"C" is for Cookie

**I have been perusing some of my old journals and thought I'd share...


Few people are unfamiliar with the iconic, blue, furry, crazy-eyed Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. Every episode I have ever viewed includes Cookie Monster inevitably devouring a cookie (or two…or ten) all while helping to promote the “Letter-of-the-Day.”

One fateful morning when Jaden was younger, I lay on the couch suffering from a nasty combination of a cold and flu. In a feeble attempt to entertain Jaden, I flipped on PBS. Sesame Street was on and it seemed to gain his attention, for which I was grateful. Fast forward a few skits and there is Cookie Monster in his predictable scenario with the large chocolate chip cookie taunting him. Today’s “Letter-of-the-Day” was “D,” which the proud cookie displayed. Tormented at the prospect of gobbling up the cookie in one fell swoop, but knowing that he shouldn’t, he made a sign to help remind him of the right choice; it simply said, “DON’T.”

Faster than Oscar the Grouch can hurl insults from his can, Cookie Monster, in a whirlwind of garbled speech and flying blue fur, demolishes his sign in a frenzy. To his delight and surprise, the sign that once warned “DON’T” now emphatically says “DO.” As you can imagine, this was all the coaxing Cookie Monster needed to justify gobbling up the cookie.

Maybe it was the Nyquil that clouded my thinking, but in those few seconds my view of Cookie Monster drastically changed from innocuous blue monster to sinner. When we know something is clearly a “don’t,” but justify it as a “do,” it is ultimately sin – recognized or not. May we learn from Cookie Monster’s cautionary tale and heed the “don’ts" and may we ask:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23-24

In this case, I think Keith Green best sums it up with these lyrics:

Nothing lasts except the grace of God by which I stand, and Jesus, I know that I would surely fall away, except for grace by which I'm saved.