Garfield WITHOUT Garfield

I was pointed to this website recently: http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/?loc=interstitialskip

It's a fairly twisted take on the Garfield comic strip. What's twisted is that when Garfield is removed from the comic, John Arbuckle (his "owner") starts taking on a fairly freaky personality. When Garfield's image and thought bubbles are removed and John is left by himself, he starts seeming desperately lonely as he talks aloud to himself and depressingly hopeless about life.

As I looked through the images, it made me think of the Christian "life" without the presence of the Holy Spirit.

I won’t say that Garfield is the Holy Spirit. Heaven forbid! But those comics don’t make sense without Garfield. They are grim and empty.

Garfield is the spark, the life, the power without which John Arbuckle lives a meaningless, hopeless, purposeless life — a shadow life. But when Garfield is added, John’s life is a wild adventure, never lacking in energy and motion. You never know what’s going to happen. You may not like what goes on all the time, but there’s never a dull moment.

Now, the Holy Spirit is a far cry better than a fat, selfish, lazy, mean-spirited cat. He is the one who causes us to bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. He is the one who makes it possible for us to live the Jesus kind of life, the real life that Jesus has opened up for us by saving us from our sins.

Our sins are what we’re saved from. But life in the Spirit is what we’re saved to.