We Are A Long, Long Way Off

In the animal kingdom, acceptance is so much simpler. The animal walks to the other in the pack & nudges them. No adverse reaction? You are part of them. I was at the zoo last Sunday & I observed various animals’ display of behaviour.The mammals were the loveliest of the lot, demonstrating touches, nudges & neck rubs. And I could see that from mother to cub/fawn/calf & male to female.

If relationship in the human world is as simple as coming over to give you a nudge & a sniff, this world would be all touchy-feely & there would be no need for verbal communication but fortunately for intelligence & spoken words, we have been given the ability to understand one another through expressions that go beyond the animal kingdom. There would be one animal in the pack(usually the bull or the aggressive one) that is cordoned off in an enclosure, perhaps from bad behaviour or to keep from terrorising the juveniles in the pack or just to prevent from overpopulation! Any which way, segregation is not the answer in the human world as we have been designed NOT to live alone. God gave us a community to learn to live with the differences & other attributes to teach us love, peace, joy, faith, kindness, goodness, gentleness, patience & self-control, defined as the ‘fruit’ of the Spirit. In obtaining this, God did not say ‘fruits of the Spirit’ to let us get each of these attributes on its own but God said “if we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Surely if one of these fruity attributes of Christ is missing, we have already fallen short of the glory of God.

In each of our interaction with others, we find the need to seek approval from those we love even though God said, ‘It is better to trust in the Lord than to put your confidence in man.’ Psalm 118:8. In trying to understand why the need of approval & acceptance is of importance in community living, I find myself looking at the simplicity of the majectic giraffe, wonderfully created with markings & a neck that’s going to take hours to nuzzle as a show of love from the mate, I thought to myself, though the world may look at the giraffe as a strange creature with disproportionate body parts, designed only for the specific areas of the savannah, some may not even think it’s beautiful but to the giraffe & its clan, having each other & enjoying each other’s neck is all that matters. After all, they are already on top of the world, why give two hoots about what’s happening down there…?