“For anger kills a foolish man, and envy slays a simple one." - Job 5:2
Despite their tiny brains, ravens are both highly intelligent and extremely adept at making the environment work in their favor. That’s a fancy way of saying that ravens are highly manipulative. Monte was certainly no exception. He often conned others into doing work for him – like summoning the coyotes to open up the carcass of a fresh kill, so that the meat would be more accessible to him. His favorite trick is to wait for a blue heron to catch a small rodent, then cleverly steal the catch away for himself.
It’s a great life - with one exception. From his perch atop the sycamore tree, he watches every day in utter amazement, the magnificence of an eagle named Avery.
Monte was so envious; Avery could fly higher, faster, and with greater precision than he could. One day the jealous raven spotted a hunter with a bow and arrow and devised a cunning plan.
"Eagles are so elusive,” he said, “They seem to dance in and out of the sun! It would take a real marksman to take one down, don’t you think?” he questioned the bowman.
“Yes indeed,” replied the proud hunter, “But it should be no problem with the right feathers.”
So Monte pulled out one of his feathers for the hunter to use on his arrow.
The arrow flew into space, but fell well short of the unsuspecting Avery. She was flying too high. Disappointed, Monte pulled out another feather, to help boost the arrow’s range. A second arrow failed to reach the targeted eagle so Monte pulled out still another feather, then another . . . and so on. Soon Monte had lost so many of his feathers that he himself couldn't fly. Unable to defend himself now, Monte quickly perished; a victim of the laws of nature.
Like the jealous raven, sometimes we allow our dislike of others to blind us with so much hatred that we end up hurting ourselves. Instead of using our talents to strengthen our own character, we expend too much energy trying to destroy someone we don’t like. Like a cold fire – hate brings us no warmth and poisons our hearts. It blinds us from all the great things God wants to do with and through us. Is there someone in your life that needs forgiveness?
Lord, we pray for the power to be gentle, the strength to be forgiving, the patience to be understanding, and the courage to accept Your will. For those who have hurt us, we leave them in your hands, so that we may move on with our lives. Amen.
