It was Tuesday morning. My son, as was his habit, pulled the cover off of Rocket’s cage, fully expecting to find our beautiful Lutino cockatiel climbing all over the cage, chomping at the bars to get out and ride on his shoulders. Although it is nearly impossible to tell the gender of Lutino cockatiels without DNA testing, we had been told that our bird was a male, and for 2 1/2 years, this is what we believed him to be. But this morning something was very wrong with our bird. Instead of hopping onto my son’s finger as he usually did, Rocket flew at my son, pecking, squawking, and flapping his wings in anger. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that during the night “he” had laid an egg! “He” wasn’t a “he” at all! Overnight, Rocket had become “Rockette”!
A cute story, yes, but also an important lesson to be learned! You see, things in this world are not always as they seem! Often times things appear to be one way, but in the end they turn out to be another. The “innocent little movie” turns out to have swearing, violence, or worse. The little game that “everyone is playing” or the little book that “everyone is reading” turns out to be one that encourages violence, or makes witchcraft seem so innocent, so harmless. The little white lie, the one you told to keep out of trouble, the one that wouldn’t “hurt anybody”, backfires . . . And so we flirt with sin. The only problem is, that “male” bird just might lay an egg! What we felt was so innocent, so harmless, might succeed in drawing us into a pattern of sin. Each time we choose to ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit (who is there to convict us of sin in our lives!), the sin begins to become “commonplace”.
“But,” you ask, “how can you know, before the deed is done, if whatever you are tempted to do is truly harmless or not?” The answer, my friends, lies in the Word of God. We can know for certain the kinds of activities we should be partaking in, the kinds of books we should be reading, the kinds of music we should be listening to, by first taking each and every one of our decisions to God through prayer and Bible Study. If we make the effort to verify what we believe God is telling us through His Word, we will be able to identify the true nature of the temptation–the true gender of the cockatiel–before it is too late!
Father God, help me to remember to take each and every decision to you first, so that the true nature of the activity can be revealed!
In His love,
Lyn
Lyn Chaffart, Moderator, The Nugget, Scriptural Nuggets ( www.scripturalnuggets.org ), Answers2Prayer Ministries, www.Answers2Prayer.org
(To access the entire “Lessons From a Cockatiel” mini-series, please click here.)