Hug that porcupine

Good morning, everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Lighten up a little”

Our Bible verse for today: “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to live worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:1-3 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Hug that porcupine”

I love John Ortberg’s book, “Everybody’s Normal – Till You Get to Know Them”. It’s a great title for a book – funny and intriguing. The title makes you grin and want to read it. And sure enough, the title is a pretty good clue about the fun lessons that lie within.

The first chapter is entitled “The Porcupine’s Dilemma”. Porcupines need love too, and they want to cuddle too, but when they get too close to each other there’s the danger of getting poked by a sharp quill. You see, if the porcupine gets a little agitated, for any reason, the quills come out and then someone is going to get poked.

Hello! Welcome to church! In fact, welcome to life. We’re all a bunch of porcupines with sharp quills. We need and want love, and we want to have good relationships with others, but if you get too close, and if someone gets a little agitated, the sharp quills might come out, and someone is going to get poked.

The answer to our dilemma is found in Ephesians 4:1-3. There Paul urges us to live with humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another in love. He wrote it again in Colossians 3:12-13. There he put it this way: “Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another.”

Rather than getting upset or annoyed at other people’s peculiar personality quirks learn to laugh about them. Find amusement in the fact that we are all a little weird. Ortberg playfully illustrates that in his book by explaining that if you were an item for sale in a department store, you would be featured on the bargain clearance table along with a sign that says “Slightly irregular. Flawed. Sold as is.” The fact is that none of us are “normal”. We’re all flawed and we’re all annoying in some way. There really is no “normal”. So, lighten up and laugh about it.

By-the-way, speaking of people with porcupine personalities, if you’ve had to stand in a grocery store check-out line recently then perhaps you have seen the glaring headline on the front cover of a popular women’s magazine that reads, “Totally Normal Women Who Stalk Their Ex-Boyfriends!” Seriously? They stalk their ex-boyfriends but they’re totally “normal”? Women like that scare me!

Fortunately, I have a sweet little wife who is anything but a porcupine. She is soft and cute and easy to cuddle with, and she doesn’t stalk me. Even though I sometimes am a bit of a porcupine, she graciously makes allowances for it, and she loves me anyway.

I encourage you to take a chance and hug someone today – even if they sometimes seem like a porcupine.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

(If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

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