As we were riding in the car today, my wife told me about some difficult circumstances a friend of mine is living through….the worst kind.  I already knew that something was off the rails with this person but I had no idea that it was as bad as she described…a train wreck. 

I sat in a pew this morning and the man behind the mic said that a young family in our fellowship got some bad news over the course of last week….the worst kind.

A once popular novelist wrote, “God pounds his nails.”  I think to say that God (if such a one exists at all) will have his way.  There’s nothing that I can point to that would say that this author bows to any invisible authority outside and above himself.  I, on the other hand, have surrendered to the idea of the authority of the divine.  That is to say that I believe that God will have his way and that God does pound his nails.  I can’t in good conscience say that what God does or allows is unreasonable…it just feels that way.  I have surrendered to the idea that he has earned the right through creation and redemptive death to do as he pleases.

My mind is full of questions/complaints as it pertains to how God operates that all boil down to one: Does God really love me?  I acknowledge that my knowledge of how God operates is limited. The limitation of my understanding is boundless. 

I look at my circumstances and the circumstances of others and I do my best to find how this can be love.  It feels like an agenda-driven God is steamrolling through my life and the lives of others so that his ultimate goal is achieved.  I feel like a child being beaten by a bully on a playground until I surrender my lunch money.  I don’t surrender my lunch money because I want to eat later.  The beating doesn’t stop until I give up my money.  Is God the great cosmic playground bully?  If I don’t give God what he wants does he then beat it out of me?

So that I can avoid phone calls and messages from well intentioned counselors let me clarify that the way I sometimes feel about what God does has nothing in common with what I believe his true character is.

There once was a little yellow pup that stumbled into a ditch. As the pup struggled to free himself from the ditch a man happened by and took pity on the little yellow pup and rescued him from the ditch. Now free, the little yellow pup followed his rescuer home.

The yellow pup grew into a big yellow dog and his rescuer became his master. The yellow dog being a dog had something wild in him that compelled him to do other than what pleased his master. The yellow dog would on occasion leave the boundaries of his master’s land and run through the neighboring woods terrorizing all manner of wild life. As the sun began to rise the yellow dog would remember his master and begin the long walk home. As he approached his master’s home, he saw the man on the porch sitting in a rocking chair smoking his pipe….waiting.

The yellow dog knew that his master was not pleased yet he still walked toward him. His walk became a crawl and on his belly he moved closer toward his master. The yellow dog covered in grime, briars, and blood slowly crept toward the feet of his master. The yellow dog could not bear the countenance of his master and kept his head low with his body until his face was at last at the feet of his master. The man put aside his pipe and rose from his chair and with a look beckoned his yellow dog to follow him. The yellow dog with his head down followed his master to what he knew would be unpleasant…a bath.

As they walked to the back of the house the man said, “I rescued you from a ditch, you followed me home, I raised you from a pup into a dog any man would be proud to own. For all that I have only one demand….your obedience.” The man knew that his yellow dog had some wildness to him and was prone to disobedience. As time went by the man knew that eventually age would keep his yellow dog from his late night running through the woods. Until that time arrived the man was pleased with his big yellow dog. The man knew that his demand of obedience was his by right. He also knew that there are only two things that compelled his big yellow dog from running through the woods to his eventual dirty and spent arrival at his feet…..love and trust.

I am the big yellow dog. Soon this will be over and I will sleep in front of the fireplace in my masters house.