The Scorpion and the Frog

You may have heard the fable about the scorpion and the frog.  It goes like this: A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion says, "Because if I do, I will die too."  The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp "Why?"  Replies the scorpion: "It’s my nature..."

People can feel like the scorpion.  We can feel like certain negative habits or tendencies we possess are just our nature and there’s nothing we can do about it, “even if my life depended on it.”  Or we might think other people to be “scorpions”, possessing a destructive nature that forecloses on any potential for good that might have come their way.  So why bother?

But people are not scorpions.  People are better than that.  People can weigh alternatives.  People can learn.  People can make choices, new choices, different choices, better choices.  People can change. God can help.

In the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and throughout the records of His teaching it becomes clear that while on earth in the flesh He operated completely under this assumption.  He was fully convinced that people could change and that He could help.  He devoted His earthly life and death to that conviction.

People should be compared to scorpions?  It’s not in the Bible.  The Bible is clear that people are not to be confused with scorpions.  People are made of better stuff than that.  People can change.  People can be “born again.”  People can be redeemed.