Frogs!

No, not the ones that plagued Egypt. Not even the one that you might find in the corner stone of a building that sing “Hello my baby!” (but only for you!) No, I was thinking of the ones that, along with their toad friends, sit in the water around my house, in ponds and streams, and peep all night long in the hopes of attracting a mate. You know what I mean, that sometimes deafening sound you hear in the spring and early summer that often catches your attention as you drive by in your car, it being louder than the AC/DC playing on the radio!

Frogs rock. They’re almost aliens to us, not reptiles, birds, nor mammals. They live mysterious lives (where do they go in the winter? How do they live through it?) and most have no teeth. They’re harmless, slimy, and totally delightful. Who hasn’t brought their jelly eggs home in a jar to show mom? Or watched the fat-faced tadpoles do their magic before our eyes, growing legs and all that.

I love the peeping that they do. One all by itself you hardly notice, but when a crowd of them do it you can’t ignore it! And always it starts with one bold frog who is looking for someone to answer. There it is, surrounded by darkness. Likely enemies, too, such as birds and snakes who’d gladly eat it. Yet it still calls out, crying in the wilderness, hoping for some other frog to hear its lonely cry. Eventually, someone does! Soon another one joins in, and then another, until scores are doing it, some fast, some slow, some high, some low, with a bullfrog thrown in there with its deep sounding “thrrrrrump!” for good measure.

I hear these outside my window, in the past so loud they would wake me up at night with their persistent peeping. I think how harmless they are, so non aggressive (unless you’re a grub or some other bug) and yet they seem to have no fear of the dark or what lurks in it. Their creator made them this way, perhaps to send me, the master’s greatest handiwork, a simple, subtle message.

And I think I know what that message is. Frogs have been around for a long time. They know what to do, and they do it. They might move from pond to stream to lake, but always they return to the duty they were created for. They don’t try to be something they are not. Oh, they can burrow way under the ground like moles. They can scale some of the highest buildings, amazingly clinging confidently to sheer smooth plates of glass. But eventually they go back to the water they came from. Again, they know what to do, and they do it. Along the way they eat many pests and enemies of mine – flies, mosquitoes, and their disgusting friends.

Men also burrow under the ground, but we are not moles. Men soar through the sky, but we are not birds. Do we know what to do, and do it? We are more complex, and our creator has given us more complex tasks to do. We are meant to glorify his name and teach others to do the same lest they be lost. We are to be obedient to his will in all things. Surrounded by the darkness of this world, possibly with enemies searching for us, we ought to be calling out to those who would be like minded. One voice doesn’t seem like much, but enough of us saying and doing what’s right is a force that cannot be ignored. Are we “new creatures” that the world holds in awe? What about when someone tries to make themselves out to be something they are not, such as equal to God? Or even to declare that there is no God. Do we know what to do and bold enough to do it? Or do we not let out a peep about it?

Randy