A Lesson from "Green Eggs and Ham"

Last night while I was reading my little boy a bed-time story, "Green Eggs and Ham", by Dr. Seuss, one of the illustrations stuck out to me. Well, I have always quite enjoyed these two pages, they just make me smile. I generally find them clever and funny and refreshing but this time they stuck out to me spiritually and I made a parallel.

So here are the two pictures. Take a close look, maybe even click on them to enlarge them. Look at the faces of all of the characters.

Maybe you caught what I saw or maybe you are thinking "yeah, so they're all happy and smiling, what's the big deal?" Well, now take a closer look at their situation. I love it. In the first picture they have just plummeted off the railroad track and landed upside down on a boat and yes they are still smiling, most with their eyes closed, and look quite simply content. In the second picture, they are sinking into the water. The driver of the boat is upside down in the water still holding the wheel and is as happy as clam. The passengers of the train, the sinking train, look quite peaceful and content themselves again with their eyes closed. I really quite enjoy these pages.

So you are probably wondering what spiritual parallel I possibly made with these two pictures, and well here it goes.

Have you ever started to "sink" spiritually but didn't even realize it until a big wake up call? Do you ever allow Satan to convince you that you can be content and maybe even complacent with where you are at and slowly but surely he starts to drag you down with a smile?

Now maybe take a look at the pictures again: We are the drivers of our own ships (lives) but do we sometimes allow Satan to take our ship out from underneath us and we don't even see it? Are we sometimes the passengers on Satan's train and don't even recognize it? Are our eyes sometimes closed to the things of the Spirit?

I think we all sometimes fall into the category of being Spiritually Blind. I think that this is one of Satan's greatest tools. In Doctrine and Covenants 78:10 it reads, "...Satan seeketh to turn their hearts away from the truth, that they become blinded..."

Satan is the darkness that blinds us and the Savior can be our Light to make us see. Under Blindness in the Bible dictionary it reads, "In addition to the healing of physical blindness, the mission of Jesus included curing blindness to the things of the spirit. He made an application of this in John 9: 5 when, in conjunction with healing the man born blind, he declared that he (Jesus) was “the light of the world.”


James E. Faust shares how we might gain this Light for ourselves:
"The Light in Their Eyes," Ensign, Nov. 2005, 21

"Hearing the words of the Lord lifts us out of spiritual blindness 'into his marvelous light' (1 Peter 2:9). Much of that light comes from our discipline, dedication, and consecration..."

One of my very favorite scriptures also talks about staying away from this spiritual darkness or blindness and receiving more light, it reads (D&C 50:23-24):

"And that which doth not edify is not of God, and is darkness. That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day."

Let us open our eyes to the Light of the Lord. Let us strive for the companionship of the Holy Ghost that we might know when we are sinking and becoming spiritually blinded. Let us ask ourselves if the things we are doing are edifying us, and then if not, let us seek for the Light and help it grow in our lives. Let us open our eyes to the spiritual Light of the Savior.