Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A Garanimals Approach

I have always been partial to things that coordinate on purpose, which probably explains why I thought Garanimals were the greatest invention ever when I was a tween. Mind you, I was much too mature for them, but I remember watching those commercials and wishing inside that my sister and brother had some of those outfits merely because they coordinated so easily. How could you mess that up? Better yet, how could someone else tell you something didn’t match? I mean if the top had a tag with a giraffe on it and the bottoms had a tag with a giraffe on it, it was guaranteed that the outfit worked. Could shopping for school clothes get any simpler than that? What a marketing idea to reel suckers like me right in, huh!

What if we approached our lives with the Garanimals mentality? What I mean by that is what if we used God’s Word, Jesus’ life, and the way He treated others to match our life to? Do the words that come out of our mouths match up to the standards He has given us? When faced with a difficult situation, we can chose the response that best matches what His response would be. How different things would be for us if we tried to “coordinate” every decision we make to match what He already has planned for us. We can use His Word to test our “outfits” or situations in life to see if they match up to His will. What about how we treat other people? We could hold up our actions to examples of His in the New Testament to see if they go together. Sadly, my hunch is though, that often things would clash. We sometimes try to match a lion tag to a sheep tag and it just doesn’t work and we go on throughout our day (or years) sometimes not matching. We don’t match up to what we say we are and all the world sees is a clashing mess on display that is not appealing to them at all. Those without a relationship with Jesus will want no part of Him, because to them it looks like He doesn’t go with anything.

If we are Christians, we must look at Him as the constant in our life’s wardrobe and everything else that we wear or display has to match Him. That’s what will attract others to put Him on too.

Lord, not only do I pray for my readers today, but I pray for myself too. God, I have failed many times in matching my life to You. In theory it really is as easy as walking to a closet to match tags because You tell us that Your yoke is easy and Your burden is light. We are the ones that make it difficult. We are the ones who create the gray areas and try to provide exceptions and excuses for our actions. Really, it is black and white – if it doesn’t line up with the truth in Scripture, it’s wrong. It’s that simple. I pray, Father, that my mind be shifted to more of a desire to line my life up with that of Your Son and less to justify my attitudes, thoughts, and actions with excuses and exceptions that I have made up on my own. I pray, Lord, that my spiritual eyes be sharpened to see no shades of gray.




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