Don't you love when God uses nature to show us the heart of man? No?! Oh, well, I do. As usual God showed me a nugget of truth while out and about earlier this week. I thought I'd share with you as well. You're welcome.
My neighborhood has five ponds within its borders. In my nine years of residency here, I have found those ponds to be beautiful and also a nuisance. At first we had a nice variety of ducks and a few geese here and there. Now we have far too many geese and the ducks are dwindling. Our neighbors bring up making us a gated community every once in a while and I say I'd rather have a net than a wall and keep those immigrant geese out! I usually get a chuckle from some, and some misunderstanding by others. Well, a few years ago I noticed that the ducks would all hang out in front of a certain house near a pond twice a day. The resident of the home had purchased seed for the ducks and would toss it out to them and feed them. They still gather twice a day, but now across the street on the grass near the path. There is now a worn patch of grass where she tosses her seed to them. And now there is only a family of ducks and far too many geese. Recently I was out as they were waiting for their breakfast. I was forced to scurry some geese off the path as I passed by. The path took me past the pond and over towards another pond. At this smaller pond was a family of geese. Two adults and about eight goslings. They weren't milling around waiting on a human hand to feed them. They were doing what geese do - pecking through the grass to get some bugs and whatnot. I almost stopped to take it all in. The vast majority of geese were waiting and expecting the human to feed them. The small family was working for their food. Today there is a big rift between millennials and EVERYONE else. Why? Because of expectations. The older generations cry out, "Get up and get to work. 9-5 like we did it. Get your hands dirty. Fix it, don't replace it!" The youngens shout back, "Shut up, you old fools. We have technology that makes you obsolete!" Okay, I may have exaggerated, but I felt like it needed that extra push. I see many people from my generation and younger waiting for something. Waiting for an apology. Waiting for someone to feed them. Waiting for someone to do the work for them. People sit around and expect something to be given to them just because they showed up. (Thank you, participation trophy!) Personally, I'm caught. There are some of us that are in this awkward area of being tail end of generation X and start of millennials. I, for one, remember wearing jeans with the label stating "GenX" and thinking that was where I belonged. But that rift between generations occurred because of the people in my age group. We drew a line and picked a side. On the one side we had the work hard, respect your elders, save, try, do group. On the other side we had the my mom will do it for me, but I don't feel well, you're not the boss of me, just get me a new one group. It was the group of kids being parented by the influence of Spock - either with or against. I knew this among my classmates. I watched kids not work for anything and just not care. I was the odd ball for spending hours in the gym and working for what I wanted to badly. I was okay being the odd ball because I thought they were nuts! Today we have so many people hanging out waiting for someone else to do what they are more than capable of doing. And it made me think. So many of us are believed that we are owed something for our contribution of creating more carbon dioxide. What? What do we deserve? We will not always get what we deserve. This can be a blessing and a curse. I will never get the apology I so hoped for. But I will also not receive the wrath of God. The husband that cheats on his wife won't always get what he deserves. What does he deserve? The wife that was cheated on won't always get what she deserves. What does she deserve? We probably already have a mindset as to what they both deserve. He deserves a life of misery and loneliness while she should remarry and live happily ever after. But that doesn't happen often. Usually the husband continues escapades whether married to the woman or not. The wife will end up broken and beaten trying to overcome the self doubt and loneliness. We do not get what we deserve. So I have to ask: What are you waiting for? What is it that you think you deserve? There is a very good chance that we are not going to get what we deserve, so what are we doing despite it? Sometimes I look at people and just wonder what they feel I owe them. Is there a divide in relationships because one person is just sitting around waiting for the other person to .... apologize, love, respect, say hello first, reciprocate a gift.... the possibilities are endless. There are things that I feel I deserve. Some I will hold on to, like respect from my children. Some I will let go of. But at least I can stop and recognize where I am sitting around with the other geese just waiting for some seeds, and other times I'm teaching my children to find their own food and be responsible little beings. What do you deserve?
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May 2023
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