Jasper

After we got our first dog, I never wanted another one. My kids loved him, my husband loved him, but to me he was just another chore on my unending check list of things that needed to be done. Then we got Max, a wild boxer with endless energy and crazy shenanigans. We thought he was so clever when he learned how to open the sliding glass door to let himself outside. It was infuriating when we got home one day, and he had dragged all of our couch cushions into the yard so that he would have more room to toss them into the air and tear the stuffing out of them. Our REAL couch cushions, the ones we sat on! I had to scrub all the sand off of them and sew up all the seams in order to sit on the couch again! He would run out the door every chance he got, and I’d be out there, six months pregnant, chasing him around the neighborhood, screaming at him and crying like I was insane. He made me feel like I was going insane. Then we got Jasper, a 90 pound boxer.

Jasper came to us in the tiniest most adorable little package. He barely barked, was quick to house break, and he slept all the time. He was a perfect pet. After he realized he was staying with us, which only took about a week, he started to bark at us and bite us like he was fighting us for his life if we tried to pet him. I worked hard to train him, since everyone else was scared of him, and eventually he grew out of some of those behaviors. When he began to cross into adulthood, he started to show signs of aggression again. We got him fixed, but it seemed like we were a day late and a dollar short. You know how when someone makes a weird face, if you slap them on the back, it freezes that way? It was like we froze him in that hostile state of mind. He was ok with everyone inside these walls, but either anyone else, it was a crap shoot. I resisted loving him, even though he was a good dog in every other way, because, again, he was one of the tasks on an endless list of things that needed to be done. He also carried with him his own list of requirements. I never thought I would have to add “scrub dog slobber off the windows” or “pick up dog poop in the yard” to my list so often, but I did.

I didn’t want a dog, I fought the entire family on it, and resented him from the first day he moved in. He brings out the absolute worst in me. It’s like everything I hold back from anyone else, anytime I have practiced restraint with my words, I take it out on this dog. He’s crazy, he’s work, and he does not play well with others when they come to this house, but he does not deserve that.

Somehow through my cloud of self-righteous anger, the one I’ve positioned myself in for the past three years, the Holy Spirit has broken through. That still small voice has drawn me out of my hostile tirade and spoken. “Let your gentleness be evident to all.” Just one little phrase, and I’m done. The Word of God, living and active, stops me in my tracks. It reveals to me the sin that so easily entangles. It shines a light on this secret place in my heart that tolerates hate and hostile speech and fits of rage.

For a dog, God? Is this for real? Yes, darling, it is, because it’s not about Jasper, it’s about Becca. It’s about Clinton and Moses and Scarlette, my little ones watching the ugliness target our family dog on a regular basis. How can I tell them to follow me as I follow Christ if I have secret sins that I excuse because he’s “just a dog”?

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. ‭‭Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews‬ ‭4:15-16‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Lord Jesus, please help me to change! Be watchful, friends. Let God use whatever the thing is that seems so preposterous, to shape you into the image of Christ.

Lvb