Rad Dog

The other day I was following a Toyota Avalon (that’s a car) with the license plate “RADDOG” and my first thought was RADDOG doesn’t belong on a Toyota Avalon. RADDOG is a license plate for a Grand Am (that’s another car) or maybe an Alero (car) but RADDOG on an Avalon just didn’t seem right to me. I have always thought of Avalon people as “Golf Wisconsin” people or “Endangered Resources” people, nothing flashy. RADDOG on an Avalon is like wearing white socks with a black suit, it’s just not done.

Then I thought maybe RADDOG was a Grand Am guy who was moving up in the world and just couldn’t get the State to change his plate to something like MUVNUP (because all the good ones are already taken.) Or maybe RADDOG found himself in an Avalon but he was still a Grand Am guy at heart and “what can you do?”

Then I wondered where all of this was coming from. Do I really carry all of these unspoken prejudices with me all the time? Do I really make those kinds of associations? I guess so. Can my mind’s inner monologue really take me so easily from reality to fiction? Apparently. And is it possible that I can walk through this crazy line of reasoning and then think that it’s actually true? You know, like looking at a photograph of an event so many times that you begin to think that you were actually there? This is just scary.

Not too long ago I had another one of those conversations with someone who wondered if Jesus really expects us to “pray without ceasing” and I realized that this person (and lots of others) interpret the statement to be a command rather than an opportunity. The text from 1 Thessalonians (5:16-18) says, “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks” and it seems to me that I need to be doing all of these things continually or else my imagination can take me to places that I should not go. I have been given the opportunity to be in a relationship with Jesus that is constant and continual. What a blessing.

There were no pragmatic consequences to my experience with RADDOG except to remind me that I have to be careful where I let my mind take me. If anything, this little conversation has reminded me that I have been called out of the world to be (as Peter said in 1 Peter 2:9) a “royal priest, a holy nation, God’s very own possession” so that I might “show others the goodness of God.” If I’m going to get this done I have to be paying attention because I want all of the RADDOG’s in the world to know the “goodness of God.”

So, drive on Mr. RADDOG and drive anything you want…except maybe an Escalade. Oops.