Hug The Box

A few months ago, Shallon and the girls were at home and they were cleaning things up a bit.  Keira saw a shoe box in the trash and asked Shallon if she could have it.  Shallon told her no and that we didn't keep trash, we throw it away.  A few minutes later, Shallon walked into Keira's room and noticed her little plush princess chair had something underneath it.  She walked over to find that same shoe box that Keira had taken and tried to hide.  Shallon grabbed the box and walked out front to where Keira was.  She asked her how it got in her room.  Keira began to get upset (very typical for her when she is caught in something) and tried to hug Shallon.  Shallon said, "Oh no! If you want a hug, you need to hug the box!  You decided that the box was more important that listening to and obeying Mommy."  Of course Keira really started crying at this point, but she got the message, grabbed the box and threw it away in the outside garbage can.  Shallon, of course, then hugged her and kissed her as they talked through what just happened.

But here's the deal.  Every day, you and I choose the box over Jesus.  We say that we love Him, but we keep going to the trashcan and getting the box out.  When we do that, we are saying that we love whatever that sinful  behavior/attitude/thought is more than Jesus.  We decide that our pride or lust or greed or adultery or stealing or whatever is more valuable than Jesus.  And in that moment, we would rather hug the box than hug Jesus.  When we think of it that way, we realize how absolutely absurd it is that we would choose an inanimate thing over the living, loving Savior of the world!  But yet many times, we still choose to go that way.

So the next time that you are faced with temptation, ask yourself this: "Am I going to hug the box, or am I going to hug Jesus?"