Thursday, January 6

Bad Dog

I need to show you something…

This is my dog Daisy. Guilty as sin. She knows she’s been bad. She knows it upsets me.

She knows she’ll do it again.

For whatever reason, Daisy has begun throwing tantrums whenever we leave the house, and we will come home to find some sort of mess – ripped up toys, chewed up papers, trash from the bathroom in the bedroom, etc. You might say, “Becky, you have two dogs, so how do you know that it was Daisy?”

Have you seen the picture? Look at the ears. Look at the slumped body. LOOK AT THE TONGUE LICKING HER GUILTY LIPS.

Sigh.

And every time she does this, we go through the same process. Bruce and I both scold her and then give her the silent treatment (so she can think about it, of course). She sits on the loveseat across from us with that guilty, pathetic demeanor for as long as it takes…. Until we call her to us to “make up.” We explain to her that it’s for her own good that she not participate in such behavior, and we remind her that it upsets us. Then we tell her to be “Mom’s good dog” and that “it’s ok,” and she gives us kisses because she knows all is well. Until maybe the next time we leave the house….

And isn’t that how we are with God sometimes? We sin. We know we shouldn’t. We know it’s bad. We know it will upset Him. But we sin anyway. We can’t help ourselves. And there we sit with our ears back and our tails tucked and our guilty lips. And then God calls us to Him - in spite of ourselves - so that we can confess that we’ve been bad, so that He can remind us that He only wants the best for us and that it upsets Him when we don't listen. And then He tells us we are His precious children and showers us with kisses of forgiveness, and we know all is well.

But what happens the next time we leave the house?

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