I also know this person is smart, because the first coin you
come to is a penny. It is almost not
worth bending down to pick up, after all the only thing a penny is good for is
giving it to the cashier when your bill ends in 91 cents so she gives you back a
full dime rather than four more pennies and a nickel. You used to be able to at least buy a
gumball, but it has been years since I have seen a gumball machine that takes
pennies. If you know of the whereabouts
of one let me know, I have a handful of pennies and I will treat you to a
gumball or two, but I diverge. Because
the first coin you see is only a penny and not worth much by
itself, you keep walking.
What this initial penny does, however, is make you aware of
the possibility that there is more coinage to be discovered, and this is how I
know the person is smart because in just two steps there it is, another coin. You
see it because you are now looking. It is either a nickel or a quarter. I do not remember because all it takes to
trigger the reflex to bend down and pick it up is the fact that it is bigger
than a penny and it is sliver. I am not
ashamed to admit that upon seeing this silver coin I bent over to pick it
up. That is when I discovered that it
was securely affixed to the sidewalk. In
an instant I knew I had fallen victim to someone’s prank, and became aware that
that person was probably watching and laughing, hidden behind the curtain of the
house in front of which all this takes place.
Now let several weeks, maybe even several months go by. Fill those months with life changing
circumstances that preoccupy much of your thoughts, and you might just find
yourself walking down the same sidewalk, coming across the same penny, which like
magic, opens your mind up to the possibility of more coins being strewn on the
concrete, and bending over to pick up the large silver coin that comes
next.
If you felt slightly foolish the first time, the feeling is
now fully realized as the thought of “I have done this before” quickly flashes
across your mind. You are sure that the
person behind the window has some way of keeping score of how many people stop
to pick up the money and you have just added another tally mark to the total,
your second.
Fool me once, shame on me.
Fool me twice, shame on you. Fool
me three times…well I do not even want to go there. At occurrence number two I decided to commit
the moment to memory, to notice where the coins were in relationship to the
surrounding houses, to remember that each coin has a bit of glue which oozed
out and discolored the concrete around them so that in a couple of weeks, or
months, when my mind is preoccupied with other thoughts and the penny presents
itself I would remember want comes next.
I am happy to report that today, I came noticed that penny
once again. Rather than opening me up to
the possibility of finding more coins, it triggered a memory of what the
consequence would be if I allowed myself to go down that path. I kept walking and saw the next coin, but
instead of bending down to pick it up, I smile and imagined the person behind
the curtain, poised to put one more tally mark on their board, having to sink
back into their chair without the scarification of claiming one more victim, or
in my particular case, the same victim for the third time.
I also could not help but think how similar this experience to
other things that draw our attention, cause us to be tempted to seek out what
has no capacity to satisfy, and which in the end leave us feeling foolish.
Instead of a penny to trigger our radar, these other experiences
are triggered by loneliness, hurt, shame, guilt, and any other of a number of negative
emotions we were never designed to experience.
Our reaction to this trigger is to begin looking for ways to deaden the
pain, fill the void, and make ourselves feel anything other what was we are
currently feeling. We start looking for
the shinny coin.
These coins come in all kinds of forms. For some it is sex that is not safely held in
the covenant commitment of marriage. For
others it could be any one of a number of substances that dull the pain and
help you forget for a brief time. I have
seen others scan the landscape for coins that are shaped like success, power,
money, and other coins that give the illusion that the person is in
control. Sometimes it could be a coin that
fills the need to be needed, or fills your stomach so you feel full.
Like the currency of different countries, there are so many
kinds of coins that I could not possibly describe them all, but they all have
one thing in common. They are someone’s
sadistic trick to make us seek after something that was not intended to provide
what its appearance promises. I wonder
if there is not someone sitting behind a curtain making tally marks every time
we reach for one of these, laughing his head off because he knows that by
drawing our attention to this coin he has removed our attention from the one
who is able to fulfill all that has been promised.
With the prevalence of loneliness, hurt, shame, and guilt it
is hard to imagine that we were never supposed to experience these things. They were given birth when we turned from the
one with whom we were designed to share unceasing relationship and fullness of
life to seek after a coin that was glued down to the sidewalk, having no
ability to provide what we had hoped it would.
In the process we have discovered disappointment, loss of
relationship, and have settled for a life that is anything but full, but that
doesn’t mean we have to keep seeking after the coins that brought us to this
place of foolishness. We remember the
penny and where it leads. We can choose
to make a mental note of what triggers us to begin scanning the sidewalk for
the shinny coin that cannot fulfill its promise. We can ask the Holy Spirit to recognize it
when it comes along, and remind us how unfulfilling it is and recall how
foolish we feel when we find ourselves, one more time, turning to something that
cannot deliver what we hope.
The Spirit of God can do so much more than that for us. He can not only help us avoid falling into
some sadistic trap, He can lead us to the one who was intended to be in
constant relationship with us, pushing away our loneliness. He can remove our guilt and shame, and can
redeem and heal our hurts. When our
attention is locked on the power He has to do these things, we will not be looking
down for coins on a sidewalk. Our eyes
will be high and lifted up, looking to the one who has the capacity to redeem
and restore all things. He
is our treasure.
I just imagine the guy behind the curtain having to sink back in his chair without the satisfaction of making one more tally mark, claiming one more victim and I cannot help but smile.
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