Look at the silly donkey without a tail! Quick! look! Then suddenly you can’t see. Someone has tied a scarf around your head, covering your eyes. You are now blinded. You are tossed around in circles. It’s dizzying as you pass from hand to hand. There is laughing and lots of noise. Then strong hands on your shoulders stop the spinning and something is placed in your hands, "Here, pin the tail on the donkey. In the right place." You bluster, "But I can’t see the donkey! How do I know where his tail goes?" People are laughing and hooting and hollering. The noise is deafening! You move forward and they laugh. You turn right and they laugh louder…. Left? They laugh and jeer: "You are no where near him! You can’t do it!!!" This is frightening. A thought fills your mind: "I can’t do the right thing because I am relying on my own strength and I’m blind! I can’t find the donkey, let alone put his tail in the right place!"
There are other games like this. Remember the pinata! Again, you are blindfolded and tossed around. Then a big heavy stick is placed in your hands. "Hit the pinata! Get us our candy!" You would love to get the candy, but "where is the darn thing?" … Sound familiar? Blind, we can’t see where we are going. We reach out to stick that pin or to hit that bundle of candy, but we miss the mark. Our senses are all screwed up because we miss the vital sense of sight. We’ve been tossed and turned and blindfolded. Dizzy, we can’t see the target. Depending on our own strength we are useless.
Scripture is filled with people who make promises to God and then forget… They turn back to their ways of worship of their old gods. Are we like this? What are our gods today? Greed! What is enough Money? Power. What is enough power? If my pursuit is wealth and power will I want to "do what I believe in and let no one stand in my way?" Will I resort to cancellation of those who restrict me? In a sense, God restricts us. He says, "You will love and honor the Lord your God first, and then you will love and honor your neighbor." Putting God and my neighbor first puts me third. But what about my desire and dreams for power and wealth? Rather than a Baldacci or a Catherine Coulter book, pick up Scripture and read Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges and Samuel. Count how many times the words are repeated: "But Israel turned away from God and back to their own gods." Finally, Israel gets tired of being beaten up by their neighbors and asks Samuel to find them a good strong king! He will defend us!!!! And God, always loving and caring for his people, says, "don’t argue with them Samuel. Give them what they want, but warn them first: … Warn them solemnly and inform them of the rights of the king who will rule them…. He will take your sons and assign them to his chariots… soldiers… he will set them to his plowing, his harvesting… He will use your daughters… He will take the best of your fields…. You will complain against the king whom you have chosen, but on that day the Lord will not answer you." (1 Samuel 8: 8-18) It’s there. Read it. But, our eyes are blinded; we can’t see it and we are relying on our own strength.
In church, we are asked to pray for America… I think it’s not the right prayer. In humility, the tax collector prayed, "O Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner." (Luke 18:13) God bless us. Angels with us.