A great story is like a mirror held up in front of us.

One such story is Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Henry Jekyll is a respected London doctor. But privately he is a man deeply troubled by occasional urges of uncontrollable rage and violence. He struggles to understand the source of these intense feelings. After all, he is a good man who has become a doctor in order to help people.

He wonders how he can stop these feelings. Is there some alien element within him that can be eradicated? Or is it just part of his character? Jekyll mixes a chemical cocktail that he believes will locate the core problem and kill it off. He drinks the brew and it turns him into an entirely new being. He calls this new self: Edward Hyde. Effectively he is split into two persons; one totally good and the other totally evil. Sometimes he is Jekyll and sometimes he is Hyde.

Good and bad run like rich veins within every human heart. A native North American leader once said: “There are two dogs inside me. One is as mean as hell. The other is loving and faithful. The mean dog fights with the good dog a lot of the time.” Someone asked him: “Which one usually wins?” He said: “The one I feed the most.”

The Bible also contains stories that are like mirrors held up in front of us. Many of the stories confront us with what it is to be human. But there is a difference. These stories, especially the ones about Jesus of Nazareth, are more like windows. They reflect back at us, but they also let us see beyond. They reflect the core problems of being human but they also allow us to see beyond to God’s take on it all. They show us truth and what we can do in order to feed the right dog.

Kim Thoday

Minister with Churches of Christ, South Australia