Dog Talk

I won­der if my dog won­ders if I am a magi­cian. I do all these things he is bound to con­sider magic. I open doors. Food for him appears at the right time and in the right amount of qual­ity. He walks when he needs to walk and gets a lot of sleep. If he is sick, he gets taken to the dog­gie doc. He has it made, and all he has to do is just be him­self. Cute has a way of mov­ing every­thing around him into action for his ben­e­fit. The “cute” is pro­jected by his owner.

He is ter­ri­bly secure, but he has no idea what is going on in the rest of the world. Thank heav­ens I did not teach him to read. He would be a ner­vous wreck read­ing the news. He lives in sweet obliv­ion. His day con­sists of eat­ing, sleep­ing, and walk­ing. Not bad for a three year old dog. He retired the day he came to my house a year ago. In dog­gie years, he retired at age 14.

I some­times won­der if his rela­tion­ship to me is par­al­lel to that between me and God. Like my dog­ger, I have had my lesser moments, but some­how I get fed; I get enough sleep; and peo­ple say nice things to me. I even get a good walk once in a while. What more would I need?

If I could trust God like my dog trusts me, I would be much bet­ter off. I think I could take some lessons from him. He sleeps so peace­fully. If he has a bad dream, I am there to wake him up. After all, our great­est fears are of our imag­i­na­tion. Like night­mares, they pass. It helps to be awak­ened to cut them short. On the third muf­fled bark, I rouse him.

If we could talk, I think he would ask me why it is that I am gone so much or seem so absent. That would be hard to explain to him. God has a sim­i­lar pat­tern. He seems gone but not really. When I am on the road or in the office, I am aware of what he might need. An inner cue tells me when to check on him or have some­one else do that. Surely God is that aware of our needs.

A dog’s life is not all that bad when he has the right mas­ter. If I could just grasp that about the Cre­ator. Thank heav­ens for the leash (the yoke of Christ) that keeps me from stray­ing too far. Yes, I deserve a good yank on the line once in a while. My nose is often where it should not be. God is not gruff but is won­der­fully per­sis­tent. I have to respect that.