THE LESSON IN A CLEAN, BUT ITCHY BUTT…

Simply GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS can lead to uncomfortable consequences.

Mom said, “Hurry and get cleaned up Eric! You’re going to be late for school!”

Eric was still sleepy, so he dragged himself out of bed as mom continued to scream, “I want to hear that water running NOW!”

So young Eric went into the bathroom, lathered up his washcloth and quickly washed all ‘the important parts’ so he could tell mom that he did it.

Not long after getting to school, Eric began itching badly. He tried to discreetly scratch his bottom, but the itching was so intense, he didn’t care. He aggressively scratched trying to get some relief.

It got so bad that his 4th grade teacher called mom. She came to school, picked up Eric and scolded him for not washing his behind.

Eric told his mom, “But, I DID wash it mom!”

Eric‘s problem was that he quickly washed, but didn’t properly rinse away all of the soap, which made him itch, so he had the same effect and symptoms as if he didn’t wash at all. His going through the motions led to some uncomfortable consequences.

WHAT‘S THE LESSON HERE?

So many times as adults we can get in a hurry, especially when overwhelmed, and simply go through the motions of what we’re SUPPOSED to do, but don’t do it properly.

We mutter a quick prayer just to say we did it…

We robotically read a ‘verse of the day’ rather than really reading and studying the bible…

We rush through blessing our food without putting any real thought into what we’re saying….

We quickly say The Model Prayer (popularly known as The Lord’s Prayer) rather than having an intimate moment with God…

We say I love you to our family rather than showing I love you…

We hypnotically ‘go through the motions’ on our jobs without thinking about the real reasons we’re doing them, or the implications and consequences if we don’t do them properly and correctly.

We ‘go through the motions’ with our spiritual, personal and professional lives and wonder why our ‘butt won’t stop itching’.