Friday, July 27, 2012

Lessons From a Frog


It's a rare day when a fellow poker player offers a suggestion for this blog.  So we thank a woman named Laura for telling us about a meditation she did recently -- not on poker, but on frogs.

"Frogs are small and pretty helpless," she explained.  They also spend a lot of time each day sitting on lily pads.  So she concluded the letters in "frog" can teach us all a lesson - to "Fully Rely On God."


Frogs actually are mentioned in the Bible a few times, and not in the nicest ways....


The the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.  If you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs.  The Nile will teem with frogs....'" - Exodus 8:1-3
Frogs?!  Why a plague of frogs?  Some Bible scholars say Egyptians worshiped a "frog god," believing it helped women during childbirth.  So the real God was making a point here....
He sent Moses his servant, and Aaron, whom he had chosen.  They performed his miraculous signs among them.... Their land teemed with frogs, which went up into the bedrooms of their rulers. - Psalm 105:26-30
The Israelites' God showed He was true, by controlling the "frog god" which was false.  But believe it or not, that false god could make a comeback.
Then I saw three evil spirits which looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet.  They are spirits of demons, performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty. - Revelation 16:13-14
These "frogs" (or whatever they really are) apparently will be far from small and helpless.  They'll organize world leaders to gather at Armageddon (verse 16) -- but chapters 17-19 indicate Jesus will return to Earth and smite many of them.


Bottom line: yes, we recommend Laura's advice.  Fully rely on God - even when you're playing poker.  And have nothing to do with green hopping lookalikes.

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