The Opposite of Holy is Dumb

Kids have a great ability to take a spiritual truth and boil it down to it's essentials.

This morning Rebekah and I were listening to a song about Christ being the Lion and the Lamb. She has often commented on how "weird" it is that Jesus can be both a lion and a lamb at the same time. She understands the symbolism behind it, strength and power coupled with meekness and humility, and yet she is still blown over by the idea. (Shouldn't we all be?)


So today she piped up, "Mom. The opposite of holy, is dumb."

Quiet laughter on my part. "Why do you say that, Babe?"

"Well, you told me once that if you put a dumb lion and a dumb lamb together, they'd just eat each other. But if you put a holy lion and a holy lamb together they don't hurt each other and will lie in the grass together. So the opposite of holy must be dumb."*

*I believe my actual term was "instinct" or "nature." But "instinct" encompasses the inability to reason, so dumb is probably not too far off.


Following her logic: If God has created us and chosen us to do good works in His name (holiness) and if He has called us to bring glory to Him (holiness) and instead we wander through this life doing our own thing, making our own way, and choosing glory for ourselves; we are not being holy, we are being dumb.

So today I'm asking myself, "Do I want to be holy, or just dumb?" Makes the choices in life a lot clearer, doesn't it?!

The Toothless Philosophe