YOU’RE A MAMMOTH

Woolly mammoth restoration at the Royal British Columbia
Museum, Victoria, British Columbia. Photo by WolfmanSF

“Yesterday, I woke up a possum. This day, I am a mammoth,” declares Ellie, in the movie “Ice Age: The 
Meltdown,” when her real identity dawns on her.

Ellie was a humongous but gentle mammoth (which in reality was one of the largest animals which ever walked the face of the earth) but acted as if she were tiny.

Don’t we sometimes see ourselves like the possum Ellie? 

Someone may have told you, “You are stupid, you won’t amount to anything!” And you believed, owned and lived the “stupid” act as dictated on you.

I struggled with Math in grade three and it did not help that my grouch of a teacher always growled or threw the eraser at us if we missed the mark. I was tortured no end and really thought I was stupid. Then I was a clueless clumsy teenager—my face defaced by pimples, full length bangs and wide-rimmed black eyeglasses intended to cover what I thought was my ugly face—when someone said, “Oh, she’s the least among the brood.” That nailed the stupid-I-won’t-amount-to-anything-nail on my head. 

I carried that self-minimizing title as I grew up. I was so insecure I tried to hide behind a veneer of arrogance and pride. Deep inside I knew I was insignificant. 

Then one day, I discovered I was a mammoth. That was when Jesus caught my heart and I prayed to accept Him as my Lord and Savior. He opened my eyes to the fact that He loved me and wanted me to be a winner in everything I did if only I would let Him take control of my life.  What could be a better testimony than Him changing my heart and leading me in paths I never imagined I could tread?

Didn’t the bible say, I can do all things through Him who gives me strength? (Philippians 4:13); that it is no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me;  and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20)? 

I am a mammoth not because of my own strength but because of the Holy Spirit steeling my resolve to walk in His wisdom, not mine. I am a mammoth because my house is not built on sinking sand but on solid ground. Jesus Christ is the Rock of my salvation, without whom I could not experience life to the full. The Rock of Ages is my stable ground, my rampart, my refuge and my high tower. 

As a man thinks to himself, so is he, Proverbs 23:7. You can’t say you’re a Christian yet still believe that you are weak or unable or powerless; so quit thinking, “I can’t!”  For God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, love and self discipline, 2 Timothy 1:7.

That’s the same dunamis or dynamite power which made Jesus rise from the dead. That’s the same love which enabled Jesus to give His life in exchange for our eternal life. And that’s the same self-discipline Jesus so diligently exercised to fulfill His mission while He proclaimed His kingdom to an unbelieving generation. 

Like Ellie the possum who was really a mammoth, we can now start to flex our muscles and say, “I have the mind of Christ, I can do it!” 

Shouldn’t this be one of the first lessons we teach our kids even before they start struggling with their Math?

Originally published at: http://cbnasia.org/home/2013/09/youre-a-mammoth/