Did you ever read the bible and go ... I get it! I get it!! One day last week, I think I got it! Sometimes, I don't get it. Well, not all of it. I get the easy stuff, like "Thou shalt not ..." but the harder stuff ... sometimes not so much. You know how you feel when you're sure there's more to a story and you're behind the curve?? That's me. I feel like the bible is so much deeper than I "get" sometimes.
I was reading in Exodus about the children of Israel and the promised land. The Israelites have been rescued from a horrible life of slavery by the oppressive Egyptians. They are now headed for the promised land and they've got it better than they've had it in a while. They can eat, they can drink, they can laugh and be joyful. More importantly, they can worship the way they want to and they're not building pyramids anymore (that in itself would inspire me to be thankful)! But they weren't happy. They weren't laughing or joyful. They were complaining! And they were complaining about stupid stuff ... "We want to go back to Egypt. At least in Egypt we had onions." I'm thinking, are you kidding me?? Are you kidding me??? You want to go back to Egypt to live in slavery because of ONIONS?? And I wonder. I wonder why God in all of His wrath and fury didn't annihilate these people. Why not go choose another people to be the "chosen ones." I closed my bible and I pondered.
A couple of days later I went shopping at Home Depot with the husband. I love Home Depot and Lowes. Really. Not only do they have some stinkin' cool stuff, they have animals of all types in there. Birds flying overhead. Dogs walking with their owners. Seriously, I love these stores. We spot this couple at the service desk and they have a very cute little black lab; maybe 5 months old. I could tell she was still young. I couldn't help myself, I had to go say hi. [Yes, we have labs too. More importantly we have BLACK labs.] We chat about our dogs and admire theirs. They told us of their devotion to this (did I mention very cute?) little girl and how they actually don't leave her alone. When she absolutely must be by herself, they put her in a crate; for obvious reasons. Obvious that is, to those of us with black labs. We laugh and nod knowingly. We tell how our beloved dogs have managed to chew up the arms on our $3000 leather sofa's (husband says I just wanted new furniture so I willed it to happen), gnawed on the bottom rungs of my brand new kitchen table and chairs, all the way to how our newest puppy had chewed through the copper shielding on our internet connection outside the house. Twice. In two days. Argh! We all had a good time and then moved on to continue our shopping ... and I wonder ... could it be?? Was this the answer I had been looking for?
It strikes me that people want to know, pretty regularly, why we don't get rid of our dogs. Why don't we get nice animals that don't dig or bark, poop or CHEW. And our answer is always the same. "One day they're gonna be good dogs. It happens when you don't give up and persevere through all the rottenness of their youth. And they will love you until the end of time for your faithfulness to them." ... ... ...
Epiphany!!
And as I explained to my dear husband all that was in my heart and mind, he said, "Oooh, I get it too! We're God's dogs!!" Truth is though, sometimes I think we've all got a bit of cat in us too. We all want to do everything all by ourselves. Independent little hot heads until we get ourselves into a horrible muddle. THEN we scream like crazy for God's helping hand. Yeah, I think we've all got cat in us too, but I kinda like knowing that I am one of God's dogs. And, He won't give up on me.
In Him,
~ J ~
