PEOPLE have some unique ways of trying to overcome their loneliness. There was a lady whose husband died. She found herself, of course, extremely depressed. She told herself that she needed to do something to overcome her depression. She took a trip to the pet store to look for something to comfort her in her loneliness. The proprietor introduced her to a parakeet that talked. The widow thought the idea of a talking parakeet was wonderful, so she took the parakeet home. She started talking to the bird, but the parakeet wouldn’t talk back. The woman talked and talked. This went on for a week, and, naturally, she was a little confused as to what was going on. The widow made her way back to the pet store. “The parakeet is not talking. “The proprietor said, “Oh, you forgot to get the mirror. The parakeet needs to see itself in the mirror; then, it will be encouraged to talk. “So, she bought a mirror, took it back, and placed it in the cage. She made sure that the parakeet could see itself. For another week, she talked to the parakeet. The parakeet still would not talk. The lady went back, yet again, to the pet store. “That parakeet is still not talking.” “Oh,” he said, “you didn’t get the swing. The parakeets got to be on the swing and swinging and looking at themselves for it to talk. “So, she bought the swing, put the parakeet on the swing, and started talking to the parakeet. Another week went by, and she made her way back to the pet store. “This dumb parakeet is not working. It’s not doing what I hoped it would do.” Oh, I am sorry. There’s one more thing you forgot to get—the ladder. The parakeet has got to have a ladder to walk up and down on. That movement will allow it to talk.” Begrudgingly, she bought the ladder. Another week went by. That parakeet didn’t say a word. However, at the end of the week, it fell over dead. The widow was really mad now. She marched back to the store and sought out the store owner. She said, “That parakeet you sold me died. I bought the mirror, bought the swing, bought the ladder, and that bird didn’t say a mumbling word. It just fell over and died.” The store owner said, “I cannot believe that it died. Did it say anything before it died?” Yeah, while it was falling over dead, it looked up with one eye open and said, ‘Don’t they serve any food at that pet store?’” For four weeks, that bird hadn’t eaten. The woman kept buying all the wrong stuff. That’s what a lot of us look for—all the wrong stuff. The things we hope will solve our problems die on us. They don’t produce what we expect.¹

I’ve heard this same illustration given by several different people — it doesn’t matter, though, because it makes a great point. If our methods are not God’s methods for dealing with the problems — if our only solutions are of the man-made variety — we will quickly fail. People have sought the answer to loneliness in an innumerable number of ways, but your best solutions are always in God. ‘Lessons from the Life of a Great Prophet: That’s Our Focus on This Week’s Light on Life.’

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