The Elephant and the Rider

A few weeks back at Christ Kaleidoscope we talked about the critical role self-control plays in Christian discipleship. Because of our affluence, there is very little to limit our desires. We can pretty much get or do what we want, when we want. This kind of “freedom” is a blessing for sure, but it can also be(come) a curse. What often happens is that over time we become slaves to our wants and appetites, which, when given no compelling vision of the good, grow wanton and unwieldy. We see this bondage most poignantly when we want to effect some kind of change in our lives. We try to change, but we find we can’t. In the famous words of St. Paul, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do,” (Romans 7:20).

An apt analogy for this is that of an animal with a person sitting on its back. It dates back to Plato and has recently been popularized as the elephant and the rider. Compared to the strength of a 6 ton animal, the rider is small and weak. But the rider is smart and is able to point the elephant in the desired direction by pulling hard on the reigns she holds in her hands. But the rider will soon grow tired and when she does, the elephant will roam where it wants.

There are a variety of ways to understand this analogy. The elephant represents our wants and desires and passions. When there is no direction given, the elephant wanders and can stray in some troublesome directions. Willpower, on the other hand, is represented by the strength of the rider. While we may be able to exert some degree of self-control for a period of time, over the long haul, exhuasation sets in and the elephant ends up, once again, going its own way.

In terms of Christian discipleship, the elephant might be understood as our “old self” with all its ingrained and deep-seated practices. Pulling the reigns on these lingering habits often feels like trying to tame a 6 ton beast. Nonetheless we are told in Scripture to put off these practices, to take off the old self and put on the new.

What might this look like?

Well, if we use the analogy of the elephant and the rider we might put together a two-pronged strategy: (1) keep the rider rested and strong and (2) train the elephant.

(1) We might think of self-control as a muscle. If you exercise it for too long the less effective it becomes. And so like a muscle, we need to make time to rest. Here, sleep becomes a spiritual discipline. We all know we tend to get more cranky and unruly when we have gotten enough sleep. Well it seems there’s a reason for it. Sleep replenishes us to do the hard work of taming our elephants, so to speak. (We might also mention, diet and exercise here as critical elements to keeping our bodies energized for the task of Christian discipleship – things we don’t normally label as “spiritual.”)

(2) We can also train the elephant. That is, train our desires so that they become more in line with the good God envisions for us. The primary practice here would be worship. To put ourselves in a place with other believers where we are confronted with the beauty of the one who invites us to become “holy as I am holy.” Through prayer, through lifting up our voices in song, through hearing the reading and proclamation of Scripture, through confession and onto the central practice of gathering around the table, receiving the body and blood of our Lord, to being sent out into the world with God’s blessing, these become ways in which we align our wants and desires and passions to the wants and desires and passions of God.

A secondary practice would be to spend some time in a passage like Ephesians 4:17-32 or Colossians 3:1-17 and focus on one thing that needs to be put to death in our lives: anger, gossip, lying, lust, filthy language, etc. There’s a lot to choose from in these passages). But we single out one and instead of expending our energy on figuring out how to grasp the next rung on the corporate ladder or how we can experience the next cool thing, we channel our attention and initiative on how we might rid ourselves of that one thing we need to put to death.

The hope is as we put all these things together we can cooperate with the work of the Spirit in us so that we find ourselves bearing the fruit of Christ’s character in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and (of course) self-control.