The Little Foxes

The Tired, Thirsty, and Hungry Fox

Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyard, for our vineyards are in blossom

Songs of Solomon 2:15

Once upon a time, when the sun had shone in its strength for days without end, and the rain had not softened the ground for months, so that a devastating famine had taken hold, a tired, thirsty, and hungry fox, Foxy was his name, was walking around, desperately hoping to find something to eat. For two weeks now, Foxy had had nothing to eat. In the sky a crow, Crowy was her name, with a generous and deliciously looking slice of meat in her beak, was flying, trying to find a tree to perch on. For Crowy, food had been hard to come by as well, and she had just snatched the slice of meat from a goat herder in the fields. Foxy, tired, thirsty and hungry, decided to rest under a tree. So it happened that Crowy perched on one of the branches of this very tree, under which Foxy was sitting, tired, thirsty and hungry. The movement of the branches roused Foxy. He looked up and saw Crowy, in her beak she had a delicious slice of meat. Until then, foxes and crows had never spoken to each other. Foxy knew this was his only chance.

“Wow!” He said. “What a beautiful bird! You have to be the prettiest bird of all your kind.”

He went on to praise the color of Crowy’s feathers even though they were black. He praised her beak and said she had beautiful eyes. Crowy’s heart swelled with pride, she felt as though someone was finally interested in her, for until then, no one had ever actually paid attention to her.

“I wonder how sweet your voice is,” continued Foxy, “will you sing for me, please?” Crowy was excited, she was excited that the fox had said her voice was sweet, forgetting that she had the most annoying caw and made the most disturbing voice among all birds. Here was somebody who thought it to be beautiful. Crowy did not know that the fox was only tired, thirsty and hungry. Crowy gathered air in her lungs, she then opened her beaks wide to give out the most beautiful tune in the world. Just when she opened her beak, the delicious slice of meat fell to the ground. Foxy quickly dashed for it, and immediately ran off. Crowy was surprised to see Foxy running, then she remembered her slice of meat. She would have to sleep hungry today, again.

While we are often drawn to think of theft, murder, or fornication when we talk about sin, most of us, however, have had our hearts ensnared by what we would probably never have regarded to be sin had we not put on the lenses of scriptures. Foxes might be the most cunning creatures on earth, or we would never have said, as cunning as a fox. And after we have established how cunning foxes are, we see them addressed in Scriptures in this specific instance, as little. Here we have, cunning little animals, who ruin the vineyard that is just in bloom. To say they are cunning, is to emphasize that they are deceiving and manipulative. It may be precisely because they are little that they cause the greatest mischief, as no one would regard them seriously.

The term little foxes, therefore, consists not of the great sins of heresy and apostasy, or even fornication and adultery, but the little items in our lives that shift our attention from God to themselves. This may be in our normal routine, reading, chatting with friends, or even watching certain programs. It is the innocence of these things that provides a leeway into our hearts, and cultivates a coldness of God in our spirits. The fact that we are not hungry for God, as John Piper would say in the preface of his book Hunger for God, is not that God is unsavory, but that our hunger is already catered for by many other lesser things, we are stuffed already as it were.

The Bible says in James that the Lord tempts no one, but all of us are tempted when we are drawn by our own desires. We would say sin is born of a ‘little’ mistake carelessly regarded. The little foxes creep in insensibly and ruin our grapes that are tender, and our vineyards that are in blossom.

In John Owen’s approach to sin, temptation and the Christian life, he clarifies that we all have peculiar lusts due to our particular constitutions, education or prejudices. Satan tends to attack us according to our particular personalities, moving against a confident person more differently than an anxious one, but tempting both nonetheless. For example, the rich man may become proud of all that he has, thinking that he is full and in need of nothing. Even though this is a thought that may never come out loudly, it is one he harbors in his heart and that reflects itself in how he lives his life. The poor man may not have cause to be proud, but instead he may become embittered by his many  misfortunes and unenviable circumstances. He may secretly distrust God in his heart, and cease to have faith in God’s assurances. These men have sinned, and we would not be wrong to say they have been tempted differently. We must learn our dispositions, for in so doing we are more prepared to avoid stealthy arrows directed at us. To Owen, we must be killing the little foxes, or they will be killing us. We must catch the foxes, or they will ruin our vineyards that are just in blossom. There could be habits we ascribe to our nature and personalities, yet it’s these very habits that create a fertile ground for error and sin.

Many of us who believe we stand should look carefully lest we fall. Our hearts can often be nagged by little things, and as our hearts happen to be the greatest deceivers, we find ourselves in messes that it is often impossible to wriggle ourselves out of. We are to guard our  hearts, with all vigilance, for from them flows the springs of Life. To be able to enjoy God and worship him, there has to be a degree of need and hunger in our hearts that draws us to seek him. There are so many things in the world that rid us of this hunger and need for God, so that our fellowship with God becomes to us nothing more than just another task we need to get out of the way. The time we give to God in such a constitution of mind always seems unnecessary and if we are busy pursuing our goals, it often feels like a distraction and a waste of time. These things are the little foxes that spoil our vineyard of fellowship and love.

Catch the little foxes. Matthew Henry in his commentary declares this to be a charge that particular believers mortify their own corruptions, their sinful appetites and passions that work to destroy grace and comfort, quashing good emotions and crushing good beginnings, hence preventing their coming to perfection. The little foxes are to be seized, the first risings of sin… In Hebrews the instruction is, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight that clings close, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus as the pioneer and the sustainer of our faith. 

Catch us the foxes

Little foxes that destroy good beginnings

Little foxes that thwart good resolves

Little they are, so we may entertain them, 

Pay no attention to them, Or

Doubt their abilities to mess up our lives.

References

• Holy Scriptures

• Desiring God - John Piper

• Matthew Henry- Commentary

• Overcoming Sin and Temptation - John Owen

Simps Will See Dust 06

As could be expected, my eremitic tendencies led me to the solitary and farthest corner of the library, where I sank into a seat and sat without moving, suddenly subdued by the torpor of death. Without was the silence of a graveyard, within was the irrepressible din of a football stadium. When I made up my mind to come to the library, it was to do anything but study. I had come to mull over what my standing on the table of love was, and if anything, I knew I was at the precipice of relegation. Speaking of football, it felt as if my misfortunes had something to do with me being surrounded by friends who were Chelsea fans, for Chelsea had, quite clearly, established itself as a dependable source of disappointment and bad luck. As we had a Pharmacology paper in two days time, I got to see some of my classmates struggle to squeeze value out of the slippery evening hours. Even in a bid to salvage the semester, their efforts could be nothing more than the frantic kicks of a dying horse, for they had the innocent determination but clearly unattainable goal to study in a single night what was meant to be studied in a whole semester. 

I was supposed to be worried as well, for I could make no claims of preparedness, and even if I was a little ready for the paper, I could not confess that to anyone since as medical students, we had taken a silent but invariably binding oath to vehemently deny and dispel with any claims whatsoever of having studied, leave alone being ready for an exam. Affirming that you were prepared for a paper was tantamount to submissively walking yourself to the gallows, but we were ready to fight for our freedom with every ounce of energy in us, so no! I wasn’t ready for my Pharmacology test. But the terrifying thought that I had done the unthinkable thing of asking the wrong lady out nagged at my heart and seemed to rack my nerves with such unremitting insistency that left me miserable and wanting to bang the table. In that moment my mind was a simmering hodgepodge of emotional turmoil and academic anxieties that threatened to tip me into madness.

“Huh?” Ashley had asked, surprised at such an unforeseen request. A little unflinchingly, Brenda and Ashley stared at me as I croaked an embarrassing and incoherent string of phrases meant to highlight the error. I quickly tried clearing my throat but some saliva must have gotten into my trachea for I suddenly burst into what might have been the most terrifying fit of coughing. When I came to, the mortifying look of pity on their faces made me rethink the earlier defense I had intended to enact. I opened my mouth but only air proceeded from it. As it were, the universe had conspired to thwart and utterly decimate every iota of hope I had in me, or in the world, of ever winning, or even just getting close to winning the heart of the lady my heart bled for ( I beg clemency from the medical fraternity, for a bleeding heart would certainly be the most worrying case of a hemopericardium, and I am certain if it continued unabated, my love could only continue in a grave ).

“I wouldn’t mind a chat over coffee,” Ashley, deft as she was with any conversation, adroitly picked it up when it became glaringly apparent that I was struggling to reign my thoughts and convert it into a meaningful form of discourse, “Brenda will certainly come along, right?” she went on to ask in the most courteous way that for a moment, felt like salvation from the tormenting nightmare I had been in for the few minutes I had stood before Brenda. It was precisely for that reason that I had intended to leave the Microbiology practical immediately, before Ashley intercepted me and set me up for the most embarrassing moment of my life.

“No, I won’t come.” Brenda had replied in a manner that to me seemed to, strangely, bear the most disarming and breathtaking nonchalance that suddenly made her even prettier, and then with a demure smile that bore in it the potential of grabbing my whole being and tossing it off a cliff into the sea, she added a little emphatically, “it’s you he asked, and…” she continued while looking into my eyes, probably to tease me, “spoiling Henry’s date is the last thing I would want to do.”

“Brenda!” Ashley lamented as Brenda suddenly burst into a hearty but very brief laughter. I had wanted to explain myself, to swear it with my life that I could never take any lady aside from her out, as long as she walked the earth, but my heart had been all over my body, and my voice was on a holiday of sorts.

I was clearly living for a day that would never come, and I thought of what could possibly come from my infatuation. The poignancy that came with facing the reality that however great I thought my love to be, it could never make Brenda adore me if she never did. Brenda was too perfect to have me in her life. It was only years later, when I was happily wedded to L―,  that I would come to what would be the most counterintuitive realization, that I as well, had been too perfect for Brenda to have me. I might have foreseen this forthcoming awakening about a decade later as I sat there, pensive and with a crushed spirit, bemoaning my misfortunes, for I made up my mind to cut-off Brenda from my life. I had been dancing on this show of love with every sap of effort I could master, yet my audience of one had declined to come up the stage and join me. When I got home that evening, I was going to block Brenda, and delete her contact. It was time for me to leave the stage.

“Henry,” 

“Huh!” Startled, I looked up. She stood right beside me, with the most incapacitating smile painted upon her countenance. As you would expect, I was mute, and I believe I wore the most blank and confused look at that moment. Had Brenda followed me to the library?

“Can I give you a call later tonight?” she asked as she bowed her head a little, pressed her lips shut and raised her eyebrows. The cue, meant to confirm my affirmation, made her look glorious.

“Sure!” I snapped.

Flowering our Garlands - Adam's Sunday; Medical School Christian Union

When it comes to Medical School Christian Union, memorable moments of brouhaha, as our Luo brother quite candidly put it in his famous supplication, is certainly not something you could leave without, even if you wanted to. The third day of the third month of the year saw the Adams, the young men of the union known far and beyond for their stentorian roar “Ahuu!”, put together what would be an unprecedented gesture that was, as I gather, a little unforeseeable to our precious sisters, the Garlands, as we have proudly come to call them recently. And garlands they truly are, for I am convinced that anyone who saw them today could never dispute. They all looked radiant, resplendent in dresses that dazzled in a blindening coruscation of blue, as though they had been subconsciously attuned to the

main event of the day right from their wardrobes. I hear that ladies know when it is going to be a good day, yet not quite when it will be a bad one. Isn't that pleasurable, to live through each day positive and happy, unwearied by the troubles of humanity? “Rejoice, again I say, rejoice.”

The idea of gifting the garlands with beautiful yellow roses could as well as turn out to be the most ingenious move of the season. It is one thing to show kindness and love as a community of men driven by the passion to treat every young lady in purity as a sister(1 Timothy 5:1-3), as Paul exhorts us through Timothy, but to have to stand alone before the same lady in a different setting even with the pure intentions of Scriptures is a wholly different story, for it calls forth faculties and resources that have proved to be lacking in the typical comrade today. Such chickening out, might have been the result of the embarrassing dust these comrades have gathered in their simping escapades. Had they heeded to my imploration that they read Joshua Harris’s remarkable book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, the story would be different. Wading through the murky waters of attempted love was the option they were willing to stomach.

At the first look, it seemed as if the Adams hadn’t come up with, or even figured out the strategy they would use to give their roses. Yet in a few minutes, virtually every lady had a flower they were either sniffing at contentedly, pressing closely to their bosom, or beautifully placed on their laps. Some even had two roses! How the Adams were able to enact such a feat in a matter of minutes is probably incomprehensible, but maybe they have just been underestimated all this while. Talking of underestimations, my fly-on-the-wall observation of the whole activity probably gave me the honor to take a keen look at our brother Henry Madaga. Several MSCU members chant MDG everytime they have to make a reference to him, (eh mailod) I wonder what the acronym infers. I hear he has a blog he calls Litnerd Letters, which I am definitely having a look at after my observations today.

Henry was clad in a shirt that had to be the brightest shade of blue. Yes, it's blue, even though he was innocently convinced, even a little embarrassed, that the shirt was green, when the dress code was supposed to be shades of blue. How disappointing! He held the rose and looked at it with a little more passion than his counterparts who seemed a little carried away by the idea that they were even holding roses in the first place. To him, there was something personal about that yellow rose, and the card he carried in his other hand. A pleasurable smile settled on his face after he had surveyed the congregation of graceful garlands, and then after he seemed to have settled on his target, he took off with what appeared to be calculated and sure strides, quick strides they were. My own rose dropped from my hands and as I picked it up, I ended up missing the moment I had really wanted to see for myself. We had been praying for our brother, and seeing things finally play out in his favor would be such a pleasurable thing.

He walked briskly back to his seat and settled in it with such a peaceful and serene look on his face. The calm and contented look slowly transformed itself into a dazzling smile that was unlike Henry. The peculiarity and poignance of the whole thing made me silently wish I had seen the lady Henry had ‘flowered’.  Henry could be quite discrete about such things, and I was sure no amount of persuasion  and coercion could make him reveal who it was he had gifted the rose, yet the wise man I am, I tactically explored the environment of his mission and took note of the potential recipients of his kindness, for lack of a better word. I am not sure about the state of my own affairs when it comes to romance, but world, stay alert because I am certain of one thing, Henry is cooking!