Tadpole Season, Watch out for Cannibals

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This is the time of year that the bullfrogs make their glorious resurgence. Their noise fills the crisp morning air and accompanies the lightning bugs in the evening time. Around this time, tadpoles fill up every deep puddle along the country roads. Before I paint too “Twain” a picture, of the quaintness of it all, let me tell you what I learned during tadpole season a few years ago.

My kids had the great idea to to bring home a bucket of tadpoles and put them in the little wading pool. Their hope was to watch them to grow into frogs, hopefully before some predator came along and ate them. I learned a few things during that season of tadpoles.

Bullfrog tadpoles of are nothing like the cute little things you might be imagining. They are huge, fast, super gross snot balls. They are more disgusting if they are in a pool you used to like to use. We discovered that tadpoles can become carnivorous, they actually can become cannibals. We unknowingly flipped some instinctive, natural trigger when we dumped them, unwittingly, into close quarters. In the bumping and stress, some of those little blobs developed a hard beak-like mouth and began to attack and devour their brothers and sisters.

The interesting part was, you could’t tell by looking at them. You couldn’t guess which ones were going to turn out to be destroyers of their brethren. They all started out like all the rest, but soon they started picking on the weak, and the sick. Nibbling at them. Leaving a trail of weak and destroyed pollywogs around them. Those that survived the attacks never lived to thrive like they should.

I don’t know why those tadpoles were like that, except it gives me a great analogy about how some people behave when they become hard to the trials and weaknesses of humanity. As I edit this post, I can not help but be humbled by the timing in light of world events. The hopelessness of this world seems to be pressing in on me. You too?

Perhaps you’ve seen or experienced this as a young Christian or perhaps you’ve seen this in yourself at times, when thrown in fray. Maybe you have felt defensive in a situation with the person who has not yet discovered the truth of God’s word.

The question is will you grow hard and seek to defend and destroy. Will you also tear apart those that are weaker than you or will you protect nurture and strengthen. Will you help people who are weak or firmly oppose those that could be called to grow alongside you?

In today’s culture we are challenged constantly with opposition. Our character shines when we respond like Christ in our words and in our motives, but mostly essential in our actions.

What kind of Christian are you? Are you a nurturer and protector, or a cannibal of your fellow man, and fellow followers in Christ?

We are called to be reconcilers and a witness to the testimony of Christ and in doing so we allow the light of God to shine in a darkened world.