A Plastic Lion!

On each of the past five days my wife and I have traveled to Hershey to help our daughter and her husband with their infant son, Nolan (four weeks old today!). Nolan was a patient at Hershey Medical Center. He had to have a kidney removed due to a tumor that was growing on it. He is now doing well and returned home yesterday. All that is needed now is to hear the results of the biopsy.

Sitting on the floor near the elevators on the ground floor (Nolan was on the children's floor which is the seventh floor) is a sculpture of a nittany lion (the nittany lion is the mascot of Penn State University -- Hershey Medical Center is the teaching and research hospital of Penn State University). For the first several days I passed this lion, I assumed that it was stone. That is until I decided to tap it with my fist one day, only to discover that it was made of plastic! I was surprised! It had all the look of stone! But it was not. Plainly put, it was a fake stone sculpture. I felt cheated!

As I reflect on my life ... I can see that I can be a lot like that lion. Fake. Inauthentic. Putting on shows that make me appear to be more spiritual ... more in touch with God than I really am. In doing so, I may fool those around me and even fool myself. Yet I NEVER fool God! He sees me as I am (Hebrews 4:12-13). This is both comforting and sobering. It comforts me to know that God sees me as I truly am and yet STILL loves me!  Thank God for his unconditional and unfailing love! But knowing that God sees the real me can be quite sobering. I might be able to deceive others - but NEVER God! May this thought move me (and you) to be more consistent in saying "Yes" to righteousness and "No" to sin! After all, one of our life's most fervent desires should be to please him who gave us his all!

Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj