The Believer's
Self-Defense Mechanism Recently, a member of my church forwarded me this "Fable of the porcupine": It was the coldest winter ever - many animals died because of the cold. The porcupines, understanding the situation, decided to group together. They covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions even though they gave off heat to each other.
So they began to distance themselves from each other and began to die, alone and frozen.
So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth. They decided to go back to being together.
This way they learned to live with the little wounds that were caused by the close relationship with their companions, and appreciate the warmth; this way they were able to survive.
Moral of the story:
The best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people, but the best is when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person's good qualities. (Unknown source.) When I thought about it how true is among believers in the church. Sometimes, we feel it's too close for comfort. We seem to develop our own self-defense mechanism without knowing that our own protection may hurt [poke] each other in the process of coming together. For this, it's good to remind us that we need to let down our guard a little every time we get together. We do have a choice indeed to sacrifice our own discomfort for the sake of warm benefits for each other. The great apostle, Paul wrote "When you do things, do not let selfishness or pride be your guide. Instead, be humble and give more honor to others than to yourselves. Do not be interested only in your own life, but be interested in the lives of others. In your lives you must think and act like Christ Jesus. Christ himself was like God in everything. But he did not think that being equal with God was something to be used for his own benefit. But he gave up his place with God nad made himself nothing." Philippians 2:3-7 NCV. |