Opposites attract. Opposites attack. Earn your stripes.

I love dogs.

Pretty much describes the tone of today’s message, huh.

The barriers.

Barriers to the unification message.

Sorry.

Cats run wild for a reason.

Even the Cowardly Lion was required to show, to prove his “stripes”.

Of courage. As a valiant fighter for the least of these. As a valiant fighter of self doubt. As a valiant fighter of self-fear that made him feel inadequate.

To reveal one’s beliefs, sentiments, or character, especially through one’s behavior. Without hiding the struggle. Sharing the struggle. Owning the struggle. Admitting the struggle. Is a struggle.

Advantage: Dog.

Dogs do not sensor. The are “all over it”. Some may like this, some may not.

The Cowardly Lion. He did not, does not understand that courage means acting in the face of fear, which he does frequently. Bucking the system. Good for you Cowardly Lion. For acting in the face of the fear that is or may be your own. Of your own doing. The ability to stay true to conviction.

The best ability is availability. To show one’s true character 100 percent of the time. Is no easy feat. In wide open spaces or enclosed, tight spaces.

Saying “No”.

Only during the aftermath of the Wizard’s gift, when he is under the influence of an unknown liquid 😳 substance that the Wizard orders him to drink is he not filled with fear.

The Wizard’s “Gift”. Over the lips and through the gums look out stomach, here it comes-kinda gift. Yikes. A dose of liquid courage?

No thank you.

Hmmmm. No truth like the drunken truth? Liquid Courage may have a way of stifling our character building. Earning crooked stripes.

Liquid Courage?🫣😦😲🤫?

100 percent. 100 proof? Liquid Courage is only as useful or productive as the time as the time it takes to go down. Or come up.🤮

The Cowardly Lion argues that the courage from the Wizard is only temporary, although he continues to do brave deeds.

Did you know? The 🦁 Cowardly Lion is in fact brave, be he doubts himself. Advantage to the Cat. The Large and Majestic Cat. The pride of the Jungle. The Courageous Pride of the Jungle.

Except pride can be self defeating. Self doubting. Self-fulfilling.

It’s a dance. And dogs don’t dance. Cats slink. Cats dance the Macarena. Show their true dancing colors. Deceptively and deliberately misleading? They prefer to hide quietly instead of: Earn stripes and wear them with pride. Out loud.

Except. Reminder: Pride can be self-defeating. Self-doubting. Self-fulfilling. The Pride of the Jungle may not provide the spaces and places and shelter that you seek. In the over crowded barn of a cat-like shelter.

Be wary of clear liquids, shaded liquids, “free” liquids😳 As Peter 5:8 stares: “Be sober-minded; be watchful.

Be watchful.

Why?

Because your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring Lion, seeking someone to devour.

Indeed.

Peter says that Satan wants to devour and destroy you, just like a roaring and hungry lion.

Advantage: Dog.

I would not want to sit amongst a hungry cat, large or small.😲

The Lion also carries Judeo-Christian symbolism. Is a common charge in heraldry. Is considered “King of the Beasts”.

Cats=Beasts. That devour hungry people.Yikes. The Lion of Judah stands in the coat of arms of Jerusalem. A shield. Flanked on either side by olive branches and super imposed on a stylized background representing the Western Wall.(wk)

Advantage: Courage. Courageous Lion.

In early Christian art, cats were seen as symbols of both lust and betrayal. (Wk)

Advantage: Dog

It is thought that some animals, especially cats, can detect by smell the chemical changes that occur in an animal or human body immediately before death.(wk) Yikes. A meow message of death.😦

Before they devour you.

Advantage. Dog.

All dogs go to heaven.

Do cats?

Dogs let you know they are coming. When they arrive.That they are here. Joyfully.

Cats do not. Quiet. Sometimes too quiet, sneak up on you when you least expect it. Yikes.

Cats seek shelter. Cats seek your shelter. Seeking shelter in the most obscure of spaces places.

In your spaces and places. Yikes.

Dogs tend to plunk it down anywhere and everywhere as long as you are with them, and they are with you. And most important along for the ride of your life until God calls them to heaven, where there is endless space and room for them as they live on in a life of servitude. To you. With you. For you.

Advantage: Dog.

Seldom do dogs and cats see eye to eye.

The best we can hope for is “co-existence”

And then even then it is “dicey”.

Your place or mine?

Doesn’t matter, really.

Yeah.

The tiger mom may be a “thing” where you come from.

But around these parts.

We do not eat. We do not devour dogs.

And. We do not eat one another. In any way, shape or form.

Advantage: Dog

All dogs go to heaven.

Jesus suffered for the spaces and the places to ensure this barrier would never see the light of day. He endured torture. Jesus earned his stripes in the face of forsaken-ness.

Jesus received the most iconic tortures in His time. The Roman flagrum with which they flogged Jesus 39 times gave Him and his body marks/stripes. Each of the 39 strokes took care of sickness and the 39 strokes took care of all our sicknesses and diseases. The Bible affirms this fact this way, “by His stripes we are healed.”

Put that in your pipe and smoke it? May be. Down the liquid courage of choice. Maybe again.

Thank you Jesus. For enduring torture, for our sickness. Thank you for the work you did on the cross. For our sake and sins. Thank you for the healing passage that speaks to us directly. To an immediate physical healing and not only spiritual healing.

A win-win.

The servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his Will, shall be beaten with many stripes. (Luke).

Never take your own revenge. Earn your stripes the old-fashioned way. That is a thought. Or you could throw, the ultimate “cook out”. Why not even throw

the cook out of all cook outs. Consider this:The grill out of all grills:

”If your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink (not of liquid courage necessarily). For in doing so you will heap burning coals on his head.

Ouch.

Defend the weak. Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Advantage: Dog.