Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

• Matthew 6:1-6

Welcome to a fable.

There was a fox family in its den.  Mother Fox raised two sons.  The older was handsome, strong, and a lady’s fox.  The younger was weak, shy, but a deep thinker.

Mother Fox catered to Older Fox.  She praised him and gave him extra to eat.  Older Fox had to produce an heir to the family name.  Younger Fox was fine with that arrangement.  All Younger Fox wanted to do was to make a difference in other foxes’ lives.

Older Fox would love them and leave them, but then Mother Fox commanded that he settle down.  He took a strong female to be his bride and they had a girl fox.  The next year, they had a boy fox.

In the meantime, Younger Fox thought that every fox should have a den.  A charity was established and money came trickling in.  It wasn’t a grandiose idea, and Younger Fox was not one to toot his own horn.  But a little trickling in might help one or two foxes.

Mother Fox and Older Fox laughed at him.

But then, a fur trader set his traps.  The wife of Older Fox and the son of Older Fox were killed.  Their pelts were beautiful, but lifeless.

Mother Fox turned to Younger Fox, “Get your head out of the clouds.  Find a female fox.  Give me the son that I need to carry on the family name.”

So, Younger Fox set aside his desires for a while.  He searched the forest.  He prayed.  And finally, he found the only female fox that responded to his dreamer personality.  The next Spring, they produced a son.  Mother Fox would be happy.

But Older Fox visited and laughed at Younger Fox.  “Don’t you know that nothing you do can make Mother Fox happy?  I have prayed and I will produce the son for Mother Fox.”  Really, he already had a female fox in the family way.  The next Spring, she produced the boy that Mother Fox loved.

Younger Fox turned to his bride and said that they had not been wise, but they would pray and ask for another son.  They got one the next year.  This young son of the Younger Son was also a dreamer.  He also thought no fox should go without a den.  He was a great blessing to Younger Fox and his mother.

But what of the older son of Younger Fox.  He had been rejected by Mother Fox.  As he had been brought into the world to be her example of how good the family was, this older son of Younger Fox was just as self-centered as his grandmother, Mother Fox.  He left the family, arrogant beyond measure, wanting to prove that Mother Fox would rue the day she rejected him.  Oddly, his attitude was much like the attitude of Mother Fox, the fox this son hated.

Younger Fox prayed again.  He wanted his older son to return and help him and his younger brother making dens for den-less foxes.

But then the Chief Fox of the forest appeared to Younger Fox.

The Chief asked, “You prayed to find a bride, and she is a good bride.  You prayed for your second son, but you only followed Mother Fox’s demands when it came to your Older Son.  You had him for all the wrong reasons, and now, after all the problems that this caused, you want to pray that a magical bandage will heal all the hurt?  You and your younger son will do good work in the den-less community.  But you made all the wrong decisions, and you did things for the wrong reasons with your older son.  Only the older son can see that his measure of worth is not found in being the namesake of the family.  Only he can see that your path is the right path for the right reasons.  But can he put the hurt and the anger aside?  Those are his choices also.”

And so ends my fable.

Have you ever done something for the wrong reasons, everything went sour very quickly, and left a lot of pain and hurt in its wake?

We can pray for forgiveness, but if people have hurt feelings, there is just so much apology that can be made, just so much reparations that can be done.  God asks us to forgive seventy times seven, or other numbers that have been translated.  But that does not mean that any of that forgiveness was accepted nor the apologies.

God judges each of us based on what is in our heart.

It is often a fool’s errand to run after someone else’s dream and setting yours aside in the meantime.  If your dream was what God wanted you to do, you were wasting your time chasing the dream of another fox.

And remember that this is just a fable, and there really isn’t such a den of foxes in the forest.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.