Fooling Us With Silliness and Futility: The Totem Name, Part 2

by | May 17, 2011 | Deception, Deliverance, Temptation, The Totem Name

Imagine being told to pretend you are starting a motorcycle that refuses to fire up. You are allowed to make noises so that your audience can guess your intended message, but you aren’t allowed to say any words. As you set about your task, you can’t help but wonder why everybody is laughing at your realistic-sounding rendition of this mime. In fact, you notice that the more you try to sound like that motorcycle, the more they laugh! You give it one more try: “Vr… Vr… Vrrrrroum.” But someone in the audience falls over backwards in laughter! Hum. Maybe you should try something besides the noise . . . So you reach out your foot and “kick” that stubborn motorcycle, but the laughter only increases in volume! In fact, they are all turning beet red in the face! Are they weirdos or are you missing something?

But then the youth leader explains to you what the audience has been told what you are trying to do, and you also turn beet red. Only your extra colour comes, not from laughter, but from shame! Apparently the audience was told that you were to mimic … this is really embarrassing … do you really want to know? … I really prefer not to say … OK, OK, I will tell you … they were told you were pretending to go to the bathroom!

A sad joke, and all at your expense!

But you aren’t given much time to think through all of this before you suddenly find yourself blindfolded. You are then asked to step on a wooden plank, and you are lifted up in the air by four muscular guys until you feel your head touching the ceiling. Abruptly the four guys holding your plank in the air can’t seem to hold you very steadily! Someone yells, “Jump! Come on man, jump!” But how can you jump when you are so high up in the air? But you really don’t have much choice. It’s either jump or fall, so you do what comes naturally: You cling to the nearest guy holding up your plank, and you slide down to the ground.

The only problem is, everyone is laughing hysterically again, and all at your expense! You take your blindfold off and you realize that your plank was not the imagined 3 meters (10 feet) in the air, but it was actually only 5 cms (2.5 inches) from the floor! What you thought was the ceiling hitting the top of your head was really only a piece of cardboard!

What has everyone been eating that causes them to laugh so hysterically???

And speaking of eating, the leaders decide it is time to feed you. Aren’t you lucky! For some reason they don’t want you to see your food, and you find yourself blindfolded once again. Great . . .

One of the leaders then begins to describe every morsel of food put into your mouth: “For your appetizer we have prepared a delicious six-legged spider, burned to a crisp.”

You decide though, that you’ve been the object of enough laughter. You refuse to play their game any longer, and no matter what, the comment you will make for everything that enters your mouth will be: “Delicious!” Or “I love this one!” Or “Who is the expert cook?”

And so you are fed spiders, snakes, worms and anything else that is creepy. In reality, it doesn’t taste all that bad, especially after your blindfold is taken off and you discover that real, innocent food had simply been shaped in the form of the above-mentioned non-edibles.

Why are you going through all of this? It’s simple. It’s to receive your totem name. You know, that name you never wanted and certainly didn’t ask for?

Apparently I passed my initiation, because after going through the above, I was given the totem name of “penguin”. Supposedly I was called this because I was a “social butterfly”!

Not bad for an introvert. Perhaps it was ME who got the LAST laugh!

The devil also tries to fool us with silliness and futilities. “Look at that charming personality! Isn’t he/she attractive?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Euh… oh…Wouldn’t you like to getting to know him/her … more . . . Intimately?”

“Are you kidding me? The Bible tells me that ‘anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’ (Matt 5:28 ) Get behind me Satan!”

“What about the printer paper you need so badly. You don’t have time to go to Staples. Why not take a package from work?”

“Why would I do such a dishonest thing?”

“Be . . . Because you need it so badly!”

“Not badly enough to steal! The Bible tells me: ‘not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.’ (Titus 2:10 ) Get behind me Satan!”

“Have you heard what your colleagues think about you? They think the world of you! Doesn’t that make you feel proud? Look at what you have accomplished!”

“Where are you trying to lead me into?”

“Me? Oh, nothing! It’s just that you SHOULD feel proud of yourself! You…”

“You’ve got it all wrong! I will boast only in God and in Him alone! He is the one who leads me either to the mountain tops or through the valleys. The Word of God says: ‘May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.’ (Gal 6:14) Get behind me Satan!”

You won’t fool me any longer devil! You have been defeated by my Lord and Master. I will trust in Him and Him alone! ‘Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death-that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.’ (Heb. 2:14 NIV)”

P. S. Would you like to join us in our youth camp? We have still some wriggly worms and appetizing snakes being given away as food for free!

Rob Chaffart

(To access the entire “The Totem Name” devotional series, please click here.)

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Fooling Us With Silliness and Futility: The Totem Name, Part 2

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