Walking down the hallway of a hotel, I saw a terrifying sight: a painting of LinLin the Dog. LinLin must have lived no later than 1907 given the date of the building, the virtues that made his owner paint him are forgotten, but ugly is forever.
LinLin has become an object of terror.
LinLin lives in a building that is beautiful, one of the first hotel skyscrapers, but that is quirky enough that one can imagine it inspiring Walt Disney to build his Disneyland haunted house. The elegance and beauty compensate for the quirk . . . unless you see LinLin. He looks adorable at first, but then you study his tale and realize that it is like a club. When LinLin wagged his tale, people died.
Not really, but keep looking at LinLin.
Somebody loved their dog, but the artist failed them. Whatever the merits of gentle LinLin, the image waits to scare another person who has come with his children to the hotel. No living animal stands like the image of LinLin with his preternatural state.
And so it goes with so much of what we mean to do with those we love.
We mean to honor God and we create LinLin. So many of us set out to build a church, an institution, a family, or school in His image, but execution fails and we immortalize LinLin. Sincerity cannot compensate for incompetence. Meaning well, having the right intentions, cannot end well if God has not gifted us with the talent needed. Usually the result is merely forgettable, but sometimes we create a LinLin and it is hard to forget.
We want to love our spouse, plan carefully, and make a LinLin, because we end up planning badly or life takes our best and makes a LinLin of it.
So what to do?
If running something, hire competent people. How many ministries have a Godly vision expressed by LinLins? People are not rejecting the Gospel, they are fleeing from LinLin. Many of us inherit a place, a ministry, or . . . a hotel. We should feel free to get rid of the LinLin. The building is great, the LinLin must go.
The good news is that even the worst LinLin we give to God can find a place. If it isn’t hanging in the hall opposite your bedroom, a LinLin can become endearing. This one is so old that is now an antique. The frame is lovely, the kind not made anymore. They style is unique and hard to copy: sincere, but inept, frightening, but unintentionally so. The LinLin could find a place and be redeemed.
Just not opposite a small child’s room.
Context matters and the LinLin, if we see it for what it is, can become funny and even dear to us. We love the LinLin for what he is: clumsy love.
God help me to know my limits and find the right people to honor You. Take the LinLin I make and turn it into something dear, silly, and fun.
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