Of Pumpkins and Ducks

Two weeks ago I went to Colorado for the Great Commission Leadership Institute (GCLI) that GCM puts on twice a year. It was really good and talked about not letting worldliness into your life. They challenged us to think about what we were looking at, who we were hanging out with, what we were thinking about and how we were managing our money or stuff.

One of the stories that they used to illustrate how easily things permeate our lives when we don’t realize it was about pumpkins and ducks.

Pat Socol (sp?) said that Native American hunters used to try to hunt ducks but when they would shoot at them with Arrows, they would all scatter and they would get only one duck if they were lucky. So they saw the ducks on a river and decided they needed to do something different if they were going to catch enough ducks to eat. So, they grabbed a pumpkin, threw it downstream towards the ducks. The pumpkin bumped up against the ducks and they threw a fit and squawked but eventually settled down when they realized the pumpkin was not going away. Then, the hunters did it again, they threw another pumpkin downstream. It landed in the ducks and again they squawked and got upset. They kept doing this till the ducks were no longer affected by the pumpkins coming in at them. Then, they took a pumpkin, hollowed it out, put in eye and nose holes and put it over their head. They got in the river so that just their head was out and went in among the ducks. The ducks didn’t even notice at this point. The hunters reached up, grabbed a duck and would pull it under. The ducks didn’t even know anything had happened.

Sometimes, this life is just like that. We are always trying to be on our guard but when we don’t evaluate things, we don’t realize how they are affecting us. I have cut out a lot of things from my life such as talking about others and thinking about things that aren’t real. Then, last weekend, I realized that in just one day’s time, it had gotten back in. I was in a tailspin and I didn’t even realize that I had let it affect me. With thinking and talking about things that I shouldn’t have, I felt so helpless and so out of control. Wednesday was the height of it and God graciously took it away from me after asking Him over and over.
God is so good and he took everything away from me like it had never happene