I was lucky to be born around the time when full-length animated feature films (big grammar for
"Cartoons" 🤭) had become mainstream, and I was privileged to watch a couple of classic
Disney cartoons - not the fluff pieces and remakes we tend to have today that are fast becoming
a hotbed for "agenda". One such movie was The Jungle Book.
The Jungle Book follows the story of a young boy called Mowgli who, due to rather unfortunate
circumstances, is raised by wolves while his life is threatened by Shere Khan - a man-eating
tiger (for good reasons if you ask me, but ask me on another day 😉). An interesting character
in this story is King Louie, a giant orangutan and King of the Bandar-log (monkeys). Kig Louie
kidnaps Mowgli and holds him hostage until Mowgli reveals how to make man's "Red Flower" -
fire. King Louie's primary reason for this was because he observed man and thought that with
this red flower, he could become like man and rule the jungle. He had reached the pinnacle of
his station as a monkey but desperately wanted to be a man; he wanted to be like you, walk like
you, talk like you. It went with a catchy tune, which you can catch here. Of course, this train of
thought ends in tears.
This story reminds me of some events recorded in the Bible, stories around seemingly harmless
desires that went severely punished and have me wondering whether the punishment fits the
crime. The Fall of Lucifer, The Fall of Man (Genesis 3), The Fall of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts
5), The Fall of the Angels who didn't keep their domain (Jude 1:6-7). Just like King Louie, the
main driver of their actions - and this is assumed for the angels who left their domain - was that
they wanted to be like someone else - a harmless thought that leads to actions with grave
consequences. These stories serve as a cautionary tale for allowing comparisons to go
unchecked in our hearts, as comparisons can be powerful motivators and generate warped
perspectives and a cesspool for hypocrisy. These stories begged questions, some above my
paygrade for now, and two I can attempt to answer.
First Question: Is the desire to be like someone or have the attributes of someone
fundamentally wrong? The short answer is no - and my defence is with two points. The first
point is the "Elisha and Elijah" example, where Elisha's desire to have a double portion of
Elijah's spirit was granted by God. If this desire was innately bad, then it should not have been
granted. Of course, it could also be because the desire was to be twice his spirit and not the
same as this aligns with God's disposition towards multiplication and fruitfulness - if in doubt,
see what happened to the man who brought back the talent exactly the same as it was given
(Matthew 25). The second point is that God, in making man, desired to make man like Himself.
Man's desire to be like God could have been a function of the blueprint in man's design, and
because the making of man by Genesis 3 was incomplete, that desire became an itch he could
not immediately scratch until the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was presented
as the quick fix. I know, I know, saying the making of man was not complete is like saying God
did half-work and is beginning to sound like heresy, but let's examine scripture and see three
points three (3) points.
