We're all dogs to God

3/17/11 Thursday
It’s another day, more stuff to do and more thoughts on my mind. Tried to fix the window on my truck and it’s not fixable so I pulled it up as high as I could and will live with it. It wandered down some when I drove to get the mail so that will be a constant issue. If it slides all the way down then I’ll have to take the door apart again to get it up. It’s always frustrating to have to relearn what I already learned and such it was with the door. I’ve taken that door panel off the truck maybe five different times to repair a variety of issues but couldn’t remember how I did it so had to figure it all out again. Good thing I’m fairly good at figuring things out.

There is so much on my mind these days. I spend hours praying and see so much that bothers me. I suppose it would be bad if I wasn’t bothered by the things I see. God reveals to me many things but I’m at a loss what to do about it. I worry about how to keep my wife happy, there’s lots of pressures, insecurities, and fears in our life right now and I don’t seem to be doing much to help that. Praying doesn’t solve all the problems, we are required to do things, not just sit there thinking prayer is like a magic wand that fixes everything without us having to put forth effort.

As I worked on the truck, Buddy, our new dog, wanted so much to help and tried to crawl into my lap as I sat in the dirt removing the door panel. I shoved him away several times and finally got mad and had to yell at him to get it across that he didn’t need to be in my lap right now. When I yelled Buddy groveled on the ground, realizing I was not happy, and crawled up to me, still wanting attention but this time it was different.

I’ve been learning from so many things around me, so here’s a statement. To God we are like dogs. I can only imagine right now the reaction many will have at this statement. “There’s no way I’m a dog to God!” one might exclaim. “We’re worth so much more than that to Him. God loves us!”. Some will get mad and some perhaps confused so let me explain.

There’s a scripture that says “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than you ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts, says the Lord”. As I try to relay to Buddy that he’s getting in the way and not really helping, I can see that he isn’t able to quite comprehend that. So it is with God, who’s thoughts and ideas are often beyond us to comprehend. We don’t understand why things are so hard, or why something doesn’t work out the way we want. But often, years later, we can see how it was a good thing we didn’t get our way, or discover that because of that hard time a series of events came to pass that otherwise would never have happened.

Our dogs love us, and so look forward to when we come home, most of the time. Rascal and Trixie were raised with us from pups and know they are not to chase cars or get into the garbage. They know these are wrong and that doing them raise the ire of Bob. When we come home and the garbage can in the kitchen has been pulled over, all the garbage strewn across the house, they know they are in trouble before we open the door, and are sometimes hiding in the living room. I yell, I express my frustration, and they cower, but then I say “Come on” and they run to me, leaping with joy that I forgive them and still love them.

So it is with us and God. We know when we do wrong, and we know God is not happy with us. But we know, or should know, that when we ask forgiveness, when we repent and are truly sorry for what we did, He forgives us and never stopped loving us.
Rascal and Trixie are trained from birth, though we didn’t do a stand up job of training, they know to come, sit, and stay off the highway. Buddy however came to us grown, a stray who’s past we know nothing of, and is not trained. But he craves love and attention, and is the friendliest dog I’ve ever seen. This can be a problem. There have been trucks that pulled off to the side of the road for various purposes, such as a flat tire. Buddy runs out into the road to greet these strangers, jumping up on them for pets as he does with us. It is dangerous as he doesn’t pay attention to traffic, and it is uncomfortable to those he is running too. They don’t know if he’s going to attack or what, but he loves to be loved.

I try to correct him, but he doesn’t listen well. He doesn’t understand. So it is with many of us in our relation to God. He tries to correct us but we don’t quite understand the need. We get so focused on what we want that the concept of getting run over by something that can kill us isn’t even vaguely there. At some point with Buddy, I must do what I had to do with Rascal and Trixie, discipline him in a way he will take notice of. God has already done this with me and I try real hard to make sure He won’t have to do it again. We can be so blind to ourselves sometimes, caught up in our personal things to the point we can’t see the bigger picture, can’t see what God sees.


But Buddy loves us, he craves attention, and we love him dearly. It will break our heart if anything happens to him, just as it broke our hearts every time we lost a pet. Just saw pictures of Ben and Gretchen, our two dogs that someone shot, and it brings back all that sorrow and pain. I can only imagine the pain God feels when He loses one of his children, and He loses them all the time. But I must also imagine the anger God feels when one of his children harms another, when they refuse to do what they know God wants them too, and in the process damages the others walk in life. There is great love in the bible, and there is great anger. Jesus said “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Mathew 18:6)