Frog legs for dinner…again?

Call me weird (and it’s okay, probably others already have) but I LOVE frogs and lizards and snakes and turtles.  I’ve been known to find fascinating specimens in our yard during early morning gardening, and taken it in to visit my husband who is still in bed. 

As I said…weird.

But definitely one of my favorites would be the croaking/jumping beastie.  They come in all sizes and colors, and they sing me to sleep on summer nights.  I don’t know the difference between frogs and toads, and I don’t particularly care; that’s my biology-teacher husband’s department.  But it’s just always a treasure to find them and hold them, to which Bob (the soft-hearted nature-loving guy that he is) always says, “put him down, he’s a scared little creature!”

That said, I will qualify my love of all things herpetologic by adding that I love them in their habitat…not in mine.  So when I read this piece of the pre-exodus story, it rather jumped out at me (pardon the pun):

“Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and begged, ‘Plead with the LORD to take the frogs away from me and my people. I will let your people go, so they can offer sacrifices to the LORD.’  

‘You set the time!’ Moses replied. ‘Tell me when you want me to pray for you, your officials, and your people. Then you and your houses will be rid of the frogs. They will remain only in the Nile River.’

Are you ready for Pharaoh’s reply?

  “ ‘Do it tomorrow,’ Pharaoh said.”

Are you kidding me?  I enjoy frogs, but not in my bathtub, not in my kitchen sink, not in underfoot in the family room. 

Not in my laundry basket, under my bed sheets, or greeting me in my morning teapot.

I think I know what my response would have been…like, how about yesterday?!

This makes me consider that God Almighty is many times putting Himself on our time table when it comes to change.  Of course, prevention is preferable, but let’s face it, we all make bad decisions for which consequences are inevitable (the Egyptians still had to clean up all the dead frogs—can you even imagine the stench?) What may begin as innocently as holding and admiring one act of disobedience can quickly multiply and overrun our lives.  Nonetheless, we tend to postpone God’s ever-patient, ever-available power in ridding us of the sin in our situations, sin that is showing up in places that can be inconvenient to say the least. 

We know it’s there; we may think we’re able to hide it, deal with it tomorrow, or next day, but really, what are you going to say when it jumps out of your morning coffee cup into your friend’s lap?  (And it will.  Eventually.)

When God says He’s willing to take away our stinking sin, why wait??

 

Ex 8: 8-10  Tyndale House Publishers Inc (2008-06-01). The One Year Bible NLT (One Year Bible: Nlt Book 2) (Kindle Locations 3603-3605). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.