Minute Meditations

Have you ever watched a bear begging for peanuts at the zoo? Have you observed the endless pacing back and forth of the caged tiger? Have you ever wondered what the monkeys think about as they see us crowded around their cage while they go through their antics?

Surely we are impressed with the futility of their existence. How sad to sit all day long waiting for someone to throw a peanut. What a waste of good energy to spend it pacing back and forth or swinging from one trapeze bar to another. Some of the things the monkey does look like fun, but it would certainly become boring if we spent a life-time doing it.

We wonder if God doesn’t view the average man’s existence much the same as we do the animals. How foolish our running to and fro must appear to Him. Our jammed freeways proceeding at a snail’s pace look like tiny ants in our own eyes from an airplane. From God’s vantage point we are small indeed and much of our actions must appear like the fruitless pacing of the caged tiger. God’s purpose is to fill this earth with His glory. Right now few people ever give Him a thought, much less glorify His Name!

We must give our lives more meaning. That is the difference between man and the animal. The animal is unable to rise above his mundane existence. He only thinks of satisfying his own needs. He is really no different whether he is in the wilds of Africa or at the city zoo. Food is always on his mind. He lives to eat. Many men are like that too, but the difference is, we can rise above the animal level.

As we look around us we find that many, in fact most, of the human race is still operating at the animal level. Jesus plainly taught us saying, ”Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek.”

The Gentiles haven’t changed since Christ’s day. Swanky restaurants, gourmet cook books, Paris fashions, etc. all exist to cater to man’s thoughts of eating, drinking and what he will wear. We must eat to live and we must wear clothes to be decent, but Jesus would have us think about more important things. Life is more than this. If it isn’t, we are like animals. ”Your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of these things,” said Jesus. Paul tells us to ”Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” He is saying the same thing Jesus declared, ”Seek ye first the kingdom of God.”

It is impossible to seek first the kingdom of God while thinking about food, clothing, sports, politics, money and such like. Paul was a tent maker. So was the man sitting next to him. Paul’s head was in the clouds for he was thinking about his Lord. The other man’s head was in his stomach for he was thinking about what he was going to have for supper. Both men worked all day and both men ate supper. We should not have been able to tell the two men apart by just walking past their shop. One was a saint and one was an animal. One will live forever with Christ in the kingdom, the other will sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake. What was the difference? What they thought about all day long.

David said, ”Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish, But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me.” Again, one is a saint and one is an animal.

We are now deciding what we will be for eternity. As in the poem about the purple cow, when we look at the animals let’s decide we would rather see than be one.