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GOD - A MAN'S BEST FRIEND Those
of you who have had experience of looking after a pet (dog, cat etc) will be
aware of their loyalty and affection. It
seems to be irrepressible. You
return home after an extremely disagreeable time away, perhaps everything has
gone wrong, and you are totally unresponsive to any kind of contact with anyone,
two-legged or four. So the welcome
you receive on your return actually is most UN-welcome.
You tell the dog off and it slinks away into a corner. Or you grudgingly
feed the cat hoping that it will shut up and leave you alone in peace.
You make a cup of tea or coffee and sit down to nurse your hot drink and
your injured “whatever”. No
matter what you have said to the cat it insists on inserting itself on your lap.
Regardless of how loud you shouted at the dog, it lies there in front of you
gazing in rapt admiration just waiting for the slightest indication that you are
ready to give it a fuss. Here is
pure unadulterated affection. It is
totally unconditional. You cannot
help but respond and so your hand goes out and all is well with the world, well
at least as far as your four-legged companion is concerned. We
do not easily think of God communicating with us through animals.
We are comfortable thinking of God communicating with us through people.
We stand on the Malvern Hills and look out towards what the Welsh refer
to as “God’s own country” and feel uplifted by the beauty of God revealed
through his creation, or we star-gaze on a clear night and are awed at his
majesty. But we do not necessarily
feel the same kind of connection with God when we are dealing with animals
whether domesticated or not. Yet
here in this one illustration from the pet world is an excellent example of the
love of God. When we talk about
God’s love being unconditional here it is on our door step (or Welcome Home
mat). The
Old Testament tells the story of the people God chose to be His People, his
beloved. “It was not because you
were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love upon you
and chose you...but it is because the Lord loves you”
(Deuteronomy Ch 7 v7). There
was no other reason for his choice. It
was simply that he loved them. Through
all the Old Testament writings we see a pattern of obedience followed by
disobedience. Then the Israelites
experience the effect of their disobedience.
Cont….
Cont…. Through
the prophets God reveals to them how much they have strayed from the life that
he wants for them. This is then
followed by them returning to their worship of Yahweh, the one God. But no
matter how often they were disloyal, like the time when they wanted a king so
that they could be like all the other peoples around them (1 Samuel Ch 8 vs. 4),
God remained faithful to them. No
matter how often they kicked him out, told him to go away, found something else
to amuse themselves, the “dog” just stayed there.
He lay in his corner and waited for a sign. It
doesn’t seem to matter how many times we have failed to set aside time for God
either for private devotion or to share in public worship.
It doesn’t seem to matter how many times we have decided to do
something that we wanted to do for ourselves rather than let the needs of
someone else affect our decision. It
doesn’t seem to matter how much we doubt that God even exists or think if he
does, he just doesn’t care. It
doesn’t seem to matter how we treat him there is still a voice somewhere
inside us that says our name followed by the words “you are my beloved”. Hundreds
of years later in the writings of the New Testament we find a God unchanged.
Jesus tells story after story of the love God has for us regardless of
how we ill-treat him. Stories like
the Prodigal Son (Luke Ch 15 vs11f).There
is also the account of Jesus forgiving the thief who was being crucified
alongside him (Luke Ch 23 vs.39f).
The story of St Peter’s denial and subsequent reconciliation (John Ch
21 vs. 15f)
is another example. As
we enter the season of Advent, a time of preparation. It’s a good opportunity
for us to reflect on our treatment of God and his attitude towards us.
How have we been treating him since last Advent?
What has been his response to us? We may well see something of his
constancy, his unconditional love for us in the loyalty of our friends and we
may also see it in the loyalty of our pets.
Perhaps as we sit quietly and focus our attention on him we
may well see his big doleful dog-like eyes watching us and waiting for a
sign from us, an indication that we do still
love him. Eric |
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