The old man and the scorpion

There's a parable told about an old man who used to meditate each day be the Ganges River in India. 

One morning he saw a scorpion floating on the water. When the scorpion drifted near the old man he reached to rescue it but was stung by the scorpion. A bit later he tried again and was stung again, the bite swelling his hand painfully and giving him much pain. 

Another man passing by saw what was happening and yelled at the mediator, "Hey, stupid old man, what's wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don't you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?" 

The old man calmly replied, "My friend, just because it is in the scorpion's nature to sting, does not change my nature to save." 

It is in God's nature to save (Luke 15:1-10)

Listening to Life

Within the Christian tradition life is lived as though human beings are continually being addressed or called to in one way or another. The process of nature, the flux of history, all that happens to each individual every twenty-four hours is a ‘mighty sum of things forever speaking’.
J. Neville Ward, Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, p. 3