retold: The Dog in the Manger (Perry 224)
A dog was lying in a manger full of hay, resting comfortably after a long day. Presently, a team of weary oxen, coming in from their work in the fields, approached the manger to eat the hay.
The dog snarled and snapped at them, aggressively blocking them from touching a single stalk, even though he could not eat the hay himself and had no use for it whatsoever.
The weary oxen looked at him in sorrow and said, “What a selfish creature! He can eat no hay himself, and yet he will not allow us, who are starving, to eat it either.”
Guarding What We Cannot Use vs. Sharing God’s Abundance
There is a unique kind of spiritual malice in withholding good simply out of spite, jealousy, or possessiveness. When we cling tightly to roles, resources, or knowledge purely to keep others from having them—even when they bring us no personal benefit—we step right into the trap of the dog in the manger.
We see this starkly addressed by Jesus when He rebuked the religious leaders of His day for shutting people out of God’s truth:
“Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.”
— Luke 11:52 (B.S.B.)
The scribes and Pharisees had no desire to truly live out or embrace the deeper truths of God’s kingdom, yet they aggressively guarded their position of gatekeeping so that no one else could access it either. They sat upon a blessing like a dog on a pile of hay.
James warns us against this bitter fruit in our relationships and communities:
“But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast in it or deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come from down above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.”
— James 3:14–15 (B.S.B.)
Open Hands and Open Hearts
Today, let’s examine our own lives. Are there areas where we are holding onto things—whether it’s material clutter we refuse to pass on, wisdom we refuse to share, or grace we are reluctant to extend—simply because we don’t want someone else to benefit?
And reading the Scriptures reminded me of another scenario where I was volunteering to teach a group and was trying to do all the tasks myself. It wasn’t because people didn’t offer to help but because I thought being a leader meant doing all the preparations and presentations alone. Then someone told me, “You could be stealing someone else’s blessing.” They went on to explain that if God was offering a part to another, and I grabbed up the part myself, I could be stealing both the performance and the opportunity for them to say yes to The Lord whether they yielded to that invitation or not.
May the Lord soften our hearts, cure our petty hoarding and our prideful tendencies to do it all, and give us open hands to share His abundant blessings with those on life’s journey with us.
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Aesop’s Fables Month: The Bald Man and The Fly 👴🏻🪰💥🤕
After diving into some heavier waters yesterday regarding spiritual leadership, hired hands, and the tender protection of our Good Shepherd, I thought our souls could use a little lightness today.
Laughter is like medicine, but sometimes the funniest moments in life also hold the sharpest mirrors.
Have you ever watched someone absolutely lose their mind over a minor nuisance? Or maybe—if you’re feeling brave enough to admit it—you’ve been that person yourself? You stub your toe, or someone cuts you off in traffic, or you get an error on a cellphone app or game (or a computer glitch) that ruins an otherwise peaceful afternoon, and before you know it, you’ve launched a full-scale war over a paper-thin annoyance. If you’re like me, you might have kicked the item on which you stubbed your toe only to realize (quite painfully) that inanimate objects do not care nearly as much about being kicked and your newly injured other toe does. 🦶🙃
Aesop understood this peculiarly human brand of foolishness and turned it into one of his most delightfully funny, yet convicting, fables.
The Classic Fable Retold: The Bald Man and the Fly (Perry 525)
A gentleman of distinguished bearing was enjoying a quiet afternoon in his garden courtyard. His scalp, long stripped of hair by time, shone smoothly in the afternoon sun.
Without warning, a tiny, insolent fly landed squarely on the very crown of his bare head and delivered a sharp, stinging bite.
Incensed by the audacity of the pest, the gentleman’s face flushed red. Forgetting all dignity, he clenched his jaw, raised his heavy right hand high into the air, and swung down with all his might to crush the offender into oblivion.
WHACK!
The agile little fly, sensing the wind of the blow, darted away quickly and flew freely into the air. The man’s open palm landed with a resounding, thunderous slap squarely against his own bald skull.
Stars danced before his eyes. As he winced, rubbing his smarting, reddened crown, the fly hovered lazily just above his nose, buzzing with impudent delight: “You sought to avenge a tiny nip with instant execution! Now tell me, sir: what punishment will you pass upon yourself, seeing that you’ve dealt your own head a far more painful blow than I could ever dream of giving you?”
Nursing his throbbing head, the gentleman muttered through gritted teeth: “I can easily forgive myself, for I bore no malice against my own skin. But as for you, vile pest, I’d gladly strike myself twice as hard if it meant swatting you out of existence!”
Straining at Gnats and Slapping Our Own Heads
How often do we do the exact same thing when offense buzzes into our lives? And moreso if that offense comes in with arrogance.
We receive a snide comment on social media, get an insensitive remark from an acquaintance, or let an everyday inconvenience land on us like a pesky fly. The sting is real, but it’s minuscule. But instead of waving it off or letting it go, our pride flares up. We wind up our emotions, take a furious swing to get even, and end up delivering a stinging blow to our own peace, our health, and our relationships.
We nurse grudges that give us ulcers, not the person who offended us. We stew in resentment, replaying the argument in the shower, effectively slapping our own bald heads over and over while the “fly” buzzes away completely oblivious.
There’s a great old quote (possibly by Saint Augustine) that says, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” Sometimes, the quote says unforgiveness, but it could just as well say offense. And I found a good article about that quote at a site called “The Bible Teaching Lady.”
Truthfully, though, Scripture gives us many wiser, calmer paths to walk to deal with life’s little gnats. Here are a couple of them:
“A person’s insight gives him patience, and his glory is to overlook an offense.”
— Proverbs 19:11 (B.S.B.)
“He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is quick-tempered exalts folly.”
— Proverbs 14:29 (B.S.B.)
Overlooking an offense isn’t weakness; it’s wisdom. It’s the grace to realize that taking a wild swing at every petty irritant only leaves us with a headache.
Simon’s Cat: The Art of the Overreaction
If you want a visual reminder of what it looks like when we wage an all-out war over a tiny insect, look no further than Simon’s Cat in the hilarious short Fly Guy. It’s one of his oldest comic videos, and totally my favorite. He redid it in color, but I think the original is best. Watch how quickly a peaceful afternoon nap turns into total household destruction:
If you want to see it in color (or subscribe), visit YouTube here.
Today, if a petty annoyance lands on the top of your head, or anywhere along your path, take a breath. Don’t ball up your hand. Don’t forfeit your joy over a momentary sting. Shake your head, smile at the absurdity of it, and let the Prince of Peace keep your heart calm!
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Aesop’s Fables Month: The Horse and the Groom
I chose this fable a day before hearing about a preacher that lives up to the message here so drastically that my spiritual heart is really hurting today. I’ve experienced those who think that religious position or gender gives them a right to disrespect those “beneath” them and place extreme demands on them with not so many demands on themselves.
But, when a human takes on the mantle of minister or pastor, it’s very much like the groom in this story—he becomes responsible for both the outside and inside of his charges. And Scripture, in 1 Timothy 3:1 says an overseer is a noble task. Then, in verses 2-7, it describes the requirements of a good overseer. They include things like being above reproach, being gentle and not violent, having self-control, being able to manage their own households, and having a good reputation with outsiders.
When you read today’s “fable” and look for the moral truth within it, ask yourself who you have known on all sides of the scenario. From the groom who cleans up the outside and fails the inside, to the horse who languishes under the lack of heartfelt care, to the opposite of these two. And since we are just beyond the season of self-examination (Yom Kippur), look at your own ministry tasks and make sure you’re overseeing them rightly.
It is easy to polish a public reputation. It takes real devotion, humility, and the fear of the Lord to quietly nourish the souls placed in our care. Aesop captured the tragedy of this counterfeit caretaking thousands of years ago in a fable that cuts straight through religious performance to the heart of the manger.
The Classic Fable Retold: The Horse and the Groom (Perry 184)
Day after day, a stable groom spent endless, painstaking hours tending to his master’s prized carriage horse. With brush, comb, and cloth in hand, he worked tirelessly in the open archway of the barn where every passerby could see. He untangled every snarl of the mane, polished the hooves until they shone, and buffed the animal’s coat until its dark flanks gleamed in the midday sun.
To anyone looking on from the road, the man appeared to be a model of diligence—a devoted caretaker wholly invested in the splendor of his charge.
But behind the closed doors of the barn, under the dim flicker of the stable lantern, a sinister theft occurred each night. Instead of pouring the daily ration of oats and barley into the wooden feed trough, the groom stealthily shoveled the nourishing grain into coarse burlap sacks. Slinging them over his shoulder, he slipped into the shadows and sold the grain at the town market for his own pocket, leaving the horse’s manger barren, save for dry chaff and worthless dirt.
As the weeks rolled on, the inevitable toll became visible. Though the horse’s coat still held a superficial, combed sheen, the life within him was draining away. His proud stance gave way to a weary slouch, his ribs began to press sharply against his dull hide, and his strength failed him.
One morning, as the groom stepped up with his usual brisk brushstrokes and patronizing pats, the exhausted horse turned his head. Looking at the man with heavy, sorrowful eyes, he parted his dry jaws and spoke:
“If you truly desire to see me handsome and strong, cease all this empty outward grooming and give me back the grain you steal from my manger.”
The Hired Hand vs. The Good Shepherd
That groom was just a hired hand, and he didn’t have the horse’s best intentions in his heart. But we have a Good Shepherd who ALWAYS looks out for us because He loves us. Even when He found fault with the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, it was because He knew the end result of those who would sit under their care. It’s not His will for any to perish, so He became our Good Shepherd while also teaching others how to be the right kinds of shepherds—if they would listen.
YahShua (Jesus) did not mince words when confronting spiritual leaders who were obsessed with polishing the outward vessel while starving and exploiting the souls inside:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside may become clean as well.”
— Matthew 23:25–26 (B.S.B.)
Religious brushwork can fool human eyes for a season. A man can preach passionately, dress impeccably, command respect from a platform, and present an outward veneer of strict orthodoxy. But the God who weighs the spirit is never deceived by cosmetic piety:
“The Lord says: ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is but rules taught by men.’”
— Isaiah 29:13 (B.S.B.)
And as the Lord reminded Samuel when selecting a leader after His own heart:
“Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him; the LORD does not see as man sees. For man sees the outward appearance, but the LORD sees the heart.”
— 1 Samuel 16:7 (B.S.B.)
Nourishing What Truly Matters
A true shepherd does not rob the manger to feed his own ego, appetite, or unchecked authority. A shepherd who reflects Christ feeds the flock with patience, protects the vulnerable, and ensures that the inner lives in his care are supplied with the pure, life-giving Word of God.
Today, as we walk in the afterglow of Yom Kippur’s call to honest reflection and repentance, let’s lay down the brush of self-promotion. Whether in our homes, our churches, or our private circles of influence, let’s refuse to be hired hands who settle for surface shine while starving the heart. Let us look to the Good Shepherd, receive His true bread, and care for those around us with gentle, holy, and authentic love.
Jesus painted the ultimate contrast between those who view people as a paycheck or platform versus the Shepherd who lays down His life:
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd, and the sheep are not his own. When he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.”
— John 10:11–13 (B.S.B.)
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🎵Aesop’s Fables Month: The Dog and His Reflection 🐕🪞
Yesterday, we learned about God’s gracious gift of Sabbath rest and the fact that humans can be both grateful and discontented. I hope my readers were able, like I was, to see more blessings in Sabbath than you realized before reading the post. But human nature has another old, exhausting habit: even when God places genuine nourishment directly into our hands, our eyes tend to wander toward what someone else has that we don’t.
Aesop diagnosed this timeless spiritual blind spot thousands of years ago in one of his most recognized, convicting fables.
The Classic Fable Retold: The Dog and His Reflection (Perry 133)
A butcher had tossed a hound a choice, generous cut of meat. Thrilled with his good fortune, the dog clamped his jaws firmly around the prize and trotted toward home, eager to savor his feast undisturbed.
His path wound across a gentle country brook spanned by a low wooden footbridge. Halfway across, the water below rested in a calm, glassy pool, undisturbed by the slow current. Leaning over the edge, the dog caught sight of his own reflection in the mirrored surface.
Believing he was gazing at another hound carrying a cut of meat twice as large and juicy as his own, envy flared up within him. The feast in his mouth was no longer enough; he had to possess the other one too.
Snarling with greed, he snapped viciously at the image in the water. But the instant his jaws parted, the heavy meat slipped from his teeth and plunged into the pool. As concentric ripples broke across the surface, shattering the glassy image, the mirrored prize vanished completely—and his real meal sank deep into the dark water, swept away out of reach.
He was left standing alone on the wooden planks, staring down at empty ripples with nothing in his mouth and nothing for his dinner.
The Mirage of the Magnified Portion
The tragedy of the fable isn’t just that the dog lost his meal—it’s that he traded real substance for a watery mirage. Water naturally magnifies, refracts, and distorts. The reflection in the stream will always look larger and more tantalizing because imagination fills in whatever reality leaves out.
How often do we do the exact same thing with our callings, our blessings, and our daily bread? When we compare our behind-the-scenes lives to the polished surfaces of others, we are barking at reflections. And the moment we open our mouths in complaint or covetousness to grasp at what isn’t ours, we drop the peace and contentment God handed us for today.
The Apostle Paul reminded Timothy of the profound anchor that protects us from this trap:
“Of course, godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot carry anything out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.”
1 Timothy 6:6-8 (B.S.B.)
Contentment is not a passive surrender to lack; it is the spiritual clarity to recognize that what God has placed in your hands right now is genuine, while the comparisons shouting from the cultural current are only fleeting shadows of illusion.
Resting in the Sufficient Provider
When the author of Hebrews challenged believers tempted by anxiety and accumulation, he tied true security directly to the constant presence of God:
“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for God has said: “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence: “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?””
Hebrews 13:5-6 (B.S.B)
The enemy of our souls loves to steal our peace and keep us leaning over the railing, dissatisfied with God’s portion and agitated by what seems to belong to someone else. But our Shepherd invites us to walk across the bridge with heads held high, confident in His daily faithfulness.
Today, don’t let comparison rob you of your feast. Savor the daily manna God has given you, close your eyes to the distorted shadows of the world, and walk across the footbridge in full assurance that your Provider has already supplied all you need.
Here’s one more verse to focus on as you learn to trust in Yahveh Yireh (Jehovah Jireh) (The Lord will Provide):
“And my God will supply all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Philippians 4:19-20 (B.S.B.)
And one of my favorite older hymns is He Was There All the Time because it compares the fruitless search with The Savior just waiting to give us everything we need. I couldn’t find a good one with lyrics, but this one by Vocal Union is beautiful…
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🎬Aesop’s Fables Month: The Two Travelers and the Plane Tree 🧳🌳
Shabbat Shalom! Welcome into the quiet beauty of God-ordained rest. I’m thrilled to share this fable of two travelers looking at the same tree in two opposite ways. It reminds me of all the different ways we humans can look at the abundant gifts of God that surround us.
One of those gifts is Shabbat (Sabbath) rest. When I’m at my best, I’m looking at Sabbath through completely different eyes than when it’s yet another biblical behavior I’m just trying to get right. When you watch the embedded video from The Bible Project and see the amazing gift that God shared with us from creation, I hope you will also see Sabbath through eyes of gratefulness as you receive one of the first gifts He offered to His new creations.
In a world consumed by output, deadlines, and measurable return on investment, if an hour doesn’t yield a tangible result, culture labels it “wasted time.” Even when our bodies plead for relief, our minds often pace back and forth, feeling guilty for pausing. But what if the very rest we dismiss as unproductive is actually one of God’s greatest sanctuaries of grace?
Aesop captured this peculiar human blindness in an ancient, often-overlooked fable about an afternoon pause under a roadside tree.
The Classic Fable Retold: The Two Travelers and the Plane Tree
Two weary wanderers trudged along a dusty, sun-bleached road at midday. The summer heat pressed down like a heavy furnace, shimmering in waves off the cracked dirt. Parched and dizzy with exhaustion, they scanned the horizon for any sign of relief.
Just off the path stood a magnificent Oriental Plane tree, its broad leaves stretching outward in an immense, emerald arch. Rushing from the glare into its shelter, both men collapsed upon the cool earth beneath the wide canopy.
The first traveler leaned back against the ancient trunk, unbuckled his heavy pack, let his walking staff fall into the grass, and closed his eyes. He exhaled a long breath of relief, letting the cool breeze and dappled shade revive his parched spirit in silent thanksgiving.
The second traveler, however, could not be still. As soon as his breath returned, he sat upright and began scrutinizing the branches overhead. Looking up through the lush green foliage, he scoffed with open hands of complaint: “What a completely useless tree! It bears no figs, produces no olives, yields no nuts, and offers no fruit for a hungry stomach. It just takes up space along the road, serving no purpose at all!”
A sudden breeze rustled through the boughs, and the plane tree answered in a quiet whisper: “Ungrateful soul! You sprawl in the cool sanctuary of my leaves, shielded from the very sun that would have struck you down, yet you call me useless because I bear you no fruit to consume?”
The Sacred Sanctuary of “Useless” Rest
What the tree says here brings me to tears. How often do we sit squarely under God’s protective canopy of comfort, rejuvenations, and rest while complaining that He isn’t handing us more “blessings” to consume? In our restless hurry, we treat rest as a nuisance—a barren tree that fails to produce a tangible product.
Yet Scripture reminds us that the shelter itself is the blessing:
“The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is the shade on your right hand. The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.”
— Psalm 121:5–6
When YahShua (Jesus) confronted the rigid religious authorities who turned the Sabbath into a checklist of anxious burdens, He restored its foundational heart:
“Then Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.’”
— Mark 2:27
Sabbath was never designed as another field to plow or a quota to meet; it was created as a hospitable shade tree. It is an intentional sanctuary in time where we stop measuring ourselves by what we produce, trusting instead that the Creator is already sustaining the world without our frantic effort to add to creation by our own contributions and power.
The Seventh Day: Entering God’s Rest
In this insightful short film, the team at BibleProject unpacks the sweeping biblical story of Sabbath—from the unending seventh day of creation to Jesus inviting every weary, heavy-laden soul to rest under His finished work:
Today, lay down your walking staff. Let your pack drop from your shoulders. Stop demanding that every sacred moment justify itself with immediate worldly fruit, and simply rest in the faithful shade of your Keeper. May you find Shalom (peace that passes understanding) today and everyday as you walk in the shelter of God’s creation.
“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
— Matthew 11:28–30
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🎵Aesop’s Fables Month: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Have you ever been truly fooled by someone? Worse, were you fooled because the liar was a great actor that looked and sounded exactly like someone or something you would naturally trust? Maybe the sheep would not be fooled by a fake shepherd (since YahShua said His sheep know His voice and won’t follow another shepherd), but who’s looking at the sheep right next to us? Aesop put it into a classic fable you’ll likely recognize.
Most of us grew up hearing a version of The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing that ended in sheer carnage—a helpless flock devoured from the inside out. Yet the oldest classical renderings of Aesop’s fable carry a very different, deeply ironic twist: a story not of predator victory, but of poetic justice, where the deceiver is ensnared by the very costume he crafted to fool others.
The Classic Fable Retold from Aesop’s Point of View
Frustrated by the watchful shepherd, the barking hounds, and the stone walls of the pasture, a hungry wolf realized that direct force would never win him a meal. Cunning would work far better than brute strength.
The Masquerade
Prowling the edges of the farm, the wolf discovered a thick, fluffy sheep’s fleece left drying over a split-rail fence after a sheep had been prepared for the farm table. Slipping the woolly skin over his back, he tucked in his sharp muzzle, concealed his dark paws, and flattened his bushy tail beneath the disguise.
The Infiltration
Ambling into the open meadow, the wolf mimicked the slow, quiet grazing of an ordinary ewe. The disguise worked flawlessly. The sheep paid him no attention, the shepherds conversed leaning against their staves, and the farm dog slept lazily in the grass without a flicker of suspicion. When dusk gathered, the shepherd whistled the flock together, leading every sheep—and the masquerading beast—safely into the stout stone fold, bolting the heavy gate for the night.
The Reckoning
The wolf chuckled in the darkness, waiting for the farm to fall asleep so he could feast. But late that night, the shepherd re-entered the fold holding a dim lantern, needing to supply meat for the coming day’s provisions. Reaching into the quiet pen in the dark, his hand clamped onto the thickest, heaviest wool in the flock. Before the trapped predator could shed his borrowed coat or bare a claw, the butcher’s blade fell. The deceiver met the very fate he had planned for the sheep.
~ ~ ~
The Snare of the Disguise
YahShua (Jesus) told us to watch carefully, and He gave us the timeless warning about deadly enemies masking their true intentions:
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”
— Matthew 7:15
Jude sounded the exact same alarm about those who slip into the assembly wearing innocent disguises:
“For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness...”
— Jude 1:4
It shouldn’t take us by surprise that everyone who claims to be one of us (A Christian believer) is not so just because they say it. We have multiple warnings to protect ourselves from the prowling enemy looking for any trusting souls to devour. It’s hard, because we don’t want to believe in the possibility of someone who seems so nice actually being a trickster, but it’s their good acting ability that makes them strong deceivers. Pray for open eyes and for discernment like we talked about in yesterday’s post.
“And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.”
— 2 Corinthians 11:14–15
Spiritual predators rarely show up with fangs bared and horns blaring. They borrow the gentle language, peaceful posture, and familiar outward appearance of the flock to creep in unawares. Yet Aesop’s ancient ending adds a reassuring truth for those who trust the Shepherd—deceit always carries its own undoing:
“He who digs a pit will fall into it, and whoever rolls a stone will have it roll back on him.”
— Proverbs 26:27
No matter how clever the camouflage appears, the Chief Shepherd knows who belongs to Him. The deceiver’s trap ultimately collapses back upon himself, but the flock is called to remain alert, watchful, and standing firm in the Lord’s strength.
Christian, Dost Thou See Them?
Written by St. Andrew of Crete in the 8th century and translated by John Mason Neale, this solemn, dramatic hymn confronts the subtle, disguised forces of darkness that circle the soul—and summons the Christian to unrelenting spiritual vigilance:
– SZABO MUSIC (Hymn & Singalong) (with lyrics)
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Aesop’s Fables Month: The Cat and the Hens 🐈🐔🐔
There is an old, simple punchline that plays out in everyday life more often than we’d care to admit: someone knocks on the door offering help that sounds remarkably convenient, but everything in your spirit tells you to leave the latch bolted.
Aesop captured this comedic standoff centuries ago in a lively little encounter between a hungry feline and a coop of sharp-eyed hens.
The Classic Fable Retold
Knock Knock
Hearing that the hens down at the farm were feeling a bit under the weather, a sly tomcat devised an ingenious scheme to secure a hearty feast. Dressing himself in the dignified attire of a Victorian physician—complete with round wire-rimmed spectacles, a top hat, and a long frock coat—he tucked a medical bag beneath his arm and strutted up to the chicken coop. With a polite rap on the weathered wood, he inquired with deep theatrical concern after their health, announcing that he had brought the very medicine to cure their ailments.
Who’s There?
Peeking through the narrow wooden slats, the hens surveyed the distinguished “doctor.” They took note of the coat and the spectacles, but they also didn’t miss the whiskers, the flicking tail, or the sharp claws clutching the bag. With deadpan resolve, they replied through the locked door: “We will all do very well indeed, sir, if you will kindly leave us alone and be on your way!”
~ ~ ~
Spotting the Disguise: The Gift of Discernment
The humor in the story lies in how ridiculous the disguise really is to anyone paying attention. Yet how often do we drop our guard in life simply because something arrives wearing polite language, flattering promises, or an appearance of good intentions?
To avoid falling for these disguises, we need to see more deeply by using the gift of discernment as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:7-10. An article at Bible Proclaimer written by Rev. Ian M. Thomas covers it very well in only a 6-minute read. Here’s a quote from the article:
Paul lists this gift among the manifestations of the Spirit given “for the common good” in 1 Corinthians 12:7-10, and the phrase he uses is diakriseis pneumaton, literally the distinguishing of spirits. That plural matters more than most people notice when they read past it quickly.
Discernment isn’t something that happens by accident; Scripture teaches that spiritual wisdom grows sharp through daily practice and spiritual maturity:
“But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained their senses to distinguish good from evil.”
— Hebrews 5:14
Those hens had their senses trained—they didn’t let a stethoscope and spectacles confuse their eyes. In the same way, we are instructed not to give our trust away cheaply, but to test what comes knocking at our door.
Spiritual discernment isn’t cynicism or paranoia; it is holy wisdom guided by the Holy Spirit. It is the quiet inner caution that tells us not every flattering voice deserves an open door into our lives, our homes, or our peace of mind. As Scripture instructs us:
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God...”
— 1 John 4:1
When the enemy or the world comes knocking with a counterfeit remedy, we don’t have to entertain the conversation. Sometimes the wisest, most godly response is keeping the latch firmly in place and declaring: “We are doing just fine, thank you!”
Here’s a wonderful old hymn I’d never heard before that Gemini found as a suitable match to the subject of this post. It’s got great lyrics and a simple, very singable tune.
by CFC Songs & Hymns (with lyrics)
And now, just for fun, this post totally calls for this funny YouTube video from The Eric and Joe Show, a great comic team I got to see when they performed for The Kentucky Christian Writers Conference. It’s less than three minutes, and it’s adorable:
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🎵Aesop’s Fables Month: The Ant and the Dove 🐜🕊️
Most of us grew up hearing the timeless proverb: “One good turn deserves another.” In Aesop’s classic telling, that truth plays out between two creatures who couldn’t be further apart in stature—a delicate dove perched high in the branches and a tiny ant swept away in the rapids below.
Modern culture often looks at this circle of kindness and mislabels it as “karma.” But karma, at its root, is a cold, transactional ledger. It waits for cosmic payback, score-settling, and universal retribution. Worse, these paybacks are often weaponized by our own desire to see someone “get what’s coming to them,” and then paybacks are paid back, and suddenly there’s a full-blown war.
So, nope, karma is not the answer. The Golden Rule calls us to something radically different: uncalculated grace, active mercy, and stepping into the gap before harm can fall—what people today often label as pay it forward.
The Classic Fable Retold—In 4 Parts
Part 1: Help!
A thirsty little ant crawled down to the edge of a rushing woodland stream to drink. Reaching too far into the swift current, his footing slipped, and he was violently tossed into the foaming rapids. Thrashing his tiny legs against the swirling whirlpool, he was entirely powerless to save himself from drowning.
Part 2: Grace
High above on an overhanging branch, a gentle white dove looked down with pity. She didn’t calculate what an insect could ever do for her in return. Plucking a broad leaf from the bough with her beak, she dropped it straight into the churning foam beside the ant. With his last bit of strength, the drenched little traveler scrambled aboard, finding safe harbor upon an unearned raft.
Part 3: Danger
Soon after, a rustic birdcatcher crept stealthily through the ferns. Spotting the peaceful dove resting quietly in the canopy, he unrolled his snare net. Raising his mesh into the air, he prepared to cast it over the unsuspecting bird, whose life hung by a thread.
Part 4: Salvation!
Observing the fowler’s wicked aim, the ant did not stand by and let “fate” take its course. Scurrying across the forest floor, he sank his sharp mandibles deep into the hunter’s bare ankle! The birdcatcher cried out in sudden agony, hopping on one foot and dropping his heavy net into the dirt. Now free, the dove spread her wings and took flight into the open sky—rescued by the very life she had spared.
~ ~ ~
The Golden Rule vs. The Trap of Karma
When Jesus taught the Golden Rule, He inverted the world’s natural instinct to settle scores:
“And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.”
— Luke 6:31
Karma is passive and retrospective; it looks backward at a debt and waits for punishment. The Golden Rule is active and forward-looking; it initiates love without waiting for a guarantee of return. The dove didn’t drop the leaf because the ant was worthy, and the ant didn’t bite the heel out of spite for the hunter—it acted out of protective gratitude for the dove.
When we treat life like a karmic ledger, we secretly hope for revenge dressed up as justice. But when we walk in the rhythm of the Kingdom, we extend grace downward to those who cannot repay us, and we stand up to protect others when danger creeps close. May we be quick with the leaf when someone is drowning, and bold with our small strength when someone we love is about to be snared.
“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
— Galatians 6:10
~ ~ ~
He Set Me Free
Just like that dove soaring into the open sky the moment the hunter’s snare hit the dirt, true salvation breaks the bonds that were meant to cage and destroy us. Celebrate that sweet deliverance with this timeless classic complete with adorable clips from Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket:
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Aesop’s Fables Month: The Fox and The Grapes
by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Grape Sherbet?
Mmm, grapes! 🍇 And did you know there’s supposedly no such thing as real grape flavor? It’s all a combination of other flavors, and it’s the reason it’s so hard to find grape-flavored ice cream. But you know what? I did have grape-flavored ice cream once. I was probably about seven when a sitter walked my sister and I to the Thrifty Drug and Discount Store for a 5-cent ice cream cone, and they had grape sherbet. So yummy! So messy on a hot summer day!! But still, so yummy! And I’ve never been able to find it anywhere since then. I search and search, but like the fox in the middle panel above, I came up short.
You know what, though? At 4’10”, I come up short in a lot of things. Lol 😂 And sadly, I have been known to say, “I hate being short!” But really, I just hate the times when being short prevents me from accomplishing my desired task. Whether it’s dragging out the step stool just to reach the top kitchen cabinet or jumping for something dangling overhead, I know exactly what it feels like to stretch with everything you have and still miss the mark.
Which brings me to an old groaner: What did the grape do when it got stepped on?
…It let out a little wine! 🍷 (Or in my case, a little whine! 😉)
Unlike me whining about my height, however, the fox in Aesop’s classic tale handled his reach with a very different kind of attitude—one that gave birth to an idiom we still use every day.
The Classic Fable Retold—In 3 Parts
Cataloged as Perry Index No. 15, this brief encounter in an ancient vineyard gave us the enduring phrase “sour grapes.”
Part 1: The Sweet Desire
On a sweltering afternoon, a hungry fox strolls beneath a towering garden trellis. Looking up, his eyes widen at a breathtaking sight: heavy, succulent clusters of ripe purple grapes, plump with juice and glistening in the sun. His mouth waters at the prospect of the sweet feast dangling just out of ordinary reach.
Part 2: Springing Into Action
Backing up to get a running start, the fox launches himself upward with all his might. Snapping his jaws, he misses the lowest bunch by mere inches. Refusing to surrender, he crouches, springs, scrambles, and leaps again and again until his legs ache and his breath comes in ragged gasps. Yet no matter how high he vaults, the arbor remains out of reach.
Part 3: The Sour Defeat
Thoroughly exhausted and privately humiliated, the fox realizes the prize is beyond him. But rather than admit his own limitation, his bruised ego takes over. Curving his lip in haughty disdain and lifting his nose high into the air, he struts away scoffing, “I thought those grapes were ripe, but I see now they are completely sour. Why would I waste my time on trash like that?”
Guarding Against “Sour Grapes”
The fox’s reaction is human nature at its most transparent. When life puts something desirable just beyond our reach—a promotion, an unfulfilled dream, or an opportunity that slips through our fingers—our pride hates admitting we came up short. To protect our delicate egos, we change the narrative. We belittle the blessing, mock the goal, or scoff at the people who attained what we could not.
The Deception of Pride
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”
— Proverbs 14:12
Self-deception is a subtle poison. When we dismiss good things as “sour” simply because we didn’t get them, we allow bitterness to warp our perspective. Pride convinces us that cynicism is wiser than humility, but it only isolates our hearts. And it’s precisely the attitude Cane had that caused him to hate his brother Abel and take his life. Eventually, it led to him hating God and whining about everything in life. Depression is more likely to happen when you can’t find fulfillment or joy in your tasks.
The Antidote of Contentment
“11...for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation...”
— Philippians 4:11-12
Being 4’10” means I will always need a stool or a helpful pair of hands to reach the high shelves, but it doesn’t mean I’ve failed just because I was born vertically challenged. And it doesn’t mean I have to be bitter.
Coming up short in life isn’t a failure of character, either; turning bitter about it is. Paul reminds us that true peace comes from contentment—celebrating the sweet things God places in front of us, admitting our human limits with a smile, and refusing to let our unreachable moments turn into a sour whine.
Just For Fun
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🎵Aesop’s Fables Month: The Four Oxen and the Lion 🐂🦁
by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Patriotic Unity from a Devastating Attack
Twenty-five years ago, it wasn’t called “Patriot’s Day.” It was just another day on the calendar in a time when summer was ending and the cooling of autumn was on the way. I was at home taking a solitaire break from my tech school homework, so I didn’t have the TV on. My brother-in-law called from Texas to ask if I knew what was happening and where his brother was at. He was frantic, and I could barely make out something about the Pentagon (I think he said it was bombed) through his tearful voice. When I finally figured out what he said and everything that had just happened, my fears began to bubble up to overflowing. See, both my hubby and his brother were soldiers, so attacks on US soil were acts of war that could mean they’d be called to active fighting zones.
Hubby called from the base when he could and told me to cancel any upcoming medical appointments if they weren’t urgent because gates were going into hard lockdowns. The days were surreal as I heard stories of stranded travelers, and I didn’t hear the noises of overhead aircraft that were normal with a house near an airport. My night classes were unusually still and quiet as people tried to figure out how to talk about the attacks and what it meant for our future.
I don’t recall exactly how long we lived with baited breath, but everything changed with the events on September 11th, 2001, and I don’t believe they have ever gone back fully to what they were before that.
But some good changes came to pass in the aftermath. Mainly, patriotism got a wakeup call. People who were occupied by the division being sown by recent demands for political correctness in the months before 9/11 now became focused on what it meant to unify our country instead. We began to look at news from around the world instead of only in our small worlds because we didn’t want to be surprised like that again. People were ready to fight for the USA and against anyone who declared themselves enemies far more than they were with the first attack eight years earlier when terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. And though the unity did not last in everyone, it definitely became stronger than before. Most don’t want to see us going to war, but they’d still be comforted to know we have patriots who love our country with enough passion to fight for it.
The Classic Fable Retold—In 3 Parts
Recorded in ancient collections as Perry Index No. 372, this timeless fable illustrates the foundational truth behind an enduring American rallying cry: United we stand, divided we fall.
Part 1: The Circle of Defense
In a lush, sun-drenched pasture, four oxen graze in unbroken fellowship. From the edge of the distant timberline, a lean, famished lion watches their every move, desperate for an opening. Yet whenever the predator creeps forward, the four companions move as one. Standing rump-to-rump in a tight, impenetrable ring, they lower their massive heads and present an unbroken wall of outward-facing horns to the wilderness. Starving and frustrated, the prowling beast dares not strike, knowing a frontal charge against such unified strength means certain defeat.
Part 2: The Whispered Discord
Realizing brute force cannot pierce their fellowship, the cunning lion abandons direct assault for subtle treachery. Lingering just out of reach, he begins sowing quiet suspicion and jealousy among the herd. He whispers deceit into the ear of one that the others take the finest grass, while feeding pride in another that his companions take his strength for granted. Soon, distrust festers. The defensive ring dissolves as bitter arguments flare, and each proud ox turns his back on his brothers to graze alone in an isolated corner of the field.
Part 3: The Fallen Solitude
With their mutual defense shattered, the lion’s hour arrives. Slinking across the pasture without fear, the beast hunts them down one by one. Trapped against the rocky outcrops with no brothers to guard their flanks and no outward-facing horns to unite against the common foe, every solitary beast is easily overwhelmed. The pasture that once flourished under mutual protection falls silent in the dust of defeat.
The Spiritual Blueprint of Unity
The tragedy in the pasture mirrors the spiritual battles we navigate every day—both as a nation and within the household of faith. Scripture lays out an unmistakable three-part arc regarding the strength, preservation, and vulnerability of our fellowship:
1. The Sacred Design: The Beauty of the Circle
“1Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!”
— Psalm 133:1 (B.S.B.)
God never designed us to face the wilderness alone. True community is not merely pleasant; it is our primary earthly defense against destruction.
When we stand shoulder-to-shoulder, guarding one another’s blind spots and pooling our strength, an outward enemy has no point of entry. In the wake of national tragedy twenty-five years ago, we need the raw power of this circle, letting petty squabbles vanish as we lock arms beneath one flag. In the church, we must also lock arms beneath the banner of God’s Holy Word—the whole Word applied as written.
2. The Daily Practice: Guarding Against the Whisper
“8Finally, all of you, be like-minded, sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.”
— 1 Peter 3:8 (B.S.B.)
An impenetrable defense cannot be taken by an external strike; it can only be betrayed from within. Knowing this, Peter urges believers to maintain the exact heart posture required to resist division.
The lion broke the oxen not with claws, but with whispers that stoked self-importance and suspicion. Humility, sympathy, and tenderhearted compassion are the spiritual armor that keeps our circle intact. The moment we prioritize being “right” or nurse personal grudges, we open the gate to discord.
3. The Sober Warning: The Prowling Predator
“8Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”
— 1 Peter 5:8 (B.S.B.)
When pride separates us from fellowship and unity of purpose, we become prime targets for the enemy.
The adversary rarely assaults a united body; he waits patiently in the shadows for someone to wander off alone. Isolation is the predator’s hunting ground. As we honor the memory of that fateful September morning and the resilience that rose from its ashes, let us remember that our greatest strength lies in refusing the whispers of division. Let us be found standing firm, vigilant, and undivided in faith and love.
Where Were You?
In the days following September 11th, our nation was bound together by shared grief, profound quiet, and a sudden clarity about what truly mattered. Alan Jackson captured that universal stillness and the enduring power of faith, hope, and love with his poignant anthem, “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)”:
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🎵 Aesop’s Fables Month: The Man, The Boy, and The Donkey 👴🏻👱🏻♂️🫏
“I’m trying to stop people-pleasing—is that okay with you?!”
I stumbled across that hilarious meme on Pinterest, and after laughing out loud, the quiet truth behind it hit home, so I pinned it. It captures the exhausting paradox of trying to make ourselves feel successful by trying to make everyone else happy. The habit runs so deep that even when we finally muster the courage to break free from seeking everyone’s approval, our immediate impulse is still to check the room and ask: “Did I do that right? Are you still happy with me?”
Living to satisfy the crowd is an impossible, moving target. Shifting opinions swirl like the wind, and when we let public consensus hold the reins of our lives, we quickly become anxious pack mules carrying burdens God never asked us to shoulder.
The Classic Fable Retold
Aesop captured this ridiculous trap centuries ago in his classic fable of an elderly father and his young son traveling down a dusty road with their donkey. Desiring only to reach the market peacefully, they begin their journey with the father riding while the boy leads the beast. But the moment they pass a group of townsfolk by a well, the unsolicited critiques begin.
“Look at that selfish old man,” the crowd jeers, pointing accusing fingers. “Lounging in comfort while his poor young boy trudges through the dust!”
Embarrassed and determined to make things right, the father dismounts and places the boy on the donkey’s back while he walks alongside. But just down the road, a woman steps out of her doorway, wagging her finger in sharp rebuke: “Shame on that lazy boy, riding high while his gray-haired elder wears out his weary feet!”
Desperate to satisfy both critics, father and son cram together onto the donkey’s back. Yet the next passersby throw up their hands in mock horror, openly ridiculing the absurdity of two riders overburdening a poor beast. Someone even says, “They should not make the donkey carry all their goods and both of them. Rather, they should carry the donkey.”
Driven to total absurdity by their attempts to silence every critic, they both dismount and try to carry the donkey between them. When they reach a narrow wooden footbridge spanning a rocky stream, the father and son lose their footing, and it terrifies the donkey. It thrashes wildly out of their grip, sending all their belongings flying as it bucks and tumbles over the railing into the churning water below. In striving to satisfy everyone, they lose everything.
Whose Approval Are We Seeking?
That bridge mishap is an example of what can happen when we trade God’s direction for human ideas and approval. But when we are caring people with a lot of empathy, it’s very easy to let that steer us into being like the characters in the story. We desperately want to please others simply because we want them to be happy. But we often mistake our own positions in the happiness of others. Here are some quotes about people-pleasing…
“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” – Aristotle
“Care about what other people think, and you will always be their prisoner.” – Lao Tzu
“Pleasing everybody is never a responsibility. If they like you for who you are, good. If not, it’s their problem not yours.” – Unknown
“People pleasing hides the real you” – Unknown
“Let your light shine today, and let your personality blossom, too. You don’t have to be a people-pleaser, just a people-lover.” – Beth Moore
The Apostle Paul understood that navigating cultural pressure, legalistic critiques, and the shifting demands of the crowd is entirely incompatible with genuine discipleship.
Galatians 1:10 (B.S.B.)
10 Am I now seeking the approval of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
And biblical wisdom says it this way:
Proverbs 29:25 (B.S.B.)
25 The fear of man is a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is set securely on high.
When we surrender to the fear of man, we tie ourselves in knots and cross precarious bridges just to avoid someone’s scowl. But when our ears are tuned exclusively to the Father’s voice, the noise of the crowd fades into the background, and we can finally walk peacefully along the road He prepared for us.
John 10:27 (B.S.B.)
27 My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me.
Singing for the Audience of One
Breaking free from the exhausting cycle of crowd-pleasing requires a deliberate choice of allegiance. When we stop frantically adjusting our lives to appease every passerby along the road, we discover the quiet freedom of walking for the only approval that truly counts.
The timeless hymn “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” strips away the need for human consensus with a single, unbending line: “Though none go with me, still I will follow.” It reminds us that following Christ often means leaving the crowd and their fickle applause behind. Though I’ve shared the song before, this one includes an amazing missionary story.
I found this version of “An Audience of One” by Greg Ferguson with amazing lyrics like I want to hear “well done” from an Audience of One. Totally anthem worthy song I’d never heard before. It tackles that same truth from the perspective of our real purpose. Instead of exhausting ourselves to earn the fleeting approval of the room, our song, our walk, and our obedience are meant for a Single Listener.
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🎵Aesop’s Fables Month: The Oak and The Reeds
The Illusion of Strength
There is a dangerous illusion that rigidity equals strength. We admire the towering, ancient oak that refuses to budge an inch before the wind, and we easily despise the slender reeds by the riverbank that bend low at every passing breeze. Yet when the true tempest arrives, the illusion of strength shatters and breaks. Last month, I shared the song “Strong Enough to Bend” in my post about the cliché Soft as a Kitten’s Ear. It fits this post as well, but I’m going with different music because the other side of breaking is when God Himself holds up a stop sign before you’ve consigned yourself to breakable rigidity.
Preventative Grace
“Oh my! How did you know that was my daddy’s favorite song?”
The tearful question came from family members of a man I had never met but whose daughter was a new friend who’d asked me to sing at her daddy’s funeral. Without knowing anything about the man, and out of hundreds of timeless hymns, I simply felt drawn to choose “In the Garden.” My song was not about applause or career advancement, it was about ministering to a grieving family huddled in sorrow in a small funeral home.
Looking back, that quiet holy moment revealed the true beauty of divine redirection. God had not wasted my voice when worldly stages slammed shut after failed auditions; He had simply preserved it to bring as a gift of comfort to the brokenhearted.
Over the years, there were multiple roadblocks whenever I came close to stepping into performance art as a career choice. Auditions derailed, opportunities vanished, and invisible walls went up suddenly. In the moment, those shut doors felt like bitter disappointment. But looking through the lens of preventative grace, I realize God was building a hedge of thorns around me. The entertainment world demands that you plant your roots deep like an unyielding oak, chasing applause and feeding an ego that eventually faces storms eager to snap it in two. God spared me from destruction by keeping me out of that harsh spotlight.
The Classic Fable Retold
In Aesop’s celebrated fable, an immense oak tree stood proudly along a riverbank, looking down with disdain upon the slender reeds growing in the shallows. “How pitiable you are,” mocked the mighty oak. “The faintest breeze forces you to bow in submission, while I stand unshakeable against the wildest gales of heaven.”
The quiet reeds made no defense. Soon after, a ferocious tempest tore across the valley. The proud oak dug in its roots and stiffened its massive boughs, determined to conquer the gale through sheer defiance. But the storm blew with unstoppable fury. Rigid and unable to yield, the ancient trunk splintered with a deafening crack, crashing violently into the mud. When the wind subsided, the fragile reeds gently rose upright along the water’s edge—soaked, yet completely unbroken because they had yielded to the storm.
The Broken Oak and Joseph’s Brothers
That shattered oak in the second panel of my artwork (The Result) finds its direct spiritual counterpart in the final frame (The Fulfillment): the prostrate brothers of Joseph. When young Joseph innocently shared his prophetic dreams of bowing sheaves, his brothers stiffened their necks in bitter defiance. Their towering pride refused to bend to God’s sovereign design, driving them to cast Joseph into a pit and sell him into Egyptian chains.
They believed their stubborn defiance had won. Yet decades later, when the fierce storm of famine swept the earth, their self-reliant strength snapped like that hollowed oak trunk. Brought to their knees by desperate hunger, they found themselves face-down on the cold stone floor of Pharaoh’s palace, bowing before the very brother they tried to destroy.
For them, pride went before their destruction. For Joseph, preventative grace held him back a few times—from going back to his father when his brothers sold him, from staying in his job at the palace when Pharaoh’s wife falsely accused him, and from getting out of prison when the other prisoners forgot to mention what they’d learned about him when they dwelt together. Yet, God’s providential hand turned Joseph’s brothers’ shattered rebellion into preservation after He raised Joseph higher at the perfect time. I blogged about this back in 2013 in my studies and commentary of the five books of Torah. That post is called The Cream Always Rises to the Top.
What God’s Word Has to Say…
Proverbs 16:18 (Berean Standard Bible)
18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
James 4:6 (Berean Standard Bible)
6 But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Genesis 50:20 (Berean Standard Bible)
20 As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this—to preserve the lives of many people.
Songs of a Yielded Voice
When we yield our gifts to God instead of demanding our own stage, He uses our voices for eternal comfort rather than temporary applause. Listen to these two songs that speak to the beauty of a humble walk with The Lord and of singing solely for His glory.
This presentation of “In The Garden” is beautiful and their YouTube page includes a link to a site called Music is God’s Gift. I don’t think I could’ve found a better version for this post even though I’ve shared the song before by other artists.
When I Sing for Him – Written by Dolly Parton and performed by Rydel Hernandez. I’ve never heard of her, but she does a mostly-good job. This was the only video I could find with the full lyrics, and there are some powerful ones in this song.
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🎵Aesop’s Fables Month: The Farmer and His Sons 🍇
This Fable Brought an Old Song to my Mind
Ever since I first heard the haunting ballad “One Tin Soldier”—famously featured in the 1971 movie Billy Jack (written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter; originally sung by the Canadian band Original Caste)—the moral has stayed deep in my bones. My mom and I both sang it often, and it brought tears whether we were singing or just listening to the 45 record. Its lyrics read like a raw, modern fable set to music: a peaceful mountain people willing to share a treasure hidden beneath a stone, and the greedy valley folk obsessed with taking it by force.
There were rumors of buried gold, and the valley wanted it all, and only for themselves. They waged war, slaughtered the peaceful mountain folk, and overturned the stone with high expectations:
“Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain dark and red;
Turned the stone and looked beneath it…
PEACE ON EARTH was all it said.”
They destroyed the innocent, compromised their souls, and threw away true peace in their pursuit of the illusion of sudden earthly riches. They were blind to the real treasure right before their eyes—a people who would welcome them as brethren with whom they would freely share. And while I know that every culture does not automatically welcome others into their fold like the people in the song, the murderous greed the valley people chose has always broken my spirit.
That tragic ballad touches on an urge as old as humanity: the destructive desire for easy, unearned shortcuts. Long before folk-rock warned us against the blinding madness of greed, Aesop gave us his own brilliant twist on the myth of buried gold. And from an article at the “American Literature” website (where you can find many Aesop’s Fables and other great stories), it may have come from Socrates originally.
The Fable: A Father’s Dying Secret
An aging farmer, nearing the end of his days, looked out over his sprawling vineyard. More than the failing vines, his heart ached for his two sons, who spent their days lounging in idle comfort, dreaming of effortless windfalls rather than engaging in honest toil. Knowing his time was short, he gathered them to his bedside.
“My sons,” the old man whispered, “there is a great treasure buried somewhere within the vineyard. Dig diligently, and you will find it.”
As soon as their father was laid to rest, the sons grabbed their spades. Spurred by visions of iron-bound chests and glittering gold coins, they attacked the hard, neglected ground. They overturned every clod of earth, cut trenches around the roots of every vine, and combed the hillside from corner to corner. Not a single coin appeared. Exhausted, blistered, and crestfallen, they dropped their tools, convinced their father had deceived them in his final breath.
Then autumn arrived. Because the hardened soil had been so thoroughly broken, aerated, and cultivated, the once-barren vineyard blossomed to life. Heavy clusters of grapes filled every formerly-empty trellis and produced a record-breaking harvest. Selling the abundant vintage at market, the brothers filled their pockets with honest coin. Only then did their father’s trickery reveal its quiet genius: the labor itself was the real treasure.
The Biblical Echo: Wealth by Steady Cultivation
Scripture consistently exposes the empty promise of sudden windfalls, pointing us instead toward the quiet honor of steady stewardship. In the book of Proverbs, Solomon cuts straight through the illusion:
Proverbs 13:11 BSB
11 Dishonest wealth will dwindle, but what is earned through hard work will be multiplied.
Proverbs 14:23 BSB
23 There is profit in all labor, but mere talk leads only to poverty.
God didn’t create the world to operate on lottery-ticket-style spirituality or get-rich-quick shortcuts to “blessings and prosperity.” That desire is fueled by the spirit of greed behind the love of money that Scripture says is the root of all evil. Instead, the “Peace on Earth” found beneath the mountain stone in the song is the prize of Godly contentment which Scripture says is great gain.
1 Timothy 6:6, 9 BSB
6 Of course, godliness with contentment is great gain.
9 Those who want to be rich, however, fall into temptation and become ensnared by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction.
A final note on the song: There are all kinds of opinions about who the “One Tin Soldier” actually is. The song was originally written for Woodstock before the Billy Jack movie, so I don’t think it was for that character. But growing up, I always thought it was about Jesus after He destroyed the wicked during the Battle of Armageddon. The words saying no trumpets would be blowing made me think it was because the ones that blew when Messiah returned were already done. And I saw that soldier as the one who would destroy the very greed that killed the mountain folk. Take a listen to the classic ballad with lyrics below to hear it for yourself and comment what you think the writers meant.
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Aesop’s Fables Month: The Crow and the Pitcher
If you know anything about me as a writer, you know I have a lot of dream projects—and a lot of words—waiting in the wings. I WANT to write them all at once, but that is simply not possible, so I’m forced to create one (often slow) word at a time. And like the crow in the story, it will be my thirst for success that keeps me writing even when staring at the sheer volume of unfinished drafts can feel paralyzing. I love how this ancient wisdom offers a quiet, enduring reminder of how seemingly impossible tasks can be conquered with a lot of determination and a little ingenuity.
The Classic Fable Retold
Parched and exhausted from a long dry spell, a solitary crow flew over scorched fields in search of water. Spotting a tall clay pitcher resting on the ground, he landed eagerly on the rim. Peering down, his heart sank. A small pool of cool water rested at the very bottom, but the narrow neck of the jug was far too slender for his head to reach.
He pecked stubbornly at the clay, but it would not crack. He threw his small weight against the side, but the heavy vessel did not budge. Desperation whispered that relief was right in front of him yet utterly out of reach. Then the crow paused. Scattered across the dry ground were small, smooth pebbles. Gathering one in his beak, he dropped it into the dark depths of the jar. A tiny splash answered, and the water shifted upward by a fraction of an inch.
He retrieved another stone, and then another. Flight by flight, drop by drop, he repeated the steady labor. He did not flood the vessel in a single sudden miracle; he simply refused to abandon the process. Slowly, the water climbed the narrow neck until it reached the brim, and the crow drank his fill.
Nature Proves the Legend
For generations, readers assumed most of Aesop’s tales were pure allegorical folklore. Modern science, however, proved that, in this fable, the ancient storyteller had captured real-world genius. In a famous laboratory study, animal behaviorists tested rooks—members of the corvid family alongside crows and ravens—with tall tubes of water containing floating treats just beyond their reach.
Without coaching, the birds immediately began selecting heavy stones and dropping them into the cylinders. They understood water displacement, deliberately choosing larger pebbles over smaller ones to raise the water level faster. What seemed like a charming fable turned out to be nature’s own blueprint for deliberate, calculated persistence when brute force fails.
Five Smooth Stones
Scripture records some famous moments of determination and ingenuity that brought powerful victory to God’s kingdom. We have the amazing craftsmen Bezalel and then Oholiab who God gifted with every ability they would need to create the wilderness tabernacle. We have the obedient and determined carpenter Noah who continued to build the ark despite many attacks and a very long timeline. (Beyond the Bible, the attraction in Williamstown, Kentucky, The Ark Encounter, is a great place to learn about everything that went into this feat of ingenuity.)
And then there’s the battle where small, smooth stones were prepared for an immovable barrier. When young David stepped into the Valley of Elah to face Goliath, King Saul tried to weigh him down with heavy armor and an oversized sword. David rejected the clumsy tools of conventional might. Instead, he knelt by the brook and carefully chose five smooth stones for his shepherd’s pouch.
I’ve heard many theories about why he chose five stones, including that Goliath had 4 brothers, but whatever his reasoning, David only needed one stone. With a thirst to see God honored and the disrespectful giant of Gath silenced, David stepped forward with a trust and a declaration of God’s might. It took only one well-aimed stone from his sling to bring Goliath crashing into the dirt.
One Word at a Time
Overcoming life’s towering giants demands unyielding faith, deliberate preparation, and the tenacity to follow through to the very end—even if we only fly with one stone at a time. And sometimes, it simply comes down to applying the fable’s classic moral: that our wits can accomplish what brute force never could, proving once again that “necessity truly is the mother of invention.”
When I sit down at my laptop, the blank page with its flashing cursor can loom like that narrow-necked pitcher. Impatience tells me that unless thousands of words pour out effortlessly in an afternoon, I am failing the call. But books are rarely written in a single sweep of lightning. They are built stone by stone, line by line, one steady sentence at a time.
Each quiet session at the keyboard is a pebble dropped into the jar. Every disciplined paragraph raises the waterline. When we silence the frantic urge to finish everything today and instead stay faithful to the single stone in front of us, the impossible barrier inevitably yields.
I’d love to hear how you can apply this task to your own life or spiritual walk. What are some dreams that seem impossible to reach, and what stones can you carry to raise the waterline?
Here are a few Bible verses that fit today’s theme of getting over those obstacles:
2 Corinthians 4:17 BSB
[17] For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond comparison.
James 1:3-4 BSB
[3] because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.
[4] Allow perseverance to finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Sometimes, it’s just some well-thought, spoken words that turn the tide on the seemingly impossible:
Matthew 15:27-28 BSB
[27] “Yes, Lord,” she said, “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
[28] “O woman,” Jesus answered, “your faith is great! Let it be done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
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Aesop’s Fables Month: The Lion and the Mouse
Being small, I’ve often been encouraged by idioms such as “Dynamite comes in small packages,” or “Big things come in little packages.” I may even have heard these as reminders after reading about the tiny but mighty mouse in tonight’s Aesop’s Fable. And to encourage you, dear reader, I’ve included some great events in history where individually small components came together to create huge victories.
See, we are conditioned to look upward when seeking rescue. We scan the horizon for anything massive and strong to deliver us. Deep pockets, big shoulders, or grand miracles. Yet time and again, the ancient wisdom of Aesop reminds us that the cords binding the mighty are rarely severed by giants; they are cut strand by strand by those the world deems too small to count.
The Classic Fable Retold
Dozing in the warmth of the afternoon sun, a great lion was startled awake when a tiny field mouse scurried across his nose. Annoyed, the king of the forest pinned the creature beneath a heavy paw, baring his teeth. The trembling mouse pleaded for mercy, crying, “Spare my life, great King, and one day I may repay the favor.” Amused by the sheer absurdity that a helpless rodent could ever aid the ruler of the wild, the lion laughed and let him go.
Days later, the lion found himself cornered. Snared in a heavy rope net that was set by hunters, his struggle and mighty roars only tightened the cords. Thrashing in vain against the coarse hemp, his pride and power collapsed into helpless exhaustion. Hearing those familiar, desperate bellows echoing through the brush, the tiny mouse returned. Setting his sharp teeth against the thickest knot, the little creature began to gnaw. Fiber by fiber, strand by strand, the mouse chewed until the mesh frayed, snapped, and set the mighty predator free.
Dunkirk: When Battleships Needed Dinghies
History proved Aesop’s point along the cold surf of France in the early summer of 1940. Over three hundred thousand elite Allied soldiers—the armored fist of an empire—were pinned against the beaches of Dunkirk. Behind them advanced the full fury of the German blitzkrieg; ahead of them lay the English Channel.
The mighty Royal Navy was paralyzed. Giant battleships and destroyers could not safely navigate the shallow, mine-choked waters, so it left them sitting ducks for aerial bombardment. The lion was cornered in a deadly net of geography and fire.
The rescue did not arrive in the form of a grand naval fleet. It came in a quiet, ragtag swarm of civilian wooden dinghies, weekend pleasure craft, paddle steamers, and shallow fishing boats. Manned by shopkeepers, elderly fishermen, and teenage boys, these little wooden “mice” crossed the smoking channel again and again. Reaching directly into the shallows where the war machines could not tread, they ferried hundreds of thousands to safety and altered the trajectory of the free world.
The March of Dimes: Deliverance in Pocket Change
A continent away, another towering giant was brought to its knees by an invisible predator. Polio was the scourge of summer, terrorizing communities and leaving thousands of children paralyzed in iron lungs. The full weight of modern medicine struggled in the dark, desperate for resources to unlock a viable vaccine.
The breakthrough was not bankrolled by a single corporate titan or a massive federal windfall. It was built by children. Across America, millions of ordinary families and school kids gave up their ice-cream money to mail single ten-cent coins directly to the White House. The mailrooms filled to overflowing, buried under mountains of tiny, silver offerings.
Those millions of individual, humble dimes funded Jonas Salk’s laboratory, broke the back of the epidemic, and eradicated the disease for generations to come. A nation’s crisis was resolved. And it wasn’t by a single strike of mighty power, but by the quiet power of the collective small.
Never Despise the Small Things
It is easy to look at the immense problems of our world, or even the heavy trials in our own lives, and feel hopelessly inadequate. We might convince ourselves that unless we possess immense wealth, high office, or grand influence, we have nothing valuable to bring to the fight.
Yet God rarely chooses the mighty to accomplish His deepest deliverances. He calls the willing. And, as the saying goes, “God doesn’t always call the equipped, but He always equips the called.” When circumstances leave the strong helpless and entangled, a quiet word of encouragement, a single small sacrifice, or steady, faithful labor can cut the very knot that held a giant bound.
Zechariah 4:10 BSB
[10] For who has despised the day of small things? But these seven eyes of the Lord, which scan the whole earth, will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.”
1 Corinthians 1:26-27 BSB
[26] Brothers, consider the time of your calling: Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were powerful; not many were of noble birth. [27] But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
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Aesop’s Fables Month: The Tortoise and The Hare 🐢🐇
The lesson of the Tortoise and the Hare is often told to children as a sweet reminder to be patient. Yet for those who have walked the disjointed roads of life with burdens strapped to their backs, the fable is far more than a moral on pacing—it is an anthem of stubborn, quiet endurance.
The Classic Fable Retold
In Aesop’s well-known contest, an arrogant Hare openly mocked the deliberate, plodding gait of the Tortoise. Amused by the idea of a mismatch, the Hare challenged him to a footrace across the country path. Confident that his natural gifts guaranteed an effortless win, the Hare sprinted far ahead, leaving a trail of dust in his wake. Certain that his competitor could never close the gap, he stretched out under the cool shade of a tree to sleep off his complacency.
The Tortoise possessed neither swift legs nor a cheering section. He simply understood the road before him and refused to stop. Step by deliberate step, bearing the weight of his shell, he pressed forward. When the Hare finally woke and bolted toward the finish line, he discovered that quiet, relentless perseverance had already claimed the prize.
The Fast Track and the Outsider
High school culture is built for the sprinters. The crowd naturally watches the teenagers who have the luxury of unbroken continuity—those who grow up on paved tracks with intact homes, long-standing neighborhood cliques, and the effortless momentum that carries them into student council, homecoming courts, and letterman jackets. For them, moving through the grades is as natural as running a straight line.
For a foster child, there is no paved track. Bouncing between homes meant bouncing between schools. Every transfer meant walking into unfamiliar hallways midway through the term, trying to catch up on lessons taught differently elsewhere, and knowing deep down that I didn’t fit into any of the tight-knit circles already established. My education became a patchwork of fragmented pieces gathered here and there.
Missing Records and the Weight of the Shell
The heaviest burden arrived through bureaucracy. When you are shifted through the system, paperwork doesn’t always follow. Key academic records were lost in transit, threatening to hold me back and force me to repeat ground I had already fought to cover. Following the standard track was no longer an advantage; it was an anchor designed to keep me behind.
I realized that waiting for the system to fix itself would only cost me time. So, like the tortoise carrying the weight of textbooks on its back, I stepped off their path and chose the self-directed route: studying for the GED.
There was no classroom support or guidance counselor paving the way. In the dry heat of Arizona, with the distant mountains framing the horizon, it was just me and a single tutor, multiple books, and the daily decision to keep going. I sat down and studied the material both with the tutor and late at night after moving to the safe space of my grandparents’ desert home. Subject by subject, we pre-tested until I was confident I’d pass.
Crossing the Line Early
When the test results arrived, the outcome shattered the expectations of the conventional track. While the passing requirement is 60-70%, and the average students barely scrape by with the minimum, my composite score across all subjects was 91%. The tutor was impressed yet unsurprised and encouraged me to believe in whatever I could become. More than that, taking ownership of my education allowed me to graduate six full months ahead of the very peers who had started with every social and systemic advantage. Sadly, GED on a job application doesn’t get many callbacks even with a great score.
But as a funny aside here: One of the schools I attended was while I was at the girls’ home I’ve talked about before. Now, it’s called “Aviva Center” but then it was called “Hamburger Home.” And, yes, I applied to a McDonald’s for work, and yes I listed last high school attended as “Hamburger High School.” And, no, they never called me. 🤣
The race of life is rarely won by unearned speed or easy starts. Privilege may offer a sprint out of the gate, but character, grit, and faith are forged by the plodders who refuse to quit when the hill gets steep. I’m still on that hill in many ways, and I’m thankful for the tutors and encouragers I’ve had along the path. Someday, I hope you’ll all share the joy of the finish line with me when I publish at least two children’s books, two novels, a memoir, and a book of poetry. 📚
Ecclesiastes 9:11 BSB
[11] I saw something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; neither is the bread to the wise, nor the wealth to the intelligent, nor the favor to the skillful. For time and chance happen to all.
Hebrews 12:1 BSB
[1] Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us.
2 Timothy 4:7 BSB
[7] I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
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Cliché Month: Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch 🐣
by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
We can’t have a post about chickens and eggs without asking the age old question, right? So what do you think came first?
The babysitter I mentioned in the “Giddy Goat” post also had chickens. It was the first time I ever saw eggs sort of x-rayed (called egg candling). They had this tray they’d put all the eggs in and shine light through it, so they knew which eggs had baby chicks in them. I love to eat eggs, and I’m really glad they have a way to not harm a growing baby in the shell just so I can have breakfast.
The Peril of Premature Calculations
But having one of those egg lights still isn’t a guarantee of what you’ll be getting when the eggs hatch because not all of them make it. And if any get dropped and break, then no matter what’s inside, it’s no longer new life or breakfast.
But haven’t we all caught ourselves doing that at least once—mentally spending a tax refund before the return is filed, rehearsing an acceptance speech before the judges deliberate, or daydreaming about any number of things before we know what reality will bring? Apparently, this happened a whole lot during the California gold rush in the mid 1800s. While many “forty-niners” began their journeys with big dreams, more often than not, they were just hard workers earning very little profit.
But a few really did strike it rich, so it continually fueled hope for others. Human nature loves to dream ahead because hope is a powerful driver, but when optimism borders on certainty, the enduring English proverb steps in: “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”
I hadn’t realized it until writing this post, but I sort of acted this cliché out in a literal sense when I was a very young adult. I was living in a super small apartment and working part-time for minimum wage. Each week, I had about $10 to spend on groceries. I would push my cart around the supermarket once to put everything in I thought I might want, and then go around a second time to remove everything I couldn’t afford. At least I didn’t wait to calculate until I was at the register, but just putting more than I could afford into my cart was counting my chickens in a way.
From Tudor Proverb to Aesop’s Fable
While calculating in grocery aisles or dreaming of gold strikes is universally human, the literal poultry phrasing took root in 16th-century England. English writer Thomas Howell recorded the earliest known version in his 1570 collection New Sonets and Pretie Pamphlets, cautioning: “Counte not thy Chickens that vnhatched be.” A few years later, in 1579, Thomas North used it in The Diall of Princes, writing that it was foolish to “make reconyng before the chickens were hatched.”
Nearly a century later, in 1664, poet Samuel Butler immortalized the lines in his famous mock-heroic epic Hudibras:
“To count their chickens, ere they’re hatch’d;
— Samuel Butler, Hudibras (1664)
And calculate what they’re worth.”
Long before English poets turned it into a rhyming warning, the moral core of this cliché was born in the world of Aesop’s Fables. The concept comes directly from the classic tale “The Milkmaid and Her Pail.” As the young farm girl walks along with a pail of milk on her head, she daydreams about selling the milk to buy eggs, hatching those eggs into a flock of chickens, and selling the birds to buy a fancy gown. But when she tosses her head in pride, the pail crashes down—leaving her with no milk and no chickens to count.
Balancing Vision with Wisdom
There is a sizable difference between having visionary faith and making presumptuous plans. Scripture actually addresses this balance in James 4, reminding us to hold our timelines with humility:
James 4:13-15 BSB
[13] Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.” [14] You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. [15] Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.”
Proverbs 27:1 echoes a similar encouragement:
Proverbs 27:1 BSB
[1] Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.
Where Have You “Counted Your Chicks”?
Think back on your own experiences:
- Maybe you headed out for the day without preparing for getting back home by making sure you had enough gas or maybe return bus fare.
- Or you celebrated a game-night lead just minutes before an opponent pulled off a surprise comeback.
- Or, maybe like me, you filled a shopping cart with wish-list items before doing the math at the checkout. I know I’m not alone there from the people I’ve seen digging in pockets and purses for change.
Share your favorite near-misses in the comments below.
Looking Ahead: Stepping into Aesop’s Fables for September!
This post officially brings our daily August journey through clichés and idioms to a close! But my love for timeless wisdom is just getting started.
Starting tomorrow, September 1st, I’m dedicating the entire month to Aesop’s Fables. I’ll be expanding on the full story behind that daydreaming milkmaid, kicking off day one by exploring the fable’s other famous takeaway: why it does no good to cry over spilled milk! 🥛✨
Thank you for following along every day in August. Get ready for talking animals, clever twists, and rich moral lessons all through September!
A Parting Riddle
To send August out with a chuckle…
Why do baby chickens make terrible secret agents?
Because they always crack under pressure! 🐣🔍
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🎵Cliché Month: Don’t Make a Mountain Out of a Molehill🌋
Sometimes, It IS a Mountain
Too many times, this cliché has been used to make people feel like their issues are small or unimportant. Like the time when I was nine and had to go to the ER for a tetanus shot because we thought I stepped on a rusty map pin. Apparently, at least one sewing needle got mixed with the spilled map pins, so it turned out that I had a full-size sewing needle in my little girl foot.
Had they done an X-ray instead of deciding I was making something out of nothing (another way to state this cliché), I wouldn’t have needed surgery six weeks later to clean out the beginnings of gangrene. The doctor told us that if we had waited just three more days before coming in, he would have been gone on a three-week vacation and returned only to amputate my foot. It wasn’t a molehill at all; it was a very real mountain.
Making Everything into Mountains
The extended problem of not being listened to way back then created a lifetime of fearing that little things were bigger than they appeared. It held me back from sharing my true feelings because I anticipated bigger or worse reactions. And it intimidated me into missing out on who knows how many experiences because I was worried about outcomes that may never have come to pass.
When you learn early on that a real crisis can be brushed aside, you naturally start holding a magnifying glass up to every bump in the road, bracing for the worst.
The Real Meaning and Use of This Cliché
The phrase itself has ancient roots. Long before English speakers talked about moles, ancient Greeks and Romans warned against “making an elephant out of a fly” (ex musca elephantem facis). The English idiom emerged in the 16th century, appearing in Nicholas Udall’s 1548 translation of Erasmus and John Foxe’s 1570 Acts and Monuments as a reminder not to “make of a molehyll a mountayne.”
The true wisdom of the proverb was never meant to invalidate legitimate pain or silence genuine warnings. It is simply a reminder to examine our perspective when anxiety rises and tries to rob us of peace. It’s to bring us to a stop, look, and listen moment because fear exaggerates reality. With a few deep breaths and a second look at our situation, we can avoid turning everyday friction into insurmountable peaks.
God’s Word Brings Peace (And Boldness)
The following verse uses the word fear in almost every translation, but a better word for its original meaning would be timidity. God is not the one who holds us back and makes us doubt moving forward. He actually wants us to be bold and strong.
2 Timothy 1:7 Berean Standard Bible
[7] For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.
2 Tim 1:7 (BSB)
To help us have confidence to boldly assess our hills (and mountains), He gives us soundness of mind and the clarity to discern the difference—acknowledging real mountains when faith is needed to climb them, while having the peace to step over the everyday molehills without fear.
And even if we are facing a true mountain, we never face it alone.
Isaiah 41:10 Berean Standard Bible
[10] Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will surely help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:10 (BSB)
And the very best way to avoid turning the molehills in life into mountains that seem insurmountable is to look away from the dirt and look up to Our Savior and Creator. This song is a wonderful worship song for refocusing:
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Cliché Month: A Bird in the Hand (is Worth two in the Bush)
The first time I saw the letters “FOMO,” I remember thinking how it seemed impossible for enough people to clamor for a coveted thing to be worthy of its own acronym. As a mostly-contented person, it didn’t feel like I could ever fear missing out. But I was only basing that on “stuff,” so I hadn’t realized all the fears that come into play over missing out on things like attention, approval, acceptance, etc. And social media, with all its reactions and love hearts is only making it worse.
But Scripture says it this way…
[6] Of course, godliness with contentment is great gain.
[7] For we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot carry anything out of it. [8] But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.
1 Tim 6.6-8 (BSB)
But how to be content with what we have in both tangible and intangible items is its own battle. And it is an old battle based on the history of this cliché.
Few proverbs have stood the test of human history quite like the timeless reminder that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. For centuries, this folk wisdom has warned us against abandoning the blessings right in front of us to chase elusive prizes rustling just out of reach. While its roots trace through ancient fables and medieval falconry, the deeper spiritual truth it touches on is one our restless hearts constantly need: the power of present contentment.
From Falconry Gloves to Faithful Hearts
In medieval England, the phrase held a literal meaning for falconers. The “bird in the hand” was the trained raptor perched securely on the hunter’s leather glove—a prized, reliable partner. The “two in the bush” were the wild game birds hiding in the brambles. To risk the valuable bird already secured for the mere chance at wild quarry was pure folly. In 1546, John Heywood recorded the sentiment in print, cementing the idea that what is held and nurtured is always worth more than the illusion of the unknown.
In our daily lives, however, human nature tends to do the exact opposite. We focus on the rustling in the bushes—the opportunities we missed, the resources we wish we had, or the uncertain future we cannot control—while neglecting the quiet blessings resting right in our open palms.
“What Is That in Your Hand?”
When Moses stood before the burning bush in Exodus 4, full of fear and insecurity about the massive calling ahead of him, God did not hand him a grand army or an elaborate new treasure. Instead, the Lord asked a simple question: “What is that in your hand?”
All Moses held was an ordinary, weathered shepherd’s staff. A stick! In Moses’ view, it was just a humble tool of daily labor. It wasn’t anything flashy or extraordinary, yet God demonstrated amazing power when He touched that staff and Moses obeyed God’s direction.
When we stop obsessing over what we lack and instead surrender what is already in our grip, He can do the same for us; turn the ordinary into an instrument of His power and grace. Faithful stewardship begins when we look at what God has already entrusted to our care and commit to using it according to His will and plans.
Resting in the Watchful Eye
In Matthew 6, YahShua (Jesus) points us directly to the birds of the air to teach us the antidote to anxiety. They don’t sow or reap. They don’t have storehouses full of provisions. Yet their heavenly Father feeds every single one and never takes His watchful eye off of them—even when they fall. If God interacts this way with the sparrows among the branches, we can be confident that He will do even greater things in His interactions with us. After all, YahShua Himself said we are worth more than many sparrows.
King Solomon, in Proverbs 15, says it this way…
Proverbs 15:16-17 Berean Standard Bible:
[16] Better a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure with turmoil.
[17] Better a dish of vegetables where there is love than a fattened ox with hatred.
Prov 15:16-17 (BSB)
True peace is not found in owning everything or scrambling after every bird in every tree. It is found in cupping our hands in gratitude as God sends provision our direction. Cherishing the daily blessings God has placed before us will allow His peace to fill the spaces where worry used to dwell. A bird or an education; a typewriter or a pencil; multiple talents or just one thing you do with heart: God can take what He has given you and make it exceedingly abundant above all you can ask or even think. So, for this day, look at what’s in your hand from The Lord with total focus; more than on all the desires outside of your grasp. He can and will do more than whatever you can imagine.
1 Corinthians 2:9 BSB
[9] Rather, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.”
1 Cor 2:9(BSB)
As I put this together, I couldn’t help but think of the following hymn:
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🎬Cliché Month: (don’t) Follow Your Heart 💓
Follow Your Heart?
Have you ever followed your heart only to have it lead you someplace you didn’t expect to go? Maybe you thought you were following true love. Maybe a religious experience turned out to be a little too much like a cult instead of being Bible based. Maybe you were totally certain you were supposed to go to a certain school, job, or address and all the promises fell flat.
Few platitudes are as universally celebrated as “follow your heart.” You’ll find it in graduation cards, you’ll hear animated heroines speak it as a mantra, and Hollywood pushes it as the way to fulfill your dreams. On the surface, it sounds empowering. But beneath the romanticism, there’s an uncomfortable truth: our hearts (emotions) are fickle, easily swayed, and often terrible navigators. Even God’s Word says our hearts are so deceitful that we can’t even know them ourselves.
Jeremiah 17:9 WEBUS
[9] The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it?
https://bible.com/bible/206/jer.17.9.WEBUS
Danger and Deceit
This is the danger of following your heart. Even though we’re told things like, “The heart knows what it wants,” or “Listen to your heart,” those efforts often lead us to a broken heart or into hopeless depression. And why? Because they mix up emotional desires with being led through this life by our loving Creator. Only the Spirit of The One who made us can lead to the places He planned and designed for us. Every other direction is hit and miss. Maybe it will lead to someplace great; maybe not. John Bevere speaks on this in his message: “Breaking Intimidation.” He says things of the soul can imitate things of The Spirit.
The affiliate link above is for the book at Amazon, and I’m not certain if that portion is in the book or only on CD, so I asked Microsoft Copilot for a summary of that portion of the message. Here’s that summary…
John Bevere warns that the soul (mind/will/emotions) can imitate the Spirit, creating impulses that feel right, sound noble, and even look “spiritual,” yet still come from human desire rather than God. He uses John the Baptist as the example: everything about his priestly family line suggested a respectable ministry path, but the Spirit led him into the wilderness instead—camel hair, locusts, and a calling no one expected. Bevere’s point is simple and sharp: following your heart is often just following your soul, and the soul, no matter how sincere, “cannot receive the things of the Spirit.” True direction comes from the Spirit, even when it contradicts what seems good.
1 Corinthians 2:14 BSB
[14] The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/1co.2.14.BSB
The Romantic Rebellion
The belief that our inner feelings are the ultimate moral compass took root during the late 18th-century Romantic Era. Poets and philosophers, who reacted against the cold rationality of the Industrial Age, argued that personal passion and raw emotion were inherently pure. Over the 20th century, pop psychology and modern individualism cemented the idea that it was unhealthy to suppress our desires. They suggested that trusting immediate emotional impulses was the highest form of self-discovery.
An Ancient Warning
Long before modern cinema made the human heart into the hero of every story, ancient wisdom urged caution with yielding to wild emotions. In classical philosophy, Plato illustrated the human soul as a charioteer (Reason) struggling to manage two horses—one noble, and the other a wild, rebellious appetite that was “the mate of insolence and pride… hardly yielding to whip and spur.”
Scripture provides more anchors against letting blind, emotional trust lead us to places of destruction or depression:
Proverbs 4:23 BSB
[23] Guard your heart with all diligence, for from it flow springs of life.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/pro.4.23.BSB
Proverbs 3:5-6 BSB
[5] Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; [6] in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/pro.3.5-6.BSB
Rather than letting unchecked desires drag us toward a fire, wisdom calls us to tether our hearts to truth, discernment, and sound guidance.
Leading Your Heart
In the 2008 film Fireproof, there is a pivotal conversation between Caleb and his friend (and boss) Michael that perfectly dismantles this platitude. When Caleb tells Michael he is “in” with The Lord and wants some faith advice, Michael gets very excited. He calls Caleb his brother (but you gotta hear how he says it 😁) and then gives great big-brother-type advice:
“And don’t just follow your heart, man, because your heart can be deceived; but you’ve got to lead your heart.”
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🎵Cliché Month: Soft as a Kitten’s Ear 🐯
Whispers, Paws, and Unexpected Comfort
There is an unmatched texture in the natural world that immediately melts away tension: the delicate, velvety warmth of a kitten’s ear. It isn’t just soft like fabric, it’s alive and pulsing with gentle warmth. Pair that with the low, rhythmic hum of a cat’s purr—a soothing frequency that scientists say closely mimics the calming auditory comfort a baby hears in utero—and your defenses don’t stand a chance.
Our feline companions have an uncanny intuition for when our hearts are tender. Years ago, I had a sweet boy who was my constant shadow. Charlie always curled tight against my side whenever I would lie down. But there was great comfort in being pinned into place while we both slept.
When liver failure took him from me, my grief sent me to bed in the early afternoon. But then something remarkable happened. As I laid down, our other cat Abbie, who had always been a bit aloof with me and attached to my husband, walked quietly into the room, hopped up, and settled into the exact spot beside me where Charlie used to rest. I mean, the exact posture and everything! It’s like she knew I needed that spot filled just exactly the way Charlie used to fill it, and she held that quiet vigil until I fell asleep. Animals simply know when to offer grace without saying a single word.
From the Dry Goods Counter to the Nursery
We often treat toughness and tenderness as opposing forces, but true strength is almost always anchored in love. When we look back at the grit of the historic night riders from yesterday’s post—like my GG Great Grandfather John Wisdom, “The Paul Revere of the South”—it’s easy to focus solely on the sheer endurance of galloping sixty-seven miles through the dark. But the driving motivation behind that ride wasn’t just cold military duty; it was personal. His mother lived in Rome Georgia, and a son’s fierce love for his mama fueled every mile of that daring journey.
That is why the old idiom “soft as a kitten’s ear” carries deeper feeling than phrases like “soft as silk” or “soft as velvet.” Before the creation of synthetic microfibers, people measured comfort against the living world around them. While high-society writers favored imported silks, everyday speech favored the warmth of the hearth; the down on a baby chick; the fleece of a lamb; and the delicate fur of a newborn kitten.
By the early-to-mid 20th century, American department stores and textile mills grabbed the phrase for their advertising. Print ads for blanket makers like Chatham and St. Marys frequently pitched virgin-wool crib blankets and layette flannels as “soft as a kitten’s ear and warm as a mother’s hug.” Copywriters knew that comparing a fabric to an animal’s ear evoked something a bolt of woven silk never could: living, breathing warmth, gentle vulnerability, and total safety.
The Courage to Remain Tender
Living in this harsh, fast-paced world tempts us to build thick walls around our hearts. After enough disappointments and griefs, it feels safer to become distant and untouchable. But God never intended for our souls to become frozen. In Ezekiel 36:26, He makes the beautiful promise to remove our hearts of stone and give us responsive, living hearts of flesh—soft, beating, and capable of deep empathy.
Ezekiel 36:26 BSB
[26] I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/ezk.36.26.BSB
It takes real spiritual courage to stay tenderhearted because it means being willing to feel deeply and to let God’s gentle peace soothe our rough edges. While we need the spiritual equivalent of the layered oak hull of Old Ironsides to navigate life’s stormy seas, we must make sure the Holy Spirit is the most important layer. Never lose the warmth within. Make your convictions firm, but keep your spirit soft as a kitten’s ear.
In closing, if I haven’t mentioned it before (or if I have) I am really getting a lot from the book Bold and Broken by David and Jason Benham. (Affiliate link included.) And there’s an older country song that carries this message beautifully called Strong Enough to Bend by Tanya Tucker…
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Cliché Month: Tough As Old Ironsides
Boston Echoes
Over 35 years ago, the company I worked for assigned me within an hour of downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Standing in the historic heart of Boston has a way of resetting your perspective on the American story. When I took a tour of the city, history stopped being a hard-to-recall page in a textbook and became something real and memorable. I learned that the famous Battle of Bunker Hill was actually fought mostly on Breed’s Hill, and I got up close to the USS Constitution, the ship later dubbed Old Ironsides because of its resilience in battle. And because August 19th is “Old Ironsides Day,” it seemed the perfect day for this cliché.
Later, I stood captivated inside the Old North Church, where the acoustics let the soaring notes of a live violin echo right into my soul. That was part of the tour because of the famous Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.
Most of us picture Revere sitting in the window swinging lanterns, but he was actually the strategist on the ground! It was church sexton Robert Newman who crept up all 154 stairs to hang the two lanterns—”one if by land, two if by sea” —sending Revere galloping into the night.
That kind of courage has found its way into other historical events, and in my family, into our genealogy. In my family tree, my ancestor John Wisdom became known as “The Paul Revere of The South.” In May 1863, he rode nearly 67 miles through the dark from Gadsden, Alabama, to Rome, Georgia—swapping out exhausted horses along the way—to sound the alarm and save the city’s vital bridges and ironworks. Whether in Massachusetts or Georgia, history is forged by people willing to ride into battle and risk their own safety to protect others.
The Oak, the Copper, and the Broadside
That same resilience brings us to the harbor, where the USS Constitution still rests. On August 19, 1812, during a fierce battle against the British frigate HMS Guerriere, sailors watched in disbelief as 18-pound cannonballs shot by the enemy struck her hull and bounced harmlessly into the water. A sailor famously shouted, “Huzza! Her sides are made of iron!”—and the nickname “Old Ironsides” was born.
Her sides weren’t iron, of course; they were three dense layers of resilient white oak and southern live oak. But what held that indestructible wooden fortress together? None other than Paul Revere’s foundry, which forged the heavy copper bolts and spikes that pinned her hull planks tight under fire. Decades later, when the ship was slated for scrapping, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. penned his stirring poem Old Ironsides, rallying the public and cementing “Tough as Old Ironsides” into American slang for anyone built to take life’s hardest hits without breaking.
Taking the Hit and Standing Fast
Life has a habit of firing unexpected volleys. Hard news, sudden changes, and emotional friction can feel like a heavy iron shot headed straight for our hearts. Our natural instinct is often to retreat or fracture under the impact, but God designed us with holy durability as long as He is part of the layering.
2 Corinthians 4:7-9 BSB
[7] Now we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this surpassingly great power is from God and not from us.
[8] We are hard pressed on all sides, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;
[9] persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/2co.4.7-9.BSB
But spiritual toughness isn’t about being cold or unfeeling; it’s about what holds your frame together when the sea gets rough. When your life is anchored in faith and covered in grace, the enemy’s fiery darts and the world’s heavy blows simply bounce off. Hold fast to your course, stand firm in His strength, and trust that in Christ, you really are like the companion cliché to the one above: Tough As Nails. 🛠️
My thanks to Google’s Gemini for much of this history, and to Ancestry for the connections to my Great Great Great Grandfather.
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Cliché Month: When the Cat’s Away, the Mice Will Play 🐈⬛🐁
We Love Our Black “Galaxy” Kitty
In honor of National Black Cat Appreciation Day, I couldn’t help but think about how our sleek, shadowed feline companions get a bad reputation—mostly as symbols of superstition. But if you’ve ever known a black cat, especially a tuxedo cat, you know how not-scary they actually are.
Currently, we have a black feral who won’t come in the house, won’t sit on our laps, and gets a bit haughty if she sees us feed another neighborhood cat, but she lives here most of the time. We call her Galaxy because of the white cluster of fur on her chest, sort of like a spinning space galaxy. She likes to be scritched, and sometimes, she will even jump up on the front porch glider and sit close (but not too close) while “making biscuits” in the air. We feel a strong victory when we get her to enjoy our company like that.
But When The Cat’s Away…
The core sentiment of this cliché originated in medieval Latin: “Dum felis dormit, mus gaudet et exsilit antro” (“When the cat sleeps, the mouse leaves its hole, rejoicing”). By the early 14th century, the French had framed it as “Ou chat na rat regne” (“Where there is no cat, the rat is king”), emphasizing the immediate shift in control. In 1599, William Shakespeare referenced the concept in Henry V, pointing out that an unguarded territory invites chaos by “playing the mouse in absence of the cat.”
The common denominator is, of course, that the mouse is very happy to have the house (or castle) all to itself. And after our last indoor cat left to cross the rainbow bridge in January of 2023, we experienced exactly what happens when you have no cats and a closed storage room with a window. (Actually, we still don’t know where they got in.)
After that experience, I’ve thought very strongly about getting another indoor cat to dissuade any new critters from moving in during the cold winter, but thankfully, we haven’t seen evidence of them for awhile.
What Kinds of People Play Cat and Mouse Games?
Real character isn’t proven when authority is standing in the room taking notes; it’s proven in the unchecked moments when nobody is looking over our shoulder. What we are on the inside will eventually come out in our words and our behaviors. Scripture says…
Luke 6:45 BSB
[45] The good man brings good things out of the good treasure of his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil treasure of his heart. For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/luk.6.45.BSB
Mice may be small, but they make big choices to invade, chew, nest, and poop (yuck) when they think they can get away with it. Some people also make big choices in the abundance of little things they do without caring how they affect the big picture. I think it’s actually that big-picture care that speaks most about the integrity of a person.
I found so many quotes about integrity and character, that I could never share them all with you. But here are a few I like:
“Character is built by thousands of small choices.”
“Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.” — Thomas Paine
“Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.” — H. Jackson Brown Jr.
The Apostle Paul spoke of character to the Ephesian slaves (working class) in how they should obey their bosses…
Ephesians 6:6-7 BSB
[6] And do this not only to please them while they are watching, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.
[7] Serve with good will, as to the Lord and not to men,
https://bible.com/bible/3034/eph.6.6-7.BSB
But God Even Loves the Mice
My annual Bible study has had me in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah this week, and I’ve been amazed at the progression of the people as they learn about God’s law and about His grace. They’ve been in bondage due to sin and ignorance, so someone finds the Torah and begins reading it to the people. Many are moved to begin obeying it. This is followed by testimony of all the ways the people have abandoned The Lord and how, when things went bad, they would come back to Him. And what did He do? Over and over again, He forgave them and provided ways for them to come back into His holy presence.
There were some that just refused to be changed, whether by the law or by grace, and they made the prophet so angry that he beat them. But that’s an effect a person with no integrity can have on a person with integrity. They can push your buttons until you feel like pulling your hair out, or doing like the prophet and pulling out their hair. And when their lack of caring causes them to reject The Almighty, it feels even worse.
In case you want to see what The Bible Project says about these 2 Bible books, here’s their message on that subject:
But the goal of personal and spiritual growth is self-governance: deciding for and in ourselves that we WANT to do the right thing simply because it IS the right thing. We move beyond the fear of whether the “cat” is home or away, and we treat every moment as if we want to make the “cat” happy and proud. And we grasp the reality that God knows our (mouse) form and yet He still loves and forgives us. Now that’s a reason to get excited that we have freedom and time to play.
Psalm 103:14 BSB
[14] For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/psa.103.14.BSB
I’ll wrap up with these encouraging words from Hebrews…
Hebrews 4:14-16 BSB
[14] Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we profess. [15] For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin. [16] Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/heb.4.14-16.BSB
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Cliché Month: A Walk in the Park
Sometimes, a day or an effort may seem super easy. Other times, what we’re asked to do can be excruciatingly difficult. But no matter how easy or difficult it is, the one thing we don’t want is for someone else to think it will work the same for us as it does for them.
For example, an experienced baker may be asked to do something that, for them, is literally as easy as pie. If you asked me to bake a pie, I could do it, but it may or may not be easy. If I make an easy pie, it is usually a no bake something with a cream cheese filling and a graham cracker crust. 😋
Still, most of us have had moments that could be called a walk in the park. We often use that phrase to describe something effortless, easy, and free of any stress at all. We can see ourselves skipping through the task like we would skip through a park filled with greenery, beauty, sunshine, and even a light Spring breeze. 🏞️
Where Did “A Walk in the Park” Come From?
The idiom emerged in American English during the early-to-mid 20th century. Urban public parks were originally designed as tranquil, landscaped escapes from crowded, noisy industrial city streets. Because strolling down a level, paved park path required virtually no exertion or hazard, the phrase naturally evolved into slang for any task that was delightfully easy or uncomplicated.
The Path of Real Peace
Though our daily responsibilities are rarely effortless, we don’t have to carry the fatigue alone. 1 Peter, Chapter 5, puts it this way:
1 Peter 5:7 BSB
[7] Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/1pe.5.7.BSB
Stepping onto God’s path and walking with Him allows us to trade our striving for His steady guidance and true restoration:
Psalm 23:2-3 BSB
[2] He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.
[3] He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for the sake of His name.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/psa.23.2-3.BSB
May your steps be light, unhurried, and peaceful today. 🕊️👣
I’m a little sleepy today, so I got a little more help from Gemini. It’s starting to write more like me, but I still read and edit carefully like I would do in a human collaboration. Still, it was very helpful tonight.
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🎵Cliché Month: Stop and Smell the Roses 🌹
It seems like everything is a rush and a hurry these days. The chaos of trying to do all, be all, and have all keeps us striving on a regular basis. But does it bring the results we truly long for, like contentment and peace and happiness? And if not, how do we get there?
I think taking a detour that leads to someplace beautiful could be a great start.
Where Did “Stop and Smell the Roses” Come From?
While the sentiment feels timeless and like we’ve been hearing it forever, this modern idiom is often traced—not so far back—to professional golfer Walter Hagen. In his 1956 autobiography, The Walter Hagen Story, he wrote a famous piece of advice: “You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way.”
I guess many people’s favorite flowers are roses, so over the decades, popular culture refined “the flowers” into “the roses.” Eventually, it turned into a universal shorthand for slowing down to appreciate the blessing of the present and whatever is going on in the moment. Even though my favorite flower is the carnation, somehow Stop and smell the carnations doesn’t have the same ring to it. 😉
It’s a Blessing to Focus on What Matters
When the pace of life becomes overwhelming, stopping isn’t just about freezing in place; it is an intentional act of redirecting our thoughts toward sensing all the goodness around us. Thinking, seeing, hearing, touching, and smelling all take just enough time to help us focus on the moment. King David needed a break like this during his time of exile:
Psalm 143:5-6 BSB
[5] I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your works; I consider the work of Your hands. [6] I stretch out my hands to You; my soul thirsts for You like a parched land. Selah
https://bible.com/bible/3034/psa.143.5-6.BSB
Taking that mental detour allows us to shift our gaze from the chaos of our schedules to the steady faithfulness of our Almighty Creator.
Releasing the Worry of the Rush
Much of our rushing is driven by the anxious belief that if we don’t hold everything together ourselves, things will fall apart. Anxiety isn’t just a topic on commercials advertising some new pharmaceutical relief; it’s a very real part of many lives. Even Christians with all the reasons in life to be at peace often struggle.
I don’t think I’ve shared yet about my diagnosis of severe PTSD (found when I was tested for Adult ADHD), but it has had effects on my health and in getting things done more than once. At the same time, I feel that God has given me experiences to recall and meditate on to bring balance. One of those was a trip to Niagara Falls almost 30 years ago. And it’s a story about the falls themselves that builds my peace and trust in The Lord.
Niagara Falls Erosion and Geology tells about the cracks that led to a couple major collapses at the American Falls with the major one in 1954 taking chunks of the viewing platform and railings at Prospect Point.
On my visit, I heard the story, so when I looked over the edges and saw the piled chunks of cement with pieces of the old railings sticking out, it made it very real for me. What makes it have balance is knowing how the falls became so much stronger as that collapse leaned against the crestline of the American Falls that still stands firm. And not only strength, but white water beauty was added to the scene as well.
Jesus reminds us that He is The One who governs our lives and plans to bring strength and beauty from them as well. And He gives us reason to lean into Him instead of collapsing into worry and grasping with white knuckles a railing that may not promise the safety we seek. He says…
Luke 12:25-27 BSB
[25] Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? [26] So if you cannot do such a small thing, why do you worry about the rest? [27] Consider how the lilies grow: They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/luk.12.25-27.BSB
If God clothes the delicate petals of a bloom with such care, we can safely pause our striving and trust Him with our days and our moments—and with our whole lives.
An Invitation to Rest in YahShua
Ultimately, pausing to notice beauty clears away the mental clutter at least long enough to hear our Savior speak. He speaks most in His written Word, so while you’re stopped to sense the blessings around you, pick up a Bible and find great and precious promises to give you new strength:
Matthew 11:28 BSB
[28] Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
https://bible.com/bible/3034/mat.11.28.BSB
Whether it is literally taking a beat to stop and breathe deeply while you walk in a garden, or simply turning your heart toward quiet gratitude in the middle of a busy week, don’t forget to take a pause today. What is one small, beautiful thing you can stop and appreciate right now?
Something I appreciate is really good song lyrics. This song by Hillary Scott & The Scott Family came from a cave-in (loss of a baby by miscarriage) in her own life. May the lyrics speak to you, readers, as you need them.
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🎵Cliché Month: The Left Hand Didn’t Know What the Right Hand was Doing
by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
I didn’t grow up attending a parochial school where students had their knuckles slapped for writing with their left hands, though even if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered for me since I’m thoroughly right-handed. In fact, I only crossed paths with a few left-handers throughout my life until I met my husband, a born-and-bred southpaw. (And, no, right-handers are not called northpaws.🤔)
With August 13th marking International Left-Handers Day, it felt like the perfect opportunity to celebrate him and his unique trait that belongs to only about 10 to 12 percent of the world’s population. It also got me thinking about how much strange, unfair baggage has been historically tied to the left side—and the famous clichés and idioms that followed.
In everyday work and planning, we all know the frustration when the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing. Tasks stall, wires cross, and you end up in a full-blown tug-of-war with your own to-do list. Scripture even reminds us of the practical necessity of coordination—nobody builds a tower without first sitting down to count the cost and make sure all efforts pull in the same direction.
“For which of you, wishing to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost to see if he has the resources to complete it? Otherwise, if he lays the foundation and is unable to finish the work, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was unable to finish.’”
Luke 14:28–30 (BSB)
Yet Scripture also offers a brilliant paradox in Matthew: when it comes to quiet generosity, we are instructed not to let the left hand know what the right hand is doing. In character, humility means doing good without staging a self-congratulatory parade.
“But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,”
Matthew 6:3 (BSB)
We truly need both: the intentional coordination where both hands work as a unified team, and the quiet integrity where one hand acts without demanding applause from the other.
Here’s to giving our left hands a little extra appreciation—and making sure both hands stay in sync. How about you: are you a left-hander, or married to one like me? Or maybe both? 🤲
P.S. A fun FYI for you: There’s an old trick I learned from a kid’s album many (many) years ago. If you hold your hands out in front of you with the palms facing away, when you extend your thumb to a ninety-degree angle, your left hand will create the letter “L.” Is that cool, or what?
This is a fun song with a catchy chorus, but I couldn’t find it with lyrics. Still, this is a pretty amazing ensemble singing in this video.
with Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Brenda Lee, Kris Kristopherson, and Willie Nelson
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