Cranky Puppies

Have you ever started a project that you were sure was so simple that you could finish in no time (without any help from anyone else!), but when you got started it was more complicated than you thought, and drug out so long that you actually never completed it?

Or maybe you’ve had ideals of becoming an artist of sorts, and you bought all the supplies, but have never made time in your schedule to sit down and actually learn how to use them.

Or you had dreams once upon a time of playing professional sports, or music, or owning your own restaurant or bakery one day. And so you gathered all the tools and things you’d need to have a go at it.

But when you started taking the steps to make yourself a success, you realized that it was a lot harder than you thought, and over time that dream just fizzled away.

It happens. More often that we would probably like to admit.

Why do we convince ourselves that we are going to be the exception, and that whatever we want to succeed at will just come to us naturally, and we won’t even have to work at it? Where did that idea even come from?

Honestly, I have no idea. But I do have an illustration that may sort of fit the bill. Bear with me for a second.

The other day a friend posted a video of her sweet little doggy. She is a chihuahua mix, and truly is the sweetest. She has longer, silky, black hair and is a tiny beauty. She is sweet and will sit on your lap and let you pet her for the longest time. And she gives kisses of appreciation, too.

However, in a certain circumstance she seems like a totally different dog. Case in point: she doesn’t really like being groomed.

She will sit there, see that you have a brush in hand, let you get close, and then start growling and nipping at the brush. Even when my friend coaxes her in a gentle voice, and says comforting words like “It’ll make you so pretty! And it will feel so good!”, none of that matters to the dog in the moment.

She just knows she doesn’t enjoy the process, and so she fights against it and eventually just runs off.

Does that sound familiar? Have you ever responded that way when God has revealed a change He wants you to make in your life? To my shame, I have. Probably more times than I could even count.

I do truly desire to be more like Christ. I want people to see Jesus shine through my life. I would love to be known as a woman of God. But sometimes, even though I have all the tools and supplies I need for success, it feels like more work than it should be, and I just don’t have the patience to let God work.

God brings His grooming tools to clean me up, He speaks gentle words of comfort and encouragement, but instead of surrendering and putting effort into implementing those changes, like a skittish puppy I fight against Him. I bite at His hand, I bob and dodge, and eventually run away. Later I try to approach Him like nothing ever happened.

Not because I have something against being like Jesus! I just don’t want it to take too long. Or be too inconvenient. Or feel like work. While God’s plans are simple, no one said they would be easy to implement.

May we take the time each day to learn to use the tools at our disposal, let the Lord do the work in us, and walk away refreshed and a little more like Jesus in the end. Lord, help me surrender!

Philippians 2:13-16
(13) For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
(14) Do all things without murmurings and disputings:
(15) That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
(16) Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.

Romans 8:5-8
(5) For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
(6) For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
(7) Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
[8] So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:1
(12) And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you:
(13) To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.
(1) Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.