Police and workers in Madison Township, Ohio, made an interesting discovery Thursday: a twenty-five-year-old alligator was living in the basement of a house.
Police were called to the home after firefighters responding to a medical emergency observed the alligator penned in the basement. It turns out, the five-foot-long alligator was being kept as a pet. The owner did not have an exotic-animal permit as required by law so he surrendered the alligator, which will be taken to an animal sanctuary in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
This is a win for everyone: the owner, who won’t have to feed and beware of the pet; the police, who rescued it without harm to themselves; anyone who happens down into the basement; and, most of all, the alligator, who is trading a pen in a basement for his (or her) natural habitat.
The best way to clean your spiritual cellar
One obvious lesson is that, as Moses warned the Israelites,
“Be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). The owner
apparently kept an illegal pet for twenty-five years, but a medical emergency
led to its discovery. Sin you think is “secret” today will not be so
one day.
A less obvious lesson is that we don’t always know what is
in the “basement” of our lives unless we do an inspection. C. S.
Lewis suggested in Mere Christianity: “Surely what pops out before
the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a
cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the
suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding.
“In the same way, the suddenness of the provocation
does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man
I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and
noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.”
The best way to inspect your spiritual basement is to seek
the help of the Holy Spirit. In this…
… Read More
—
Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Denison Forum.