Sometime in the midst of a family-rich Easter weekend, I visited a friend – we’ll call him Patrick – at his home. Granted, it needs to be taken into account that I typically visit a number of friends’ places when I go home for a weekend. There happened to be something special about this particular visit that I found exclusively thought provoking. No, it wasn’t the fact that my friend’s home was in a breathtaking area of the city, or that it was my first time to “hang out” with this friend outside of the college campus realm. The memorable aspect of my brief chat with Patrick was found primarily in his pet chocolate Labrador, or “Abby,” for short.
This one was an inspiring pooch, summing up quite fittingly the notion surrounding “man’s best friend.” As I entered the front door to the sound of coarse barking, I expected the worst – one of those over-protective mutts that would jump me sharp-teeth-first as soon as the opportunity arose. In reality, what ended up bounding around the corner was an outgoing, harmless thing with a gimpy leg and a severe panting problem. She held a squishy, blue octopus in her mouth that was obviously discolored from all the close encounters with slobber, and her tongue consistently hung loose from the side of her mouth like extra slack from a belt three sizes too big.
Knowing I suffered slightly from dog allergies, Patrick grabbed Abby’s collar to prevent her from assaulting me with excitement. Although it would’ve given me a guaranteed case of the sneezes, I found myself looking forward to a warm welcome from the energetic pup. Though elated to see a new face, Abby didn’t take long to calm herself; it made sense that she was trained, Patrick later told me. Her next move was not to leap into my arms like the original plan, but to place the sopping blue octopus at my feet, greatly anticipating a rousing round of fetch. I was obliged to accept the invitation, given that she now willingly sat at my feet, staring at me with a pair of genuine, lovable puppy dog eyes.
At that point in time, it was not Abby’s love of fetch that intrigued me, but her willingness to trust someone she had never seen or touched. She was drooling at the thought of running to retrieve her squishy toy, thrown by someone entirely unfamiliar. When Patrick left the room, Abby would roll herself over on her back, exposing her thick, furry belly to the likes of me – a delinquent intruder for all she knew. Nevertheless, Abby continued on in staring at me with peaceful curiosity, awaiting the commencement of fetch or for me to rub her stomach that she so willingly presented to me.
An animal willingly exposing their stomach is the ultimate sign of surrender – in that moment, they render themselves completely vulnerable to those around them. Animals were always something I had possessed a soft spot for, but I never thought they could truly teach me anything. I had a pet of my own at home (a morbidly obese cat, named Duke), but he was always just a primitive creature that was in all ways inferior to me, and one that I would never think of with any spiritual significance. Consequently, God showed me something about my relationship with Him that day; that being intellectually superior as humans can often be our downfall. Quite frequently, it hardens our hearts and causes us to be incapable of giving our whole sense of self up to the one true higher power.
On many occasions in the past, I reached a point where all I could do was fall to my knees. I was weary and broken, crying out to my God to rescue me from the darkness of anxiety and crippling fear. I pleaded that He would fill me with His strength, because I felt that I had none of my own. Living days upon days in agony, wanting to wake up as someone else drove me away from my Father and into the murderous arms of Satan, who only continued draping chains of lies over my shoulders. What I realized from Abby the Chocolate Lab was that in the midst of my great suffering, the almighty God had never abandoned me; it was through my unwillingness to trust that I abandoned Him. If I put my complete hope in God (who I have never physically seen or touched), my dark shroud of fears and worries would be on His shoulders and not mine. If I would make myself entirely vulnerable before Him, much like a curious dog and stop devising schemes to conquer anxiety on my own, the door to life as the man my Father wants me to be could be opened.
Like Abby the Chocolate Lab, it will take quite a bit of training for me to reach the point where I place my whole self completely at the mercy of God’s will. Looking to only Him in the aspects of my life that cripple me the most is the only way to grow. Surrendering begins my road to recovery; it just so happened that something as innocent and unknowledgeable as a domestic dog taught me this lesson – with God’s help of course.
Grace and Peace,
J. S. Wade
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