Put Down That Banana

Turn your problems over to God. How many of us actually do this? How many of us turn only part of our problems over to God, and keep back some for ourselves? We partial it out as if God could not handle all of it at once, or we think that this part, this part, I can handle so I will hang on to it and figure it out myself.

Growing up my father constantly reminded us of the experiments that had been done with rhesus’s monkeys. Anytime that we would be doing some chore and were having problems getting it done without help, my father, would ask the now familiar question- ‘What are you a rhesus monkey?’

Rhesus monkeys were used in the late 1940’s and early 50’s for experiments to discover how we all adapt to our environment and how we develop problem solving skills and social norms. The experiment that had fascinated my dad the most was the one that was done with the monkeys on problem solving skills. The scientist had placed the monkey outside of his cage and placed the banana inside the cage. The bars of the cage had been constructed in such a manner that the monkey could put his hand in the cage but could not remove the banana out through the bars.

What the scientists discovered was that the monkey would put his hand into the cage, grab the banana, find out that he could not maneuver the banana through the bars of the cage, but he would not put the banana down again. The monkey was trapped because he would not put down the banana, and just remove his hand from the cage.

How many of us are like the rhesus monkey, we could be free from our worries and problems if we could just let go of that one problem and turn it over to God. We are already on the outside of the cage we know what to do, we have been taught God’s word and have listened to sermons about how to pray and how God wants us to go to him with our problems. What is keeping us from letting go? As Christians we are already outside of the cage. We know what we have to do to be saved, to be ultimately free. But there we are with our hand still inside of the cage refusing to let go of that last problem, that last bit of doubt.

Are we really putting our full faith in God?. Or are do we still have our hand inside of the cage?

Go ahead put down the banana, turn to God and be free at last.