Behaving LIke an Crazy Mongoose

For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another! I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Galatians 5:13-16

Jared - 2011

Since our earliest days in missionary work in Liberia our family has enjoyed having mongooses as pets. As infants, mongooses are absolutely darling and they attach immediately to their owners. Additionally, they eat just about everything from people food to ants, so caring for them is quite easy. But mongooses also have a dark side. As they get older they tend to get territorial and it seems important, in fact very important, to them to let other animals on the yard know that they, and only they, are in charge. 

Some years ago missionary coworkers had a pet mongoose, as well as a menagerie of other pets.  Like mongooses are wont to do, their mongoose irritated their dog considerably. Finally their dog had enough of it and he bit the mongoose, leaving a gaping wound. The family was horrified. My friend, a nurse, stitched the mongoose's wound and bandaged it up.

What happened next made absolutely no sense. The mongoose would not leave it alone. He kept pulling off the dressing and then gnawing at the wound, even eating the area around it! My friend dressed the wound again and again, going to great lengths to tie the bandages in ways that would keep the mongoose from getting it off. She even made little pants for him in her effort to keep the mongoose from destroying himself. But, alas, it was all to no avail. The mongoose would not stop his bizarre behavior.

And, sadly, there is an equivalent in the spiritual world. According to Ephesians 1:22, we as believers make up a "body," of which Jesus Christ Himself is the head. "And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all." As we follow the direction of our head, the body functions smoothly. The result is peace and harmony among believers.

However, in Galatians 5:15 Paul addresses a serious problem—believers "devouring" one another. Rather than responding in love to the demands of life and community, these Galatian believers were eating each other alive, so to speak. So Paul reminds them that all the law is fulfilled in the command to love one another.

I have been the perpetrator of such self-cannabalism, I'm afraid. When I respond in anything less than love to those who, like me, are members of the body of Christ, I am doing something truly sick. And it happens because I am not acknowledging these fellow-Christians' very direct relationship to me—members of the very body of which I am a part. 

If I am willing to obey, the Holy Spirit will give me the strength not only to refrain from devouring, but to truly love others.  After all, why would I ever want to behave like a crazy mongoose?

See "What Not to Wear"—Liberia Edition.
See No Longer Playing the Part of the Martyr.