My yogurt has gone all philosophical on me. The stay-fresh seal in the last tub of tart cherry urged me to "live life with the lid off."In addition to the alliteration, that also sounds as if it would make for a great adventure, doesn't it? What I have discovered. however, is that it mostly makes a lot of people mad at me.
But other people often prefer it when I keep my life in the container. It is easier for them to deal with their own things when I stay quietly in my box and don't bring up issues that make them feel uncomfortable.
Working out this balance between when to go out and "live life with the lid off" and when to stay inside the boundaries is a universal challenge here on the Bootcamp Planet. One has to take the lid off to experience freedom. But when the lid is off, things spill easily and life gets messy. And even though with practice one can learn to avoid many of life's spills, there is not much one can do about the metaphorical flies and the mold spores that either buzz or drift into life.
Since the premise of this blog is that Planet Earth is a bootcamp for the Age to Come, and since my Yogurt Psychiatrist is advising me about life in the here-and-now, the Berean mind (an inquiring mind) probably wants to know if the "live life with the lid off" advice is compatible with scripture.
Actually yes.
When the new heaven and the new earth is described in Revelation 21:7 and 8. it says this:
…The one who is victorious will inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be My son. But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.
Notice how that list opens with "the cowardly"? As a child that scared me the most. It unsettles me still. The cowardly don't like living life with the lid off. My vision of a perfect life includes having a man's shoulder to rest my head on and having his arm around my waist; I am not one to rush off looking for dragons to slay. So it was rather strange for me to find that a label on a tub of yogurt was suddenly evoking rueful thoughts.
As to the list in the verse above, thoughts of witchcraft, homosexuality, and murder are not going to get lodged in my soul where I entertain them until they become actions. I have loved truth and found liars abhorrent from my earliest memories. If someone or something from outside tried to give such ideas to me, they would not stick. But the cowardly...
Now look at the picture of the yogurt label again. Do you see the humor?
The COW is telling us not to be COWards!
My take-home lesson in this is that God has a sense of humor and He can encourage us in the most unlikely ways. Maybe that is not what it means to you, but I found it to be a delightful, albeit unexpected encouragement about making courageous choices.
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Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. My near-daily prayer is that i and those I love will not miss their destiny in God.
