But besides their small size and the fact that they look like stuffed animals, there is something that I do not like about Cavaliers. I call it The Cavalier Crawl. It is quite possibly my least favorite thing about them. Sometimes when a Cavalier is called to a person they do this little scrunched up, belly dragging, slow, slow, slow submissive crawl in response. This they do pretty much any time they know that they've done something wrong, and most times the person is the least bit upset. Westley has finally learned not to do it with me. Princess Isabelle (Izzy) on the other hand has not, and even when I just want to pet her and reward her for doing something good she usually wags her tail and scoots to me, dragging her rear end. By the time that she reaches me, I don't even want to pet her anymore. That's just one of the many reasons that it is a good thing I am not God.
It's good that God doesn't get annoyed and lose His desire to be with us and bless us when we don't come to Him like He wants. When I call a dog of mine to me, I expect that dog to come to me. If I just want it near me, it should come when I call. If I am calling it away from potential danger or trouble or an out of bounds area, it should come. If I am calling it because I want to pet it and play with it, it should come running. If it is in trouble or has done bad, it should also come quickly, as a quick desisting of the bad and responding with obedience to my call will be the extent of discipline and trouble. What no dog of mine should ever do is crawl like a worm to me. I hate it.
I hate that trait, but I understand it. I understand it because I see it in people on a regular basis and fight the instinct within myself at times. I happen to believe that God hates it when those who are His crawl instead of come when called, and boy do we crawl sometimes. God calls us and instead of running to Him we try to straighten up a little first, clean up a tad, make the situation or place or us worthy of receiving a King. But we need to give that mess up. We can't make us or anything worthy to receive the King of kings, so all we're doing by trying is wasting time not coming when our Daddy calls. We should fear, as in respect, Him, His ways and His holiness, but we should not be afraid of our Daddy. Earthly Daddies should be feared in that way at times, but not our Heavenly Daddy. If you are not His there is reason to be afraid of Him. Sorry, we are not, as is so commonly believed, all God's children. You have to be adopted. The good thing though is that if you want to be His child, He wants to have you so much He died to make it possible. You don't have to be afraid of someone who is truly willing to die for you.
Sometimes it's not about cleaning up. Sometimes it's obedience the long way. A man got paroled from prison recently with an ankle monitor and was instructed not to stop anywhere on his way home. He was allowed one trip through a drive through, and that is all the allowance he was given. Later that night officers showed up to hassle him because he had taken far too long to reach the house having gone a long and indirect route that served no purpose other than to enable him to say he obeyed the letter while practicing disobedience and not going directly home. We do that kind of thing way too much. We obey, slowly, but the spirit of the how and way and why we obey is disobedience. We fear the consequences of not obeying, but we have no desire to obey. So we obey in the least obedient way we can, which is a heart of disobedience, and God hates it. He wants us to obey out of love and respect. Not because we are afraid.
And those are times we do the crawl and come, never mind all the times He calls and we run away, run hide or just sit there and look stupid, like we don't know our name or that He wants us to come to Him. Yet, He never gives up. He isn't impatient with us. He doesn't yell and throw fits of lightning bolts. He lovingly and gently continues to call us to Him. But I think this is one aspect that I am made in His image. I think that He wants us to come with joy, ready to bless and be blessed, when things are right. And when things are wrong, I think He wants us to come quickly, showing understanding of to whom and where we belong, showing that we can trust His mercy and forgiveness and understanding and believe that being disciplined in love is better than being out there without Him and still not a reason to run from Him or delay in coming when called. He tore the temple veil so that we could come into His very presence, and that's exactly what He wants us to do.
Today, let us remember that while God is indeed King, we can enter His gates with thanksgiving and enter His courts with praise because He is also our Daddy, and the children of the King do not need to crawl in submission. Let us cut The Cavalier Crawl out of our spiritual approaches to God and remember that good or bad or anything in between, we can always run to Him and find our lives better, with more joy, peace and love in His presence.
Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments and or listens to the messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions to more people by sharing the Moments and messages that you read or listen to? Hitting the share button instead of or in addition to the like button will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.
If you would like to have notifications of new Unshackled Moments and messages sent to you via email, send an email to dalynwoodard@mail.com requesting to be added to the list. You can also follow Dalyn Woodard (@Dalynsmsings) on Twitter or Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.
No comments:
Post a Comment