"The Ode to the Roly-Poly Bug"

 

by: Bobby McDonald

 

Editor's note: The following is just my opinion and observations. From time to time, we may offer a column similar to this as a new addition to Front Porch News Texas. Where, I offer an editorial opinion on something simple...It will be rather spasmodic , as many of you will identify...I have to remember what I've observed!

It happened on Sunday morning, as I was getting ready and dressed for church. I went to the bathtub to run my bath and noticed a "roly-poly bug (pill bug, A.vulgare)" in the bathtub. Being "green," I picked it up and tossed it toward the bathroom counter, where it landed next to the baseboard of the cabinet.

While bathing, I noticed the bug, which had made a ball when I picked it up, "unroll" and begin inching its way along the counter. Minutes later, I noticed it going along the wall in  the long way around the room, as it made its quest to get back to the moisture near the bathtub. By the time I had finished shaving, the bug had arrived at the edge of the tub.

I couldn't help but wonder, why the bug would take the "straight-edge" along the wall, when it would have been ten times faster, for it to have "struck-out" across the floor?

Then, it occurred to me that so, so many times, we're just like the "roly-poly bug." God places us in situations in life and through our own stubborness and ignorance, we take the path that seems right to us, but it ends up being the "long" way to the destination he had for us! Is he looking down on us, like I was the bug, and pondering why we're so intent on taking the long way to our destination!

There's bound to be a lesson for us here?

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