I have a dog that is so tiny he makes a zit on your cheek look like you're sharing a neck with another person. He's tiny.
Every now and then we'll give him a treat for good behavior. Or there are times when we see his toy or bone under the couch or table and play fetch with him.
But don't expect to get those things back.
If you ever try to pull the treat away from him or get the toy back to throw it again, you'll get a growl that makes you feel like you tried to get a kiss on the first date and failed.
What is so funny about this is that he's had his treat for 5 seconds. The toy that he forgot even existed? It's now a matter of life and death to him.
I laugh because it is comical and I think it is safe to say he's a lock if there is ever a "Real House Dogs of Phoenix" But the idea makes me wonder about my own life.
I'm given new things that weren't in my world before and I act the exact same way. I give off a human reaction similar to the seagulls' "Mine!" in Finding Nemo.
Or maybe I'm reminded of a possession I've forgotten about or a friend whom I haven't spent time with in awhile or a skill or position that I have taken for granted and those things are threatened by someone else and all of a sudden, "Mine!" "Mine!" "Mine!"
It's the same when we lose things too. Our job is gone. Our car is totaled. People are taken from us by death. But that "Mine" turns into a "Whine!"
C.S. Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce, "Those who choose misery can hold joy hostage, by pity."
Am I suggesting we go through life with a smile on our face regardless of what happens to us? No. We're allowed to feel pain. It's a byproduct of living in a broken world.
But what I am suggesting is taking a second look at how we deal with it. How we process it. How we respond to it.
Paul writes in Romans 9:20-21 "But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?"
Dogs growl because they don't know better. Humans question because they think they do.
But what we both need to learn is Job 1:21, God gives and God takes.
After all, that is what makes God...well, God.
Just like I try to take my dog's toy so he can experience the pleasure and joy that comes from another fetch, perhaps God takes so that we can experience His promises we read about in Romans 9:23 "What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory..."
All of us fall short. That is what makes us seagulls. But are you willing to be the clay? Ready to be formed into a masterpiece regardless of the process.
