I took time today to write the following parable and I’d like to share it with you. When Jesus told parables, on occasion he would explain it to his disciples after he told it. However, I’m going to do some explaining before I tell this one so that you can piece it together more readily as I read.
THE RIVER stands for the helpfulness of God — his love, which is pure and everlasting adventure. It’s as dangerous as can be to go all out on it because then you are no longer in charge of your life and because of not knowing where it may take you.
THE RIVER GUY stands for Jesus, who beckons you to leave your life on the shore and join him on the river. He will never let you sink and will navigate everything so you need not fear.
THE HOTDOGS and MARSHMALLOWS stand for life’s increasingly dissatisfying pleasures.
THE STONE GAME stands for defining our value by whoever acquires the most stuff.
THE SUPPLY GUY is satan and his demons who work at keeping us convinced that we need what he has to offer even though we know its rotten.
THE TRAVELERS stand for those who outgrow all this life has to offer and are willing to take the risk of giving it all up regardless of the cost. They are out on the river with the river guy but routinely stop at campsites along the way to try and convince other campers to join the adventure.
With that in mind, here’s the parable.
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I have to admit I was getting bored. I lived at a rivers edge with a number of other guys. We kept a small fire going on which we roasted hotdogs and marshmallows. We each had a tent where we guarded our stash of stones. These stones appeared to be laced with gold. I think we all knew it was fool’s gold but that didn’t matter. We played a game with them by drawing a circle in the sand. Each player would toss a stone into the circle. Then we’d take turns trying to knock other players stones out of the circle. Stones you knocked out you kept, but if your throw stone remained in the circle you were out until the next round. If your stash of stones was running low you had to go digging. The problem with that was that you would only dig within the immediate vicinity of the camp site because unless you could watch your tent, campers would sneak in and raid your stash. So finding more stones in such a limited area was a growing challenge but it did increase their value.
We all loathed our dog-eat-dog existence, but that wasn’t our primary irritation.
On one side of our campsite was what we called the supply trail. Every so often the supply guy would show with more hotdogs and marshmallows he would trade for stones. But in this jungle like heat and humidity his hotdog buns were always moldy, the hotdogs often tasted rotten, and the marshmallows were about as hard as the stones. And on top of it all he’d mock our complaints and threaten to leave us to starve to death if we didn’t deal with him.
On the other side of our campsite was the river. We were always having to talk over the thunderous sound it made as it gushed over rocks and up against giant boulders where it exploded with sprays of water that went up some 10 to 15 feet in the air. It was a frightful sight. We all stayed clear for fear of being swept away.
