Last night, I was at the kitchen sink doing the dinner dishes, when my 2 year old came tromping in holding up two Polly Pockets and saying “RAAAAAWWWRRRRRRR” in his growliest voice. I burst out laughing, and then said, “Alex, what does a Poly Pocket say?”, and seeing my apparent enjoyment, he heartily repeated “RAAAAWWWRRRRRR”.
I laughed, and went back to the dishes (this is life in a house with 5 little boys and only 1 girl, lots of dolls with tattoos, no heads, etc.).
I didn’t even bother correcting him, knowing full well that as soon as he left the room, it’d be back to “Polly Pocket vs. T-Rex”, or Buzz Lightyear, or whatever.
But as I stood there thinking about the incident, I couldn’t help but smile at the symbolism.
We all tend to simply go about our lives, looking at everything through whatever lens we’ve created for ourselves, and seeing it for not exactly what it is, but for how we can fit it within our own “world-view”. Nobody likes to discover things that shake them out of their comfort zone, or calls into question life-long beliefs, and so we often try to make sense of things in a way that doesn’t disrupt our long-held beliefs.
I’m sure when Peter went fishing on that special day, he had no intention to simply “abandon his nets” and follow some stranger. But that’s what he did.
Sometimes we ALL must truly try and peer beyond the surface of what confronts us, and attempt to see them as they are, and not what we want them to be. Sometimes, as with Peter, we may even be required to abandon our own nets, in order to follow the Savior.
Rusty