I was thinking about the “rut” we often find ourselves in, how our past is repeated as if it has some sick control over my life. We live in prisons to our past – truth is we have a hard time envisioning anything different for our selves than the reality we have experienced time and again.
That got me thinking about Nikica, a 4000 pound hippo in a zoo in Montenegro. Hippos are the 3rd largest land animals in the world (Elephants and Rhino’s being larger…cause I know you were wonderin’ !) and one of the most dangerous (Have you seen those teeth) but they are hardly an escape risk. You see if your a hippo in a zoo, your stuck, you can dream about sneaking out or jumping the fence but that is all it is…a dream!
That is what I love about the story of Nikica….she escaped! Yep, a 4000 pd hippo got away. It seems the zoo flooded so badly that the water in Nikica’s pen rose high enough to allow her to swim out (Picture below) to freedom.
In a way we are all hippo’s who can’t jump the fence or sneak away and may be thinking, “I’m stuck!” That is precisely the time we need to be flooded with God’s grace that brings us to freedom and a new way of living.
We find the power of Phil 4:13 (I can do all things through him who strengthens me) is not in the 1st word but in the 7th.
Here is some video of Nikica on the run!
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