Are you in hot water and your water is on a burner, getting hotter by the day, yet you can no longer feel the heat because you’ve adjusted your body temperature to a point where you feel no difference? The adage of the frog in boiling water may be familiar to you. If not, allow me to put this into context so you understand the moral of the story.
The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid, cool, slightly warm water, which then begins to boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The heat is so gradual that the frog just relaxes and loses its mind.
The boiling frog story warns people to be aware of even gradual change happening in their lives — at home, in the workplace, etc. — that may not be obvious. These things are happening right now, one after the other, and have been over a period of years, but they have happened so gradually you ignore the change. It’s like weight — we eat and eat, the pounds are piling on, but then you try to put on your clothes and nothing fits!
More and more minor changes continue to happen, against your beliefs. If the changes were desirable, that would be one thing, but when these changes occur and are against who you really are, you’re heading in the wrong direction. You are now like the frog in the hot water — it’s killing you slowly!
When I was hired to coordinate a parade in Maryland, my experience in major special events in the nation’s capitol caused them to give me a call. Guidance and instructions from me were not enough. The job was too difficult, so they hired me. For five years, the event ran successfully. Then one day, the person who hired me brought in someone who appeared innocuous but was being groomed to take my place. It would have been fine if they had simply said, “Can you coach this young lady so she can take over your job? We know you really wanted to teach us rather than take the job on. But now that you’ve done this for five years, we believe we can do this, that is, if you will coach her.” That would have been a much better scenario.
It didn’t happen that way at all. Instead, I wasn’t quite like the frog in boiling water, since one of “our people,” a “sister” on the front desk staff in the office warned me. I would have been boiling to death had she not informed me in advance. It did happen just as she predicted, but I was prepared. I gave them what I wanted them to have.
Don’t allow yourself to be in hot water, unbeknownst to you. You could possibly stay too long and not be able to survive. Get out while you can. Apostle Paul described the world we came out of as being directed by Satan and the evil spirit world (Ephesians 2:2-3) like that boiling hot water. Some thought it was God but it was Satan’s influence.
Apostle John cautioned the Church not to “love the world or the things in the world” (1 John 2:15). Succumbing to this self-centered mindset, in which the world and its material things become our primary focus, can and will destroy our efforts to be in the Kingdom of God.
Get out of that hot water — you can resist bad influences if you become convinced that God’s law and way of life are truly best.
Lyndia Grant is a speaker/writer living in the D.C. area. Her radio show, “Think on These Things,” airs Fridays at 6 p.m. on 1340 AM (WYCB), a Radio One station. To reach Grant, visit her website, www.lyndiagrant.com, email lyndiagrantshowdc@gmail.com or call 240-602-6295. Follow her on Twitter @LyndiaGrant and on Facebook.
