Thoughts from here and there…Religion and Soap
A rabbi and a soap maker went for a walk together. The soap maker said: “What good is religion? Look at the trouble and misery in the world after thousands of years of religion. If religion is true, why should this be?”
The rabbi said nothing.
They continued walking until he noticed a child, filthy with mud and grime, playing in the gutter.
The rabbi said: “Look at that child. You say that soap makes people clean. We’ve had soap for generation after generation yet look how dirty this child is. Of what value is soap?”
The soap maker protested, “But rabbi, soap can’t do any good unless it is used!”
“Exactly,” replied the rabbi.
Religion is like soap. This is an excellent illustration of the need, but, you ask yourself, what about the results?
What can faith help us to accomplish that cannot be done in no other way? I remember a story that is often repeated about a little boy was in the hospital, unwell and very unhappy. He wanted to go home.
To cheer him up, his nurse gave him pen and ink to draw a picture, with strict instructions not to soil the bed- clothes. He completed his picture, but then the nurse found him crying. He had dropped a great blob of ink right in the middle of his picture.
She looked at the mess and then with deft strokes drew around the blot a dog and called it Spot.
“Oh,” said the little boy, looking up into her face, “that’s just like my dog at home.”
She had done something with that blot that God can do in all our lives if we’ll let Him.
God has the resources to take away the bitterness and strife of life.
God will share divine power with us so that we can overcome the temptations that confront us with successful living.
There is nothing that we can do on our own. It takes two. If we will let him, God will help us.