Object Lessons

In our Daily Walk Bible reading we’ve been blazing through the book of Jeremiah and again I am thankful for how God’s Word is applicable to our every day lives and how I see similar Biblical principles in my own life and experiences.

Recently I have been challenged by the various “object lessons” that the prophet Jeremiah used with his audience. These object lessons have in turn made me more aware of my own surroundings and the teachable moments that my own world can provide. For example, after work today I was visiting a friend who was graciously looking for a pair of vice grips for me in her father’s garage and while she was looking I was watching the sheep graze and meander around in their yard. All of a sudden I heard this crash of metal on metal sound and my first thought was that somehow the sheep got out through the gate. I ran over to the window hoping I wasn’t going to have to run out into the yard to corral the sheep back and what did I find?

A sheep caught with its head stuck in the metal gate. What I quickly realized was the sound I heard was the sheep forcing its head through the gate bars thus causing the metal gate to crash against the metal gate-posts. And why was the sheep sticking his head through the bars?

Because “the grass was greener on the other side.” Or at least, that is what it seemed because the sheep had no care that its head was stuck, all it cared about was eating the grass that it could barely reach. Clearly, the sheep saw something it wanted and was willing (knowingly or unknowingly) to do whatever it took to get to it. Even if that meant getting its head caught in the gate.

Meanwhile by this time my friend had ventured down to her father’s basement still looking for the vice grips and I was getting anxious that we were going to have to rescue this little guy and then all of a sudden the sheep became a contortionist and wrenched its head out from the bars. The sheep was safe and sound and it had its taste of “the greener grass,” but it also paid the price for this tasty morsel with the cost of a sore head and neck.

This situation got me thinking…don’t we regularly think in our lives that the “grass is greener on the other side?” And when we think that way, don’t we unfortunately act on those thoughts and therefore put ourselves into precarious, even sinful situations?

“Lead us not into temptation…”

Tonight, as I was doing a little catch up reading in Jeremiah chapters 16-20 I was again challenged by the life object lessons that Jeremiah used with his audience. Namely, marriage, funerals and feasting (16:1-9), the potter and the clay (18:1-10) and the garbage dump and the broken pot (chapter 19).

I would encourage you to take some time to read about these and the other object lessons that Jeremiah used (for example, 13:1-11, 12-14; 14:1-9; 24:1-10; 27:1-11; 32:6-15 and 43:8-13). How could these object lessons apply to your life?

What object lessons is the Lord using in your own life? Are these lessons, and their situations, turning us toward the Lord or away from the Lord?

“We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).

Amen! Thank you Jesus!

(Thanks to these two blogs for these images...the sheep can be found here and the potter picture can be found here. I just want to make sure I am giving credit where credit is due! :) As it turns out in the picture above, the sheep's head was not stuck...but this was the best picture I could find. I assure you the poor little guy I wrote about was definitely stuck but is now free.)