Life on a Shelf

A small porcelain rabbit sat high upon a shelf in grandmother’s living room. He remained in that location, in the same position, for decades. His frozen dark eyes, never moving, were fixed on the same wall on the other side of the room, and his perspective changed only as someone walked by or, if by chance something in his field of sight was changed. His world, his experiences, his understanding was limited by the narrow tube in which his view was confined.

How terrible it would be if we lived on a shelf not being able to move about to explore the wide open spaces around us, and venture out into that which is unknown to us. What a tragedy it would be if our circle of influence was limited to only those people who happened to pass our way. How boring and uneventful if day after day after day our experiences were the same old thing. God did not create us to be shelf dwellers. That is fine for porcelains rabbits, but not for people.

God placed up in this big world, together. There are many of us, and we all have souls, and feelings, and needs, and talents,and abilities, and wonderful expectations about our future. We are different, but something that is hard for many of us to understand is that not even one of us is better than anyone else. That is something we need to remember if we get down off of the shelf where we live and try to intentionally increase our circle of influence. There is one thing, and only one thing that will bind us together and solidify us despite our differences. That one thing is love. Not the fickle love of the world, but the love that we have through Jesus Christ.

Don’t be like that silly porcelain rabbit sitting on the shelf. Venture out into this wonderful world of ours and spread the love of Jesus for his love, you guessed it silly rabbit, Love is for people, all people!