Insanity and the Bottomless Shampoo Bottle

     We seem to have a bottomless shampoo bottle at my house. And a never-ending toilet paper roll. Not to mention the little creature that mysteriously eats all the garbage out of the can so that it’s miraculously empty. As the only female in a house with three males, it seems I’m the only one who knows the secret behind these strange phenomenon. But one day I wanted to see if they could figure it out, like they secretly knew but didn’t want to tell anyone. I decided to leave the shampoo bottle and wait for someone else to replace it. After a couple days I happen to be in the bathroom while my youngest was in the tub and I noticed him shaking the bottle and squeezing it, only to have his hand filled with air. I asked him, "How long are y’all gonna try to get something out of that empty bottle before you get the new one?" Poof - the light bulb came on, but I wasn’t ready to see the light. I still had a few things to complain about.
     Later that week, I tried leaving the garbage to see if anybody noticed the full can and emptied it. I got home from work and asked, "Is our challenge today to see how high we can stack the garbage?" Needless to say I ended up taking out the trash. But let’s see if they remember tomorrow is garbage pickup day and the big container needs to be pulled to the road. Nope. Am I the only one who is able to do that? Obviously so, because the container still sits full at the back door.
     Ok, maybe I’ve learned my spiritual lesson in all this. I think Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. How long am I going to keep squeezing the empty shampoo bottle or piling up the trash? I am not going to lose weight if I keep eating the same food in the same amounts. I’m not going to feel better if I keep sitting on the couch instead of going for a walk after supper. Things are not going to change unless I take a step in the direction I want to go. Jonah spent three days inside a fish until he cried out to God and was spit out on dry land. For the fish to have spit him on dry land, they had to be pretty close to the shore to begin with. Can you picture the fish swimming just a few feet off shore waiting for Jonah to cry out? Do we walk around that close - just a few feet - to being in God’s will for our life?
     Tomorrow is garbage pickup day again. I don’t plan to miss this one. And I’ll probably keep replacing the empty shampoo bottle and toiler paper roll. But I can’t do that forever. Eventually they will have to find the new bottle on their own.  Hopefully insanity doesn't run in our family.