Crab Tales

CRAB TALES

On Saturday, I went to Dome market to buy food items. While there, I was assaulted by a variety of sounds and smells. One smell that dominated was the pungent smell of live crabs heaped up in a large bowl to be sold. They moved, crawled and heaved as each crab tried to move upwards, perhaps for some fresh air.

As I walked on, I noticed a movement on the ground and saw one little crab scuttling along on the ground. It had managed to escape from the bowl and was now far from the crab seller, gleefully moving to a life of freedom -or so it thought. As I contemplated using my leg to shift it from the middle of the road to the side, one of the people who thronged the market bypassed me, stepped on the crab and moved on, unaware that they had brought the crab’s world crashing down.

source: tpsdave https://pixabay.com/en/crab-beach-sand-macro-closeup-1990198/

The crab was hurt but not dead. As I gently pushed it to the side I learnt a lesson. Like the crab, we are placed in the world for a purpose. Like the crabs in the bowl, we may have to shove and heave and fight to get to the top just to get a little relief from the pressures of life. The crab was put in the bowl to be sold and cooked and eaten. Painful, yes, but that is its purpose- to glorify God and serve man. This runaway crab thought that by running away, it would be free. And for a while it was free. Free from the confinement of the bowl, from the pushing and jostling of other crabs, from the destiny of being sold, cooked and eaten. But it had left the protection of the crab seller and exposed and alone, it faced a slow painful death alone, a badly hurt and crippled crab who no one would want anymore.

In fulfilling our purpose, we have to be bought by the blood of Jesus and face the heat, pressures and pain of fulfilling our call. But in the end, we are of benefit to others. We die so that others can live. We deny ourselves so others can have. We are hungry so others can be full. But in the end, we glorify God and serve our fellow men.

Like the crab, whether we are bought, sold and cooked or we run away and are crushed to death, we will still die. Why not die fulfilling our purpose, however painful, rather than run away and die a painful and unnecessary death without giving to the world?

Like the prodigal son and like the crab, running away seems fun, like the way to freedom. But there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is death.

Face the heat, fulfil your purpose.

Amesiamina

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