A Tale From Ancient India

          Nathan Castens writes about a legend from ancient India that he first heard retold by Henri Nouwen (in his book THE WOUNDED HEALER.)

Four royal brothers decided each to master a special ability.

Time went by, and the brothers met to reveal what they had learned.

“I have mastered a science,” said the first, “by which I can take but a bone of some creature and create the flesh that goes with it.”

“I,” said the second, “know how to grow that creature's skin and hair if there is flesh on its bones.”

The third said, “I am able to create its limbs if I have flesh, the skin, and the hair.”

“And I,” concluded the fourth, “know how to give life to that creature if its form is complete.”

Thereupon the brothers went into the jungle to find a bone so they could demonstrate their specialties. As fate would have it, the bone they found was a lion’s. One added flesh to the bone, the second grew hide and hair, the third completed it with matching limbs, and the fourth gave the lion life.

Shaking its mane, the ferocious beast arose and jumped on his creators. He killed them all and vanished contentedly into the jungle.

Casten’s continues, “We too have the capacity to create what can devour us. Goals and dreams can consume us. Possessions and property can turn and destroy us—unless we first seek God's kingdom and righteousness…”

             Remember, God made us in His image. God designed each person to regard his neighbor as highly as he regards himself. Deuteronomy 10:19, is another of God’s ways of stating—love you neighbor as yourself.

            Among many teachings, Deuteronomy emphasizes to us the spirit of God with regard to things. Rick Atchley wrote that God's people “… may own things, but they don't accumulate things at the expense of other people, because they know that God made things to be used and people to be loved.” Rick's statement expresses well a sentiment of Deuteronomy. 

            Remember:            If things become gods, people become things.

Chimney Sweeping

            Doug McIntosh in his commentary on Deuteronomy tells the following story:

            “In the early hours of a wet Evansville morning, a driver lost control of his vehicle smashed through the porch into the front of Lee Roy Book’s home. When a utility crew came to the house and began to check for gas leaks, they found that the home’s chimney and gas pipes were plugged by debris. Because of this, carbon monoxide fumes had been backing up into the house for some time.”

            “The poisonous and odorless gas had been creating health problems for Book for a while. Some two years before, he had begun experiencing flulike symptoms, including unexplained trembling, headaches, chills, and nausea. He would also black out occasionally and undergo periods of forgetfulness. “I'd come to when I got in the fresh air,” he said “but every day it was getting worse and worse. It was awful.” Had the utility vehicle not made its unauthorized entry, he might well have died from the poisonous effects of the gas.”

            Now, here's the irony to this story. You know how Le Roy Book once made his living? He was a building contractor. Of all people “he knew the perils of badly vented furnaces and chimneys. In fact, he regularly urged customers to check their flues every two or three years to keep just such a problem from occurring. Yet it never dawned on him to check his own chimney.”

            “A lot of people make the same mistake spiritually. They rarely consider the many ways the God has blessed them in the past and implications of those blessings the way they should live their lives… The opening chapter of Deuteronomy describes an entire nation that failed to check its chimney. Israel has repeatedly been the recipient of God's faithful acts of kindness, but they had neglected drawing the proper implications of such blessings. In Deuteronomy 1, Moses called on people to remember God's faithfulness as a spur to their own spiritual lives.”

            The book of Hebrews amplifies the ramifications of Israel’s negligence. They were, in effect, poisoned spiritually. Their relationship with God was ruined.

            Lesson learned: check the chimney!