How Is God Like An Elephant?

Do you know how God is like an Elephant?

Photo of an elephant. How is God like an elephant?

Sometimes we can see God and not understand.

For example, do you know the story of three blindfolded people who were led to an elephant.

The first person touched the elephant’s ear and said, “This is soft and supple like well-worn leather.”

The second person touched the elephant tusk and said, “This is hard and smooth, like marble.”

The third sightless person reached out and felt the elephant’s leg. “This is strong and sturdy like a table leg, and yet rough like the bark of a mighty tree.”

The same elephant from three perspectives – all correct but also all insufficient to describe the massive wonder that is an elephant.

Dozens of people may encounter the same elephant and come away with dozens of descriptions.

Seeing only one aspect of something doesn’t negate the different experiences others may have nor does it dismiss what remains unseen.

It’s short sighted to dismiss the understanding others have of their elephant experience. Just because you haven’t touched the elephant in a certain way doesn’t mean others haven’t either.

Some people think the elephant is only tail, and they are holding it, and that’s all there is. Or the elephant is only their personal relationship with the elephant. Others think the elephant is exclusively what they see in the zoo or on television. They can’t comprehend elephants in the wild, so they dismiss the possibility.

Others reject the idea of elephants completely, because they were taught the elephant is a tail, and nothing more, when they can clearly see there is much more to the elephant than the tail. So, they reject everything, and say the elephant doesn’t exist at all.

God, like elephants, is more than what you think or have experienced or have imagined or accepted or rejected. God is more than you have decided and much more than you can imagine.