The prodigal dog

Rocky got knocked down yesterday.

He got out of the house via the front door (special thanks to the silly man who left the door open) and scarpered.  This is Rocky's way, when he's out of the house he just runs and runs, he pays no attention to anyone.  I feared he wouldn't come back.

Having not seen what way he went I jumped into the car and drove around Rathcoole asking anyone if they had seen a wee black dog with white markings.  No joy.

After a bout 10 minutes or so I went back to the house to see if he was around there and lo and behold, there he was in next-door's front garden.



The vet's



I was delighted to see him but soon realised he was in a bad way.  He was covered in scraps and scratches, lumps of hair were missing and he was bleeding from several places.  Into the house we went and he was clearly in pain.  So a trip to vet's, an examination and an x-ray later and he's now in recovery in the doggy hospital.  He 'gotta qwere whack' but he should be OK after a couple of weeks was the assessment. Let's hope so. We hope that whoever hit him is OK too, it can be a real shock to hit an animal.

Rocky ran away from home, made a mess of things but came back.  That is the key thing, the wee dog knew where home was.  He shouldn't have ran away in the first place but when he was at his lowest point he at least had the sense to come home. 



In Luke 15 Jesus tells a parable about two sons.  The lesson of the story is that God loves us.  If we run from Him and live our lives how we want, He won't reject us when we realise that life without Him sucks.  He will love us simply because He loves us.  And if we work hard and do all that He asks but only do it to get His blessing and not out of love, He won't reject us when we realise we can't earn God's favour through good works.

God is patient, merciful, forgiving and loving.  If you've run away from Him, run back home now!

'While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.'

Luke 15:20

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Pack up your troubles

Rocky's going on holiday.

He's off to our friend Roger's house tonight and will be staying the whole weekend.  Me and the wife and twenty-odd of our closest friends are off on a youth weekend (sadly neither of us are counted among the youth anymore, instead we have to be 'leaders').

The problem with Rocky is that he's rubbish at packing an overnight back so we've got to do it all for him.  I find it hard enough to sort myself out without having to run around after him as well, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Bed? check.  Water bowl? Check.  Food bowl? Check. Food? Check.  Blanket? (I know, I know) Check. and so it goes on.

This life is a journey that we need provisions for.  We need to be equipped to handle it.  The thing is that no matter how hard we try to equip ourselves we never quite manage it, do we?  In a way you could say that we are rubbish at packing our own bags.  We try to fill it up with self-help books, TV wisdom, money, sex, hobbies, fame, family and much much more.

Instead of carrying all this junk around with us we should let God, our loving parent pack the bag for us.  He will give us all that we need including a jumbo, family-sized, buy-one-get-one-free, only-one-you'll-ever-need sized barrel of His love. 

The problem is that we are not like our wee dog who is happy to let someone else do everything for him.  We are like stubborn wilful teenagers who refuse to accept help from the only person that can truly help us.

Come on, let's give in, get equipped and live life to the full.

The LORD is with me; he is my helper. I look in triumph on my enemies.
Psalm 118:7

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Leaning

Rocky leans.

He doesn't just sit beside you or put a paw on your knee; he leans-in, almost pushes the person he is sitting with.  It's an active lean if you like.

The relationship between a dog and his 'master' can at times be a wee bit like our relationship with God.  It's not a perfect analogy I admit (We don't get rewarded for peeing in the garden for example) but there are definitely similarities.

I can learn a lot about my relationship with God from the way my dog behaves with me.  I get a brief glimpse into what the role of a 'master' is.  Maybe having children is an even more realistic example but I don't have any of those so I'll just have to make do with a dog.

I don't lean-in enough.  I love spending time with God, I truly do.  I love the sound of my Master's voice.  I love to walk with Him and take instruction from Him.  And the times He chooses to give me any sort of treat even though I don't deserve it, I am genuinely thrilled.

I don't, however, lean-in enough.  I don't bound over to Him constantly and press myself against him to feel comfort or love.  Often I don't refuse to leave His side.  I stay close but not that close.  I need to lean-in more.

How do you respond to your master?  You don't have to fight for His attention but do you take advantage of that access to Him?  How different would we be if we didn't just try our best to obey the master but actually sought Him out and stuck beside Him,  if we pressed ourselves against Him for safety, comfort and to convey our love for Him?

Maybe you do this better than me, I hope so.

Some of you refuse to even hear the Masters voice; you listen instead to some other master who doesn't want what's best for you.  If you lean on anyone but God you will find that your weight, your troubles, even your life will not be supported. Whose side are you leaning on?


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Here's a song about leaning. (It's not really to do with the point of the blog or anything, it's just a great song.)

Hic!

I'm scared of hiccups.

It's not that hiccups are particularly scary but they are a little bit sore and a whole lot annoying. What really scares me about them is not knowing when they are going to stop.

Charles Osborne, an American pig farmer (not the chancellor of the exchequer!), started hiccuping in 1922 and didn't stop until 1990, that's 68 years! Every time I get the hiccups I wonder will this be me until I'm 97, what a horrible existence that would be!

I mention this because last night I got a dose of hiccups. It turned out not to last too long but it was pretty annoying. Rocky had been naughty and I was telling him off, 'Bad dohukg!, bahuk dog, huk'. My wife laughed, even the dog chuckled, discipline became impossible.

It's the uncontrollable element of hiccups that makes it so disconcerting. You just never know when they will strike. They control you, you are a slave to them. There are many theories as to how to get rid of them but I'm not sure any really work.

Sometimes when we do things we shouldn't we think of it as a hiccup. Just a blot on our otherwise clean paper, just a slip-up, a one off. If our sin is just a series of hiccups Then I have had hiccups from the day I was born until now and it shows no sign of abating.

There seems to be no cure for sin either. In 1 John 1:8 the bible says, 'If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us'. But this tendency to sin is not the same as being a slave to it. We can overcome what we do wrong with the power of the Holy Spirit.

The bible also says, 'count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.' Romans 6:11-12. We do not have to be controlled by the things that are against God any more. By accepting Jesus we can be free from that, we can do good. This needs work, hard work to resist sin, to not let it fester in our bodies, to not indulge in deliberate sin. But the joy of release from slavery and the joy of pleasing the Saviour of the world, is worth it.


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Last night was a quiet one in Rathcoole, we thank God for that.  Please continue to pray for our estate and the people in it.  Also feel free to share any prayer requests you may have, I and others here would be happy to pray for you.

Knackered

Rocky got neutered on Friday.

Neutering was recommended to us by the vet and the people at the pound.  It seems most professional animal carers say it's a good thing. It reduces aggression, eliminates the chance of a herd of little Rockys and reduces his desire to stray.

If your wondering what exactly neutering involves google it because I'm not getting into it here.   Let's just say that for a lot of men it's not something they want to think about to much.

Poor wee Rocky didn't know what hit him. When we picked him up he was still groggy from the sedative.  The vet slid him into the consulting room on the end of a lead.  His eyes were rolling about in his head, he was bumping into things  (I think they may have sedated him with alcohol). To top it all off he came out wearing the most ridiculous protective collar I have ever seen.



Since then the effects of the drugs have worn off but the collar is still there.  He looks like a massive canine lampshade.  He now has no peripheral vision and can't really hear that well either.  The thing is ludicrous, it's hard to take him seriously, even strangers in the street laugh at him when we're out and about.

On top of all that he's not supposed to out for long walks or doing any rigorous exercise so the stitches have time to heal.  Rocky is energetic at the best of times but with no opportunity to get it out of his system he's starting to get a little frustrated to say the least.  And this is to last for 10 days!



Rocky's is better, he can get Sky on his!



A wee bit like Rocky and his lampshade we get frustrated when we don't see and know everything.  Why can God just not reveal the big picture to us and prove that He is here once and for all?  Why can't He show me His plans for my life so I can be content where I am.  If only someone would come back from the dead and tell us what was in the afterlife then people would repent, then people would believe.  Show us everything Lord.

Jesus explains to us that we have all information we need, all the information we can handle.  God has revealed Himself to us through the Bible and that is enough.  The world around us and our experiences prove the Bible correct and so we must follow what it says.  Jesus said,  'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'

We may not see everything but we can see all that we need - Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Talent's Got Britain

Talent; you either got it or you don't got it. Right?

With the return of the X Factor it seems like everyone is either a wannabe singer or a wannabe judge.  The UK has become obsessed with dressing up in silly outfits, prancing about like eejits and singing our little hearts out in the name of talent. People of Britian I salute you.

You see we all have a talent, some people have more than one. It's just a shame that some folks are having problems identifying what they are talented at.  Simon Cowell says people who can sing and dance at the same time are good, entertainment is king, bring pleasure to the masses and we will fling glitz, fame and fortune at you.  Like a beautiful firework we will oh and ahh at you as you rise into the sky.  We will marvel at you as you burst into life and light up our world and then as soon as you start to fade we'll look to the next one and forget all about you.

I feel sorry for the 'wannabes' on these programmes. Not because they don't get through to the big live shows but because they can't take pleasure in the talents they do have.  Just because your talent may be found in a less glamorous field doesn't make it any less beautiful.

Jesus told a parable about talents.  He said that what your talent is is not the important thing, nor is the amount of talent, but it's what you do with it that counts.  If you use it to glorify God, then He will be pleased with you and reward you. If you don't use it or use it to glorify yourself then He will not reward you.  These rewards He talks about are not the fame and fortune of this world that pass so quickly and are hollow and useless.   These are rewards that last for ever.

(p)Oops!

I dropped the pooper scooper in the poop bin.  This is never good. 

Rocky and I were out for a walk when he felt the urge to off-load, fair enough.  He evacuated his bowels on the pavement and looked thoroughly pleased with himself.  I told him what a good boy he was all the while wondering what on earth he had been eating to make him go that much.

Being the responsible dog owner I am, I readied my trusty pooper sccoper and scooped the mess mountain into a bag. (incidently you can get free poop bags from the council - no excuses for little presents in the street.) A red bin was nearby, this was going to be a successful operation. But then I got cocky. Intead of removing the bag from the claw like grip of the pooper scooper first and then dropping it into the bin, I released the grip on the bag over the bin and at the same time released my grip on the pooper scooper.

I stood motionless for a second, wondering what had just happened. I peered into the bin, my pooper scooper peered back, laughing.  He was in poop heaven, I was scoop hell.

If you've ever had the dubious pleasure of using a dog mess bin you'll know it's fitted with a device which means you can't get out what you put in, believe me, this device works. I know because I stood at the side of the road for what felt like hours with my arm half in the bin like some sort of robo-vet. It was not a good look.

People were staring, staring and laughing.  I think I saw one old lady in a house across the street with a video camera and an envelope marked, 'You've Been Framed'.  I thought, what would Jack Baur do in this situation?  Then I thought Jack Baur would have more important things to be doing so I left.

The rest of the walk was spent praying that Rocky wouldn't need to release any more prisoners until the santuary of his own garden. He didn't.

As a pet owner there are times when you feel totally at the mercy of the animal in question.  It is teaching me a lot about the relationship between a dog and it's master. We love Rocky and we want him to be healthy and happy but there are some times when he just doesn't play ball. I, unfortunately am like that with my master.  The worst thing is that unlike Rocky, my master is perfect and I still mess up and, unlike Rocky, I should know better.

Puppy Love

Yesterday was an exciting day in the Houston household - Rocky arrived.   Rocky is a two year old (we think) dog we picked up from the pound.  He's lovely.



Awful legs, awful carpert, great dog!



It's hard to tell when getting a dog from a Council pound what it's personality is going to be, what character flaws it'll have, what baggage it carries around.  There are clues though and we considered carefully what things we would be looking for, some boxes that needed ticked.  He had to be young(ish), relatively calm and alert.  We had an idea of what size of dog we would like and, to our shame, looks played a part too.

Rocky it seemed, was perfect.  After just one night in our care he still appears to be perfect and the wife and I are delighted. It's lovely to be able to give the wee dog a home and take care of it.

We chose Rocky and we are glad.

Thankfully God works differently from us.  He doesn't not require any boxes to be ticked before he picks us.  The bible says we are all utterly unlovely and when we are in this unlovely state that is when God chose to love us.  Let's be honest if we were chosen the way dogs in a pound are, a beauty contest with no beauty involved, none of us would be chosen and we'd be heading for the nasty needle. This, my friends, is love, 'not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.' 1 John 3:16

God chose me and I am glad.

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Since it's Wednesday let's have some midweek music.  Now this guy is very cheesey, he's cheesestrings on a four-cheese pizza with mellted cheese on top and a side order of Dairylea.  He's not just cheesey, he's M&S cheesey.  But his enthusiasm is infectious, he loves the Lord and he makes me smile, enjoy!