Trouble in the House

“He who profits illicitly troubles his own house, but he who hates bribes will live.” Proverbs 15:27

Our youngest grandson is visiting and I hope that during his visit I will become reacquainted with some of our favorite VeggieTales and the wonderful lessons to be learned in such creative ways. I especially like Madame Blueberry and her unfortunate visit to Stuffmart. In this episode Madame Blueberry goes shopping in search of happiness, buying everything in sight she soon finds that things don’t fulfill her but sadly she learns this far too late; after she’s filled her house with so much stuff that the house (built in a tree for those of you who are unfamiliar) and its contents falls into a stream. In the end Madame Blueberry realized that true happiness and satisfaction will never come from ‘stuff’.

Ill-gotten gain does bring a great deal of trouble and this trouble takes many different forms. In Madame Blueberry’s case the trouble brought on her house was mostly financial; she’d charged everything she bought and had nothing to show for it in the end. But for most of us humans the trouble brought on by such illicit profit can lead to emotional, spiritual, marital and even criminal problems and some of these problems take years to recover from. Remember, as Madame Blueberry found out, only Jesus satisfies.