Lessons Of The Fork As children one of our first challenges we encounter is crawling, then stumbling, which is soon followed by the success of walking. Later we run. Mixed in there somewhere is learning how to use a fork, spoon. A knife is still not in the cards just yet. Lost in the babbling of those first words and walking is the mastery of the fork. I pay less attention to the spoon because there is less challenge to it. You can scoop up a load of peas on a spoon, but it requires more skill and thought to figure out how that works as well with a fork. Recently a coworker of mine related a story to me about a grandson who just dived in with both hands to chow down. The story was humorous to me but his tale and his comments about around here we use a fork have remained with me. Hmmm, what lessons does our fork teach us? Do we not all have to master it? Do we not all face divergent forks in the road that require us to make decisions which teach lessons and causes us to learn from them? Sure we do, and how we react to those challenges have an impact on who we become. Watching a childs first attempt at utilizing a fork is sometimes very amusing. Frustration at keeping said food on said fork from plate to mouth usually leads to giving up and shoveling it in with their hands. But the persistent parent will at the next meal once again set the fork before them to battle once again the challenge of either eating slowly or taking the easy way out. As in the case with this mans grandson you can probably see that the parents decided it was easier to let the child persist in giving up which only led the boy to decide that is was acceptable. But a true lesson in forkology would yield a different conclusion from those notice it. Sometimes the easier path is the one with less resistance so we choose that fork because it seems to be the quickest way to satisfaction. After all, I can eat faster with my hands versus a silly old fork. But if continue to do that then after awhile I will probably be eating my meals by myself as everyone else will view me as a heathen. Plus, as a parent I will have taken the wrong fork, also the easiest path, when it comes to teaching our kids. Now this is an easy illustration at what seems to be a meaningless topic. But is it? Span this lesson across the lifetime of someone and how can you not see greater implications? Sure, most of us may not begin with a fork but a spoon. At some point our challenge must go to the next level. But many, in the choice of an easier path stay with the spoon, or give up and just dive into things in life without regard to future consequences. Then later on we wonder why we are alone. We dont see that we have become the heathen. The forks we encounter in living our lives determine many outcomes in a completed lifetime. Surely we can all look back and see where we chose a wrong fork in our road and conclude we are where we are because we resisted the more difficult path. A map helps, but it wont always yield the best results if we ignore it. God is alot like that, He is there to guide us, but of little help if we dont follow Him. Discipline is a sensitive fork. For both the parent and the child. Too much and it creates a negative impact. Too little and you have the society that we currently have. You all heard the stories, mine included of our parents giving us a good whoopin when we needed it. And yes Ive had my share of them with a good old switch from a tree or bush. But I turned out okay. Does that work with all kids? Probably not. I can think of a few kids that I know for sure it didnt work. But that answer is probably found deeper an earlier than being disciplined for infractions. Oh, and by the way, yes I do think some parents have gone overboard with discipline. What works for this one does not for another. that is where we often see the parent choosing only to see out of one eye and not both. As I said, span your life and apply the fork rule and youll yield a few days or so of interesting digging. Hopefully youll have noticed what someone long ago already discovered, that you can dig with a fork, but a backhoe yields a better result. Perhaps a little child sees the hands as the backhoe....? Hmmmm, maybe. Likely it is simply they havent the patience to weigh that option or mental regimen yet. So sometimes the fork is simply that a fork wont do what we want done. But that doesnt automatically mean we forget about it. It just means weve learned to make the correct choice. As for me, Ill use a fork because I could never figure out why anyone would use chopsticks. Peace my friends. -Pastor Roy McRoberts
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 20:20:59 +0000
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