"Jasper's Temptation"

“Jasper’s Temptation”

 Johnny and Jill were brother and sister.  Johnny was two years older than Jill, and like most brothers and sisters, they had moments when they would fuss with each other.  But for the most part they got along together pretty good.

The one thing they both loved to do was to go out in the backyard and play with Jasper, their big golden haired dog.  Now Jasper had one problem he loved, I mean REALLY LOVED to chase rabbits.  And the woods around Johnny and Jill’s house was full of cute, furry, brown bunnies with fluffy, white tails and pink, wiggly noses.  And those bunnies were fast at getting away from Jasper.  It was as if they were tempting him to chase them, because they knew he was behind a chain-link fence. 

Now, Johnny and Jill lived next door to Mrs. Coggins, and Mrs. Coggins was somewhat of a society lady.  She was always having some sort of tea party, and when the weather was nice and pretty, she held her fancy tea parties under her big magnolia tree. 

One pretty day, Johnny and Jill were out in their backyard playing with Jasper, and Mrs. Coggins had a pretty, round table all set up under her tree with her pretty china teapot and teacups, with little china plates setting on top of the table.  She brought out a plate of big, golden brown, melt in your mouth, sugar cookies that glistened on top with sweet granules of white sugar sparkling in the sunlight. 

Boy, Johnny and Jill’s mouths were watering, and as Mrs. Coggins was going back into her house, a little brown, furry bunny with a white, fluffy tail and long ears, ran across Mrs. Coggins backyard and stopped right under the big magnolia tree.  Now, that sent Jasper into a wild frenzy as he paced back and forth behind the chain-link fence. 

Then he could stand it no longer, he ran and took a flying leap over the fence, across Mrs. Coggins’ backyard and right under the pretty table that was all set-up for the tea party.  Jasper, being a BIG dog did not fit under the table, so the table fell over scattering everything onto the ground.

Now, Jasper didn’t catch the bunny rabbit, but he sure enjoyed those big, golden brown, melt in your mouth sugar cookies.  And as he was gobbling up the last few cookies, Mrs. Coggins came running out of her house waving a broom at Jasper, who ran fast as he could and leaped back over the fence, with Mrs. Coggins running after him, yelling, “You’ll pay for this!!”

You see, Jasper was overcome by the temptation of running after something he couldn’t have, the bunny rabbit, which led to another temptation, the sugar cookies. 

The Bible tells us that we need to be ALERT so that we won’t enter into temptation and it tells us that our spirit is willing to NOT fall into temptation, but our flesh is weak.  So we need to pray and ask God to help us run away from the temptation and NOT run to it.  (Matt. 26:41)