Desserts and Disobedience
November 20th Devotional
1st Samuel 15:23
Almost every one of you have read a Golden Book in your life. You remember the hardback children’s books with the gold spine. Most of them were located near the front of grocery stores. The books are icons in the world of literature. They are a staple in most of our reading journeys. Golden books were first introduced in 1942. The nation was still coming out of the great depression and money was tight for a lot of families. Books were an unheard-of luxury, especially kids' books. The average cost of a children’s book at that time was roughly $2-3, which doesn’t sound like much but if we figure in inflation, those books would cost $38-$50 today. Most of us wouldn’t buy a book that expensive. A man named George Duplaix wanted to change that. He worked for Western Publishing. He felt that children’s books should be colorful, quality, and cheap. The books originally rolled out with a .25c price tag! The company decided to publish twelve original titles, some of which included: Three Little Kittens, Mother Goose, Prayers for our Children, The Little Red Hen, and The Animals of Farmer Jones. The books were a phenomenal hit, selling over 1.5 million copies in one year. Today there was over 1200 different Golden Book stories, but none quite as popular as the Poky Little Puppy. The Pokey Little Puppy was part of the original run of twelve. It was written by Janette Lowrey and illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren. This book would be the ONE BILLIONTH Golden Book printed on this day in 1986! Golden books then crossed the two billion threshold in 2002! The Poky Little Puppy itself has sold over 15 million copies making it the best-selling hardcover children’s book of all time.
Most of us are familiar with the story of the Poky Little Puppy. It follows an inquisitive and disobedient little brown and white puppy who is anything but Poky. The story tells us of a family of puppies who were warned by their mother to not wander or dig holes under fences. “But, the five little puppies dug a hole under the fence, just the same, and went for a walk in the wide, wide world” and find the terrible punishment of not having dessert! Each puppy that is but one. The poky little puppy also disobeys his mother but he isn’t present for his punishment because he was out exploring bugs, grass, and lizards. He would return when everyone was asleep and would eat the dessert. This continued a few times until the Poky Little Puppy is caught red-handed and isn’t given any strawberry shortcake. This cute little story ends with a sign on the fence “Don’t ever dig holes under this fence.” Puppies are not the only things that are prone to being disobedient, we as humans have a bend toward defiance. Disobedience against God is us going against His clear will for our life. It is doing the opposite of what God teaches. It is a failure and a refusal to bend the knee to God’s authority in our life. God takes disobedience seriously. The prophet Samuel comes to a rebellious King Saul with serious words in 1st Kings 15:23, “For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.” God considers rebellion against God as equal to witchcraft and idolatry. If we were to grade the seriousness of sin, we would probably think that those two sins were much worse, but not in God’s eyes. The sign on the fence gave a warning against digging holes, God’s Word warns us not to disobey. Disobedience cost the puppies a loss of dessert, disobedience for us costs something far worse, our fellowship with God, our relationships with loved ones, our jobs, our testimony, our integrity, and the list could go on and on. Nothing good comes from our rebellion against God. It brings loss, pain, and suffering. Disobedience is a black hole for everything good in our life.
