A Beagle Kind of Faith
Have you seen the TV commercial*
with the beagle that lives inside a tube?
It’s a commercial advertising heartworm medicine and makes the
advertising claim that the best way to protect your dog from fleas and
heartworms is to either live in a sealed bubble-like tube, insulated from the
world or give your dog their daily meds. Strange isn’t it that a dog would live
in a plastic tube! In fact it’s downright preposterous! Dogs, especially
beagles, aren’t designed to live in a plastic tube. They are designed to chase
rabbits through brambles, dig under fences, wake the neighborhood while they
howl at the moon and lick the chocolate off their human’s face.
Dogs aren’t designed to live in a
bubble and neither are Christians. Yet so often I see Christians hide in
plastic bubbles to keep from interacting with the world. I’ve done it myself and cringe at my
foolishness and lack of love and faith.
Sometimes Christians even build these insulating tubes to keep from
being tarnished by each other. The irony is that such bubbles designed to
insulate can end up being quite cold and toxic. If it wasn’t so sad, it would be just
ridiculously funny. Christian, we follow a God that left the “bubble” of heaven
to live among his creation, to sleep without a pillow or a house to call his
own, to live with those that would hate him, to love on those that would kill
him, to die that we would live. Doesn’t that seem a long way from the bubbles
that we create? Do we really believe that someone that does not trust Jesus
would want to step into our sterile bubbles? Jesus didn’t come to live in a
bubble. He came to live with man. And he calls us to follow him. Follow. Jesus.
Christian, go chase rabbits, dig
dirt, wake the neighbors and lick the chocolate! (maybe scratch that last one
;) ) Get out of your bubble and live
life as God has designed you to live it – in the world.
By grace,
Harrison
