CHARACTERS

For various reasons they land at our local animal shelter. Some came from litters, some found as strays. Some were given up, perhaps because an owner died or could no longer care for a pet.  And some were abused or even, well, bad.  Every week our small-town newspaper features “Adopt a Pet” ads where shelter cats’ and dogs’ positive qualities are extolled. But just to keep truth in advertising, the write-ups include cautions.

*Some have Cage Trauma, like these cats: “Shelter life is hard for this gentle feline.” “This kitty has been frightened of shelter life but is gradually finding it’s not all that bad.”

*Some have lots of energy that needs directed: “This dog is very intelligent and will need games to stimulate his mind.”  “She’s a show dog or rather a showoff dog who loves to entertain you and your friends.”

*Some were abused:  “This dog is crazy in love with humans and it’s a wonder since he hasn’t been treated well in the past. He is looking forward to a nice big doggie bed and someone to love.”

ABOUT THOSE CHARACTER GAPS....
Reading these made me think of those “love connection” websites where the whole truth about character isn’t always revealed. Some have done okay with such sites; others have stepped into minefields. That’s because “compatibility” is more than shared interests and hobbies. It also involves integrity and personal growth issues, as described in best-selling Christian author-psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud’s leadership book, Integrity (Harper, 2006).

Cloud observed that some people have gaps in showing good character “because they are unwilling to make the shifts that character demands. They kind of ‘flip off’ reality, the light, wisdom, or whatever influence comes into their lives.  They have a stance that is past resistance and is defiant.  For them, we can try to motivate, but ultimately, they have to make a choice.” Some people blame their past or genes for bad character. But Cloud challenges those excuses, saying each person can make decisions to change the negative parts of who they are.

If only people were as easy to retrain as pets.  If only a comfortable bed and appetizing kibbles made a difference.  Changing the negative parts of a personality and world outlook is hard work. As for those who’ve tried to help people who struggle with life and relationships, Cloud adds: “If you are trying so help someone, and he is not responding after many attempts by you to help, he may just be resistant. You might do better to spend your time with someone who really wants to change" (p. 278). 

Does that remind you of some of the sick people Jesus encountered? Like the disabled man who hung out by a Jerusalem water reservoir begging for alms, unaware that the Healer—the One able to bring spiritual and physical wholeness--stood in front of him (John 5:13)?

There are no guarantees that those animals offered for adoption will work out in their new home. Animals can be resilient but also stubborn.  So, too, a human—except for the amazing grace of Christ who’s in the business of transformation, building the character that honors Him.

Not perfect, but better

When my husband dragged the old dresser off his truck after yard-saling, my first reaction was “ugh”! Painted a sick dark green, missing knobs, gouged, and full of stickers and marker-pen graffiti, it was a sight. But we’d already decided to join our neighbor in holding a yard sale, so I took on the task of making it “marketable.”  After washing it down, I primed and then painted it.  We found enough matching knobs.  Behold, it was soon ready for a second life. Not perfect, but better.

As I worked away, I thought how it might illustrate how Jesus redeems us from “ugh” lives marred and damaged by sin. Paul wrote about the process in 2 Corinthians 5:17:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.

The analogy isn’t perfect, however. The dresser got an exterior makeover with paint, but Jesus works through transformation, from the inside out:

We...are being transformed into his [Jesus’] likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

My parents gave me this

butterfly necklace when

I graduated from a one-year

intensive Bible school course.

The word “transformed” comes from the Greek metamorphoo, which of course is related to the English word for “metamorphosis” in the insect world. After a brief life consumed with “consuming,” a caterpillar is enveloped in an ugly sac called a chrysalis. Within it, the caterpillar transforms to a butterfly, finally emerging into a new life. No wonder that this amazing process eventually became a symbol for the spiritual reality of being “born again.”

Jesus, in fact, had some harsh words about religious leaders of His day who excelled at "pretend-religion." They tried to look good on the outside but had dark, wretched, proud, judgmental hearts. He didn’t win any popularity contests with them, especially when He called them “whitewashed tombs,” pretty on the outside but full of death inside (Matthew 23:27-28).

I won’t say my refurbished dresser was totally “pretty on the outside.” It was still an old, scarred dresser.  But it had a second chance at being useful. And that’s just like God.  No matter how beat up and scarred we get from our bad choices and the inevitable hard places in life, He can still renew and use us. 

The rest of the story on the dresser?  A woman driving by our home a few days before the sale noticed it with its dangling price tag amidst other sale items we were gathering in the driveway. She was putting her 90-something mother in a care home and it was just what she needed as she prepared the room. 

Purposefully patterned

“Look at this fern,” I remarked as we followed paths in a botanical garden in southeast Kauai, “it has polka dots!” After seeing so many brilliantly-colored flowers amidst the garden’s intense green foliage, I found this fern unique, even amusing. Later, I learned that it’s popularly called the “Laua’e Fern,” also identified by the scientific name Microsorium scolopendria plydodium, which means a lot more to a botanist than to me. The plant I saw somehow came to Hawaii across the ocean from other Pacific islands or  tropical Asia. Its polka dots are actually spores that are part of its reproductive system.

Curious about how ferns reproduce (maybe I should have majored in biology!), I found the “f” volume of our family encyclopedia. Oh my, I encountered “Fifty Shades of Green” in reading of how a fern makes many little ferns. It all reminded me of the incredible plan of God that “like makes like.”

But what’s true in the natural world isn’t always true in the spiritual world.  God has a way of using people who are “marked” in ways that aren’t naturally pretty. Instead of “polka-dotted,” they’re pocked emotionally or physically. But God sees through that to what they could become, and what they can do for His Kingdom. That’s when “unlike,” by asking Christ to transform a life, can produce “like”—that is, a fruitful life that God originally intended.

I remember the first time I heard a broadcast featuring an evangelist who spoke with difficulty but positive passion, “I have cerebral palsy. What’s your problem?” David Ring, born in 1953 with this congenital condition, was orphaned by age fourteen. Depressed from his loss and the difficulties of his disability, he contemplated suicide many times. Then, he turned his life over to Jesus Christ. He finished college, married and had children, and became a motivational speaker who chides Christians who make excuses of why God can’t use them.

God can create beautiful, polka-dot ferns in the world around us. He can also bring beauty and service out of the ugly things life shoves at us. The difference is in a relationship to Jesus Christ, who said:

I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing…This is to my father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15:5, 8)