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You may remember King Louie was the orangutan in the movie The Jungle Book. King Louie had it all… everything, that is, that a monkey could ask for. He had fame and fortune… now I don’t know exactly how many monkeys there were in the jungle, but I’m guessing there were quite a few… and King Louie, was… well… the King!

Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough for King Louie. King Louie really wanted to be human. In fact, he was a little bit obsessed with this quest.

He was envious of man and thought he could get up to human status through the power of man’s red flower… fire. But his quest to acquire the secret of the burning bush was burning up inside him as an uncontrollable rage for another… the goofy man cub, Mowgli.

What King Louie really needed was to realize that he was gifted too…

King Louie was gifted but just not in the same way as Mowgli. Remember, King Louie was the king of the swingers, the jungle VIP! Plus he could dance an outrageous swing step… and oh that voice! (King Louie could sing, OK!!!). King Louie had it all, so far as an orangutan could achieve. Believe me, that was a whole bunch.

Here’s what King Louie really needed: He just needed to be comfortable in his own skin and accept life as it was. Instead, he was envious and jealous of Mowgli. Unfortunately, King Louie didn’t realize that it wasn’t Mowgli that he was upset with… so who was King Louie REALLY mad at? He was mad at God. It wasn’t Mowgli’s fault he was a man cub and King Louie was an orangutan. God made Mowgli and King Louie that way, not Mowgli. God made us all in His perfect way… and He doesn’t make any junk! And, it really wasn’t Mowgli’s fault that he ended up eating bananas in with man village with the fair maiden… Mowgli was just the object of the chimp’s aggression because Mowgli was… well… Mowgli. King Louie could have had ANY orangutan in the land… what more could he possibly ask for? Well, unfortunately, King Louie didn’t see it that way at all… so his jealousy turned to resentment and, eeeeks, dare I say it… there were even occasional outbursts of anger and hatred. That’s what festered in King Louie’s heart.

Now I’m sure the men in the man village would have gladly let King Louie hang around. Just think of all the times they could have spent paling around together, even on the weekend it was all cool. Mowgli was down with that! No biggie 😉

The answers for King Louie… don’t you know that I’ve got the answers here too 🙂

Here’s the reality… King Louie’s looking in the wrong place. In the book of James, it talks about King Louie’s unfulfilled and misdirected appetite… “You do not have, because you do not ask God.” James 4:2. King Louie’s barking up the wrong tree… and causing himself and the others around him a bunch of grief.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

I’ve written about Mowgli before… A little more about Mowgli now…

Everybody knows how much Mowgli likes monkeys! This is no secret. He tried and tried to be friends with King Louie… maybe the chimp will get it, maybe he never will.

Did you know what happened to Mowgli down by the living water? Mowgli was living a pretty good life in the jungle… but his friends saw that he really needed to be in the man village. Then, one day, Mowgli saw something interesting from afar… but he didn’t quite know what to make of it so he had to take a closer look. Once he did… Shazam!!! Mowgli fell deeply in love. Yea, Baloo the Bear saw it coming… Mowgli was wiped out… mesmerized… enthralled… hypnotized… spell-bound… whatever you want to call it he was sucked in when their eyes finally met. Not that this was a bad thing… it just was. There’s really no denying it. If you want to see what happened to Mowgli down by the water here’s the video of that too…

The bottom line here for The Jungle Book… Mowgli warmed the socks off King Louie with God’s great love… and God loved Louie too…

Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” John 7:37

Question: Do you see anywhere in your life where you want something you can’t have? Do you think you can’t have it because of misdirected desires, like King Louie… or other reasons?