It was a sad day. It snowed the night before, a skiff of the fresh stuff dusting everything. Linda and I went down to the lake to retrieve our snow shovels from the shed. In a grove of large white spruce trees, right at the base of one of them, there was a small patch of fresh blood.
We both stopped in our tracks and stared at it. It was Linda who put it together first: “Oh no! It must be Squirrelly,” she said.
As I stared at the bright blood on the fresh snow, I knew she was right. Something had gotten our beloved squirrel.
“It must have been a hawk or some kind of raptor,” I said.
“You mean Squirrelly got raptured?” Linda said. “But how? Squirrelly is, I mean was, so smart and agile. He ruled like a laird of the glen and this grove of spruce trees was not only his manor but it provided him with almost perfect protection.”
“I think our squirrel got just a little too squirrelly,” I said.
We watched for our beloved red squirrel for the rest of the day. Every time we let out Addy, she kept running up to the big spruce tree next to the house, bounding up on it with her front paws and staring up. It was where Squirrelly always hung out just to tease her.
The next day was a sad repeat of the first. From her perch on her dog bed, Addy diligently watched the bird feeders in the big spruce at the corner of our deck. She was pining away to see the squirrel that she loved to hate. Several times during the day, Linda and I would go to the window and sigh, “Oh, I just miss Squirrelly so much. He was so cute and frisky.” The three of us were suffering real rodent remorse.
“That little bushy tailed rat! He just jumped at a pine grosbeak and knocked it clear off the branch next to the bird feeder. And look; he just did a one-handed twirl around the next branch and almost nailed a common redpole in mid-air before doing a two-and-a-half-gainer to land on the wrought iron railing. And now he’s going right after the Chickadees.” Linda was incensed.
“He’s back!” I said. “Apparently the rumours of his demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
“Nice one, Marc Twang,” Linda said. “I am going after the broom so I can defend my fine feathered friends. Oh, how quickly I forget how much that bushy-tailed rodent can get me irked sometimes.”
What is it about our ability to have fond memories of even the hardest scenarios or the most difficult characters after they have passed? For most critters we share life with, in most situations that make up our lives, we, or perhaps I should say I, seem quick to think the best of them when they have gone. Beyond the occasional real catastrophe that darkens my skies, the truly dreadful persons or events that sometimes envelop me, most of the time I seem inclined to think the best, to remember with fondness, to be attracted to the goodness. This puzzles me enough to have caused me to spend considerable time thinking about it.
I have a theory. My theory is that we are created in the image of God, declared by God to be very good, and in spite of being fallen creatures living in a fallen world, most of the time, most of us are looking for the good, yearning to think the best. It’s like God has placed in our created being something from His own image that is attracted to the positive and the good.
The ramification of this with regards to my Christian faith is becoming increasingly important to me. I am coming to the conclusion that we humans are inclined to think the best, cut out for good news, created for gospel. I guess what I am saying is that I don’t always need to be convinced of the bad news in order to be logically persuaded of the Good News; I have been cut out for gospel, created to receive it. The same thing that makes me want to believe the best with situations, critters and people has caused me to have a built-in receiver for the good news in Jesus. Deep down, whether I think I am dark and sinful or not, I want to hear that there is a good God that loves me so much that He became flesh in order to initiate and facilitate a personal relationship with me.
I find this insight illuminating when it comes to sharing my faith. The other day I was sitting next to a very thoughtful, middle-aged teenager at a pot-providence church dinner. He brought up the subject of evangelizing his peers. He had been reading that it was absolutely necessary to convince a person that they were a sinner before they could receive the good news of a loving, saving God and a Savior. And we talked about how hard it was to get the mind around convincing someone that they were a sinner, never mind actually getting down to doing it. No one finds it easy to begin a discussion on a deep, personal negative. But I wonder, with sharing my faith, does every discussion about salvation need to begin with a condemning discussion about personal depravity? Is salvation and a relationship with a loving, saving God always “needs” driven? I am becoming persuaded that this is not the case.
Wasn’t it Jesus who said “…God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).
When I think about it, there are lots of things that I give myself to that are not driven by my need. I didn’t get married because I needed a wife. There was something deep within my created being that was attracted to Linda’s peculiar goodness, charm and loving nature. You can call it chemistry if you want to, but I know I was created to receive the goodness that was in Linda. And you know what, if I look back at my own story of coming to God, it didn’t begin with an awareness of my depravity. I was attracted by God’s goodness and love, cut out for the good news that He loved me, created for the gospel in Jesus. The awareness of my own darkness and sin came after that, after I stood personally for a time in the illumination of God’s pure light and came under the influence of the Word and the Spirit. And boy did it ever come then.
The long and the short of all this is, I am not likely to condemn someone on the basis of their personal depravity, but I can and will share the good news of God’s love. And as to evangelism, I think that’s all it takes.
About davidwebber
Rev. David Webber is a minister of the Cariboo, B.C., house church ministry and the author of several books.
