There are five frogs sitting on a lily pad. Two of the frogs decide to jump off. How many frogs are left sitting on the lily pad?
Before reading on, think for a second. A good riddle tries to trick you. Stop and think for a second how this riddle could be tricking you. Riddles are so great at tricking us because they use words in a way that makes us think contrary to reality. Read the words of this riddle again slowly and make sure that you understand it. Don’t let yourself be tricked. Now, how many frogs do you think are still left sitting on the lily pad?
The answer is, of course, five. How’d you do?
Any riddle worth its salt tricks most people so don’t get discouraged to be tricked by this one. The riddle strategically uses commonly misunderstood words to bring us to incorrect conclusions. We think for sure that it must be one way when, in reality, it’s another way. For this reason, you probably said there were three frogs left sitting on the lily pad. Unless of course you’ve heard the riddle before and someone has explained to you that deciding to do something and actually doing it are two completely different things.
Two Sons, One Question
A man asks his first son to go work in the vineyard. The son says no, but later changes his mind and goes. He asks his second son the same thing. This one says yes, sir, right away, and never shows up.
Jesus asks the obvious question: which son did his father's will? The answer is obvious too. Not the one who said the right words. The one who actually went.
Then Jesus tells the religious leaders, the ones who have spent their whole lives saying the right words, that tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of them. Not because their sin was smaller but because when John came preaching repentance, the outcasts believed him and changed. The leaders watched it happen and still wouldn't budge.
That's the danger of being fluent in the language of faith. You can know exactly what a surrendered life is supposed to sound like and never once live it.
The Lily Pad Is a Comfortable Place to Sit
I think about this parable and I think about the frog sitting on a lily pad, telling every other frog in the pond about the incredible swim it's about to take. It talks a big game. It really means it, too, in the moment. But tomorrow comes, and it's still sitting there, still talking.
We can be that frog. We say "I'm giving my life to God" and we mean it when we say it. We pray. We think good thoughts about the people who frustrate us. We feel the intention rise up in our chest like it's already a decision made. And then we go right on treating people the way we always did, holding onto the same grudges, protecting the same corners of our lives we'd rather God not touch. We stay on the lily pad.
Here's an unsettling thought: God isn't interested in judging us by the moment we said yes, or the moment we said no. Ezekiel makes this brutally clear. A virtuous man who turns to sin will not be saved by his past virtue, and a sinner who turns from wickedness will not be condemned by his past sin. God isn't grading our opening position. He's watching what we do with it. The son who said no and went matters more to the father than the son who said yes and stayed home. Our history, good, bad, or indifferent, is not our destiny.
That should terrify anyone who's built an identity on having said all the right things once, a long time ago, and never checked whether their life still matches the words.
That's the difference between the son who said yes and the son who actually went. Saying yes costs nothing. Going costs your Saturday, your comfort, your plans, maybe your pride. Emptying yourself costs everything you were planning to keep for yourself.
What Actually Changes
So what does this look like practically? Not grand gestures. Ezekiel 18:25-28 and Matthew 21:28-32 both point at something quieter and more constant: the willingness to turn, again, today, in the specific place you've been avoiding.
Maybe it's the conversation you've rehearsed a hundred times in your head and never had. Maybe it's the resentment you've prayed about without ever actually forgiving. Maybe it's the ambition you've dressed up in spiritual language, building something impressive "for God's glory" while quietly making sure it still glorifies you too. That's its own version of sitting on the lily pad: talking about jumping into total surrender while keeping one foot planted firmly on your own plans.
The tax collectors and prostitutes in the Gospel didn't have polished answers. They didn't have the vocabulary the religious leaders had spent years perfecting. What they had was the willingness to hear something true and let it wreck their plans. That's what let them go first.
Jesus isn't impressed by our theology of surrender. He's not moved by how eloquently we can describe what total availability to God would look like. He wants to see it. He wants us off the lily pad and in the water, even if we said no at first, even if it's messy, even if we're the last ones anyone expected to jump.
The father in the parable didn't need his son's speech. He needed him in the vineyard.
