Kudos

All cute puppies and kittens should come with the same warning label: If you feed me, I will grow.

A disclaimer on the reverse side of the label should follow: Once you start feeding me, you will have to keep feeding me. I will never learn to feed myself, nor will my appetite ever decrease. You are taking on a serious one-sided commitment here. Though I am cute and fun now, I will soon grow weary of your games, become increasingly lazy, and may develop an attitude.

Case in point: Kudo. Kudo began life tragically. At a very young age, he was separated from his mother and siblings. He somehow managed to get in the way of a road construction crew on a busy highway. The young, black pup was tossed and rolled in front of a road grater and left wounded and alone in a pile of dirt and gravel.

The whimpering pup caught the ear of a teenage girl who ran to his rescue. My daughter was driving along the highway at this time and saw her teenage friend rescuing the beat-up pup. Of the two teenage heroines, only one had a pushover parent who would allow the roadside orphan to take up residence in his home. Yep. Yours truly. The pup was fuzzy on the outside and tough on the inside, and I was just the opposite.

While it was my daughter and her friend who saved the pup's life, it is I who regularly maintain it. This story would be so much more Norman Rockwell if the cute little puppy grew up to be a small, fragile, intelligent, well-mannered dog. Ha! Not only did the dog grow huge and strong, he's also hyper and mentally challenged.

An animal psychologist I am not, but here's my evaluation of dear Kudo: He is something I feed every day, yet cannot control.

It's time to cross the bridge from the animal kingdom to the Kingdom of God. James 1:14-15 speaks of the temptation to feed our desires. Those desires are very enticing. But the argument of James and much of the New Testament is that what you feed, will grow. There are all kinds of negative applications here. Addictions and "ism's" can all be traced back to a little puppy that once seemed like harmless fun. Now, it's something you feed every day and can't control.

So what can you do? Starve yourself? Absolutely not. You should keep feeding yourself. But change the menu. Feast on the Word of God. Pack your spirit full of nutrients as you pack your mind full of truth. Spend so much time reading and concentrating on what the Bible says that you don't have time to feed anything else.

The Bible Buffet is open 24/7...and you don't have to count calories.
Perry Crisp