Here’s a helpful warning: if you take me to the zoo I’m likely to do something rather embarrassing. Like laugh out loud and clap with glee in front of a pig at the petting park. Yes, ma’am. And what was this pig doing to inspire such a response? Just rolling around and acting like a pig, of course.
Here is why I love the zoo: There are no posers.
The monkeys are the monkeys.
The lions are the lions.
The pigs are the pigs.
And everybody seems okay with it.
My favorite thing to do at the zoo besides watching the animals is watching little kids watch the animals. Because the response is always the same: sheer delight coupled with curiosity. What if we responded that way to each other too? What if when we encountered someone different than us we reacted with delight and tried to understand them better?
From the time we’re small, there’s a deep joy that comes from seeing what God created just being exactly what it is. Monkeys swinging from trees, hippos staring silently with their eyes just above the water, hyenas laughing at nothing in particular. Something inside us says, “Yes! That’s good.” That’s our hearts echoing God’s response to creation in the beginning.
“God saw all that he had made and it was very good” {Gen. 1:31}.
And you know what?
When you are you it’s still very good.
So wherever you are today, be whoever you are too.
XOXO