Mission Statement

Hate Christians? You'll love me.

"If I have to boast, I will boast of what pertains to my weakness."

Monday, November 22, 2010

A Boston Terrier Christian

I do not know how many of you are familiar with the wonderful breed known as the boston terrier. Our family owns two, and they are the greatest dogs. One trait we picked up on quickly and found written in many a book about the breed was that the dog, which is small but just breaks the barrier into qualifying as a "medium" breed, has no sense of its own size. Which is something to be aware of when say, meeting other breeds of dogs on the street.
The family dog, Daisy, deceptively hops happily up to greet other dogs, be they yorkshire terriers or great danes. One of us will then follow her, having learned that inevitably, this interaction will not be all that it appears...the other owner just looks at the grinning face of our sweet puppy and says, "Oh, it's okay, my dog won't hurt her." Usually on this occasion, the other dog is bigger than Daisy. However, upon reaching the other dog, Daisy's happy face twists into a snarling mess, and she begins to bark what I can only imagine if were close captioned, would be censored for extreme vulgarity.
Then the owner gives us a dirty look and drags their dog away, offended. We always try to warn them - it's not you we're really worried about. It's us.
I truly feel this way about myself. I remember hearing in church that you plus God is a winning team. And feeling like a loner most of my life, I took this to heart. But perhaps in a sense I have skewed the positive nature of this message into something beyond what was intended.
Because my personality is also somewhat of a know it all. So truthfully I have trouble learning from other people. I feel like Daisy where I forget that my size is not truly greater than that of my peers. Because I have felt trapped so often in church, I feel so often like I have to fight my fellow Christians, and I forget, that it is not God plus one against the rest of the Church.
The psalmist wrote, "I am just a worm." And that psalm was foreshadowing Christ, so I am probably lower.
But every day, I tug on the leash and I feel like I am bigger. I think about the knowledge I have, the books I have read. I climb on the backs of the people who went before me, and I think I can do even better.
But so far my bark has been more deadly than my bite.

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