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Over the last weekend I went with some students from my college to help a church get planted in another
town. While we were there, we had to stay with two seperate families. Three of us including myself stayed with one and the
other four stayed with another.
I won't give the name of the family we stayed with because I wish to protect their
privacy but I want to extend my thanks to them. They know who they are if they read this. However, when I went in I immediately
saw that they had an adorable little dog. I am a sucker for small cute animals and immediately formed a bond with this delightful
creature.
I am also going to include a picture of this dog. Well what's his name? Well his name is the name of this
article. Cash. It was quite humorous holding this little dog and then calling my parents to tell them I'd made it to the town
alright and saying "And I just held 12 or 13 pounds of Cash."
Nothing could really seperate us from this dog. As we
went to the basement where there was one bed in one room and a sofa bed in another we heard the sound of the little dog tags
rocking as Cash came down and he never walked anywhere. He always ran.
Now when we were getting ready for bed he was
adorable. I'd just pet him for the longest time giving him that little cute talk. How could anyone not love this dog? Then
though, came the time for the lights to be turned out. The other two students stayed in the bed in the other room and I stayed
in the sofa bed.
And as I lay there I heard the sound of the dog tags and could hear him coming over. Now this was
odd for as cute as this dog had been beforehand, now I just wanted to get to sleep. I didn't really want to play and personally
thought it was annoying but then reminded myself that this was the same adorable dog. I just waited and sure enough, he went
upstairs after awhile.
The next day I woke up and here comes Cash running down the stairs. It's amazing but all of
a sudden he was the cute little puppy again I'd wanted to see and there we were playing together again. He was the one I spent
the most time with there and I actually missed him a lot during the day.
So why do I bring this up? Because of grace.
I think too often we sometimes judge our relationship with God and our personal worth and other such things on our temporal
feelings that change instead of our constant value. I had to remind myself of that when I didn't want Cash around that he
was still the same adorable puppy from earlier. He just didn't understand that the tired apologist needed rest.
It
was a problem that I didn't like but I had to maintain the same attitude. This is the adorable puppy and it was really hard
to be upset with him. I just understood he didn't realize that a lot of us don't have as much energy as he does. With that
in mind, I was able to see how God views us more.
Perchance we remember falling in a sin and thinking our worth is
less then. Nope. Grace is constant. Or maybe we remember the opposite and can think of a time when God was so close but no
longer is. Does that mean something bad always? Not necessarily. Grace is still constant. God's grace is as unchanging as
he is.
So now when I consider my own personal value and worth and positioning in the eyes of God, I look to something
beyond my feelings. (Or try to at least. I'm still learning and growing too after all.) I remember that God sees me for who
I am. Not for what I do. What I do does matter but my worth comes from being first created in his image and then from making
him Lord and savior.
And thank God for little puppies.
In Christ,
Nick
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