The cost of not caring about other people’s problems …

It’s easy to think that someone else’s problems don’t have anything to do with you. In more ways than one, that’s usually not true. The following story highlights this truth …

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.

“What food might this contain?” the mouse wondered.

He was devastated to discover it was a mouse-trap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning: “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The pig sympathized, but said, “I am very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in
my prayers.”

The mouse turned to the cow and said, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse, I am sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”

So the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house … like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake was furious and bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a severe fever.

Everyone knows that you treat a fever with a fresh chicken soup. So the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient. But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and relatives came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer’s wife did not get well and she died. So many people came to the funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness and said, “I warned them about the mouse trap but they did not take my warning into account …”

The Bible implores us, “Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too,” Philippians 2:4.

When someone tells you about the “mouse-trap” in their life, how do you respond?

Scotty