Creature

Lately the question, "why ought I follow Christ" has been on my mind. My answers have ranged from, "well, in the first few chapters of John alone, John the Baptist says that He is the 'Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,' Jesus says He alone can give living water, can give fulfillment, and He says that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life," to, "Well, I have some great friends who follow Him, and look how their lives have changed and seem fuller, my parents follow Him, doesn't something seem bigger about their lives?" Now, the first set of answers, the things that talk about how Jesus is our hope, it doesn't seem right, noble, whatever, for us to follow Him to get eternal life, or to have a full life now. I feel like I would only be following Him selfishly then. As to the second set of answers, first off, do their lives really seem that much fuller? Well, if I really tried to look at their lives and the lives of people who don't follow Christ, and looked unbiasedly and as though I cared, I think I would find that those who are actively following Christ, who are seeking Him out, probably have fuller lives. Regardless, the second set of answers just don't seem to be enough.

Our family has two little dogs, both micro miniature dachshunds (yes, they average out to about 7 pounds each..). One of these dachshunds, the younger one, thinks that she is the alpha dog in the house, and, because of this complex, does everything she can to humiliate the other dog/prove her superiority. Lately, she had been getting real nasty, taking her chew toy over next to the older dog and provoking him, which she would follow up by snapping at him. Not very nice. She had proven herself to be an overall kind of selfish and mean dog, which didn't result in her being happy, I don't think. None of us liked this obviously, as she was blatantly abusing the elder dachshund, but we didn't quite know what to do. My mom emailed a few people that might know what to do, and a helpful dog trainer replied, saying that not only should we not just give the dogs chew toys whenever they wanted, but that we needed to show the dogs who was boss. My dad did a little research and found about the same, that the reason so many little dogs get snappy, irritable, and have this Napoleon-like syndrome is not because they are little dogs, but because their owners treat them as toys, and not as the animals, creatures, that they are. So, lately, we haven't been allowing them to have bones when they're not in their kennels, been forcing them to walk either behind or beside us on our walks as to display our "alpha-ness," and have just been generally trying to teach them that we are in control, and not they. The result? Both dogs have been interacting with each other and us better, the younger dog that had been trying to prove her alpha-ness has been stopping and hasn't been being snappy or mean to the other dog, and in general, both dogs have been behaving better.

As I was walking the dogs with my sister today, I was casually thinking about this, and something one of my friends had been talking about lately hit me, the idea of creature-hood, that we, as humans, must realize that we are creatures, we are God's creatures, and must submit to His will and His control, not only that, but we must give Him our lives, as He has created us to be creatures that listen, no, love, Him.

So as I was thinking about this idea, about my question of "why," and about our dogs' behaviors, a thought hit me that maybe, maybe a good clue to why we ought to follow God would be found in this: just as Maggie, the younger dog that had been being snappy, is now behaving better under our actual control, and, I think, happier, perhaps we as humans, when we get past ourselves and admit that God is in control and we are as pups to an owner, will begin to become happier. Maybe the reason that so many people fight for control, for power, for anything, the reason people are selfish, the reason that there is so much war and fighting and strife, is because people don't realize they're creatures of God. Maybe this holds some clue to why we ought to follow Jesus. Because in Him, things make more sense, people are more loving, things just seem right. In a true relationship with Jesus, barring the sin that is inevitable, people will not fight and be selfish and cause strife, because they have realized that they are creatures. They are not in control, and when they try and rest control from the very one who gives them life, they become evil.

There's a great quotation from, "The Narrative of Frederick Douglass," in which Douglass is takling about the experience he had with one of his slaveholders. This slaveholder's wife started teaching Douglass to read, as she thought would be good of her, but as soon as her husband found out, he put an immediate stop to it. Here's a description of how his mistress, the slaveholders wife, digressed as she immersed herself in slavery. "My mistress was, as I have said, a kind and tender-hearted woman; and in the simplicity of her soul she commenced, when I first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another. In entering upon the duties of a slaveholder, she did not seem to perceive that I sus-tained to her the relation of a mere chattel, and that for her to treat me as a human being was not only wrong, but dangerously so. Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me. When I went there,she was a pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman. There was no sorrow or suffering for which she had not a tear. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within her reach. Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness. The first step in her downward course was in her ceasing to instruct me. She now commenced to practise her husband's precepts. She finally be- came even more violent in her opposition than herhusband himself. She was not satisfied with simply doing as well as he had commanded; she seemed anxious to do better. Nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper. She seemed to think that here lay the danger. I have had her rush at me with a face made all up of fury, and snatch from me a newspaper, in a manner that fully revealed her apprehension. She was an apt woman; and a little experience soon demonstrated, to her satisfaction, that education and slavery were incompatible with each other."

I don't know that you took the time to read that, but if you did, I'm sure you see where I am going. As Douglass' mistress displays so well, when human beings take total control of other human beings, when they have power they ought not have, something evil in them happens. Perhaps this is a clue to God, a clue to the fact that we are not meant to be in control, to make our own rules, because when we do, look what happens! I make my own rules every day, rules that are in direct opposition to the one who has created us, and I don't think it's made me happier. At the very best, it's made me more neutral, made me rather apathetic and lazy, more prone to give way to feelings of at the very best not caring about much anything. As Douglass' mistress begins to become more and more evil the more and more she takes control of Douglass' life, as she becomes more and more corrupted the more she practices this corrupt thing, I think that we too, as humans, only lead ourselves into more and more sin the more that we do as we ought not do, the more that we say no to our creator and our creaturehood, the more we make ourselves the own king and loves of our life.

But surely we cannot choose Him, cannot follow Him, cannot fully understand our creaturehood and His Glory without His help. At least, I surely cannot.

Come, Jesus, come, and open our eyes, for if what you say is true, we, I, am far more desperate than I thought.

Ugh.