I have always thought these
verses would make the best short film.
You have this cute African American kid sitting at a counter top in a
multi-million dollar home, drinking some milk.
It’s morning, and Dad is in the kitchen opening cupboards, and then the
fridge.
“What you want for breakfast, little man?” the father
asks in a deep, throaty voice.
“I would like an egg,” the kid says in the most adorable, high pitched voice. It melts your heart like the
butter the dad throws in the pan the next moment. The kid drinks his milk, and you hear the
sound of sizzling like an egg frying.
You can imagine the wonderful smell.
There is nothing more wonderful than the smell of a hot breakfast in the
morning.
You see the kid, sitting at the counter, expecting a
nice, hot egg fried in butter. Then you
see the father come toward the kid with a frying pan. You don’t see the contents of the pan, but
you know it’s the egg. What a wonderful,
touching moment. The African American
kid sings a song to himself about how yummy the egg will be.
Suddenly, the camera zooms from the kid’s perspective and
the father drops something on to the kid’s plate. It is so fast, you can’t see it at first, but
all you hear is the kid screaming at the top of his lungs. The camera cuts to a different angle, and you
see a live scorpion on the plate while some sort of horror music plays.
Suddenly, the camera cuts to a close-up of the father
laughing in an evil, mad-scientist sort of way.
The short film ends with white words on black:
“If
your kid asks for an egg, will you give him a scorpion?”
New screen, white words on black:
“How much more will your Father give the Holy Spirit to
those who ask him?”
It’s evil, I know, but I cannot help but picturing this
short film every time I read this verse.
It’s kind of random, but while I was on a Bible-reading schedule, I could not help but notice that on the same day, I read several other verses
about scorpions that seemed to fit right into the idea of God’s good gifts to
us. Not too much earlier, in Luke 10:19,
Jesus says:
“I have given you authority to trample on snakes
and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm
you.”
Imagine if the father in the short film was able to
empower the son to trample on snakes and scorpions the way that Jesus empowered
us and His disciples. I think the film
would have quite a different ending.
You would see the dad come toward the kid with the frying
pan, and you would be thinking it was an egg. You’d still get the surprise of seeing
the live scorpion drop onto the plate, but then you would get a further shock
of (director’s choice), the kid laughing just as evilly, like it was a good
joke, and leaping onto the counter to trample on the scorpion, OR, the child
could pick up the scorpion, lick his lips, and eat it with the sound of a crunching exoskeleton (your choice). The ending screens would read:
“If
your kid asks for an egg, will you give him a scorpion?”
“How much more will your Father give the Holy Spirit to
those who ask him?”
“In fact, He has ‘given you authority to trample on
snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will
harm you.’”
I couldn’t help but wonder at the fact that I came across
an earlier assurance of God towards his servant Ezekial in regards to
scorpions. In Ezekial 2:6, God tells
this prophet, “And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their
words. Do not be afraid, though briers
and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions. Do not be afraid of what they say or be
terrified by them, though they are a rebellious people.”
I
could not imagine “living among scorpions”.
That is probably one of the more terrifying things I can think of. I remember a woman I met whose husband was in
the military. She had just moved to a
southern state with scorpions from a northern one without them. One day, she said she opened the front door
and there was a scorpion on her porch.
She screamed, shut and bolted the door and cancelled all her plans for
the day until her husband came home and removed the scorpion from her porch.
I don’t know if I would be that afraid of them, but they are a frightening prospect. I remember hearing one time of a man who was
stung by a scorpion that had climbed on a plane. I think he had to be hospitalized. And to have live among them? That is scary.
But imagine if you had to live among them, and you were
the child empowered by his father to trample on them (or even eat them). I imagine the short video could end with both
the father and son laughing evilly, and then doing battle on the scorpions that
lived outside, like some science fiction movie (which would make this short film project pretty high budget, I think, so if I ever made it, I would probably stick to the first two ideas).
Anyway, the point is that one of the gifts God has given
to us is that we don’t need to be afraid when we walk in His authority. In a sense, God has given us the snakes and
scorpions and we own them. He told his
prophet not to fear hundreds of years before he empowered his people to trample on them. Throughout the ages, His will for us and intent towards us remains the same.
Maybe we won’t face scorpions on our front porches or for
the breakfast entre, but there are many things in life that can be akin to
scorpions. There are many challenges in this world and hard times that might come. The great thing as that with
God, who loves us like a loving father who would give his child an egg if they
asked for it for breakfast, we are empowered to face the figurative snakes and
scorpions that come our way. And the best gift of all is that we have His presence, which goes with us throughout each day, which is much better than any ol' fried egg.
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