When my brother and I were children, our family had a dog that showed us what unconditional love was all about. I dreamed about him last night.
The first frame of my dream showed our present day cat, Lily, twining around the legs of a medium sized brown dog. I saw the legs and then I saw the dog. It was Brownie! Immediately I felt as if I were a child again. I was so surprised and delighted that I threw my arms around him and cried. Pure love was coming from his warm, furry body while he just sat there.
I never quite realized before that Brownie was one of God’s chief representatives in our lives. Brownie never found any fault in us. He went everywhere we went and protected us every day of our lives. He was part of us.
Lately, I’ve been practicing hearing from God. Today I got a big surprise. I learned that I don’t have to be any more perfectly right with God in order to hear what he’s saying than I had to be to “earn” Brownie’s love. God isn’t going to criticize me. Right now I’m reading Mark Holloway’s book, The Freedom Diaries. Here’s what God told Mark.
“You have thought you had to be right with me to hear me speak. Haven’t you read the Bible? It’s a collection of stories about me turning up and talking clearly to people who are going about their lives without any more moral purity than anyone else around them. Moses, Gideon, Esther, Saul, Simon Peter, Isaiah.”
Talk away, Lord, I’m listening, and I’m loving what you’re saying. Thank you for the dream about Brownie that reminded me what it was like to have someone love me fully and unconditionally.
I’m getting new ideas for the Sunday School class, I know Bill is getting over his flu, and I’m not concerned about it. I’m learning more every day about the exciting plans God has for me. Life is fun. “I Just Feel Like Something Good is About to Happen.” Gaither song.
Read Isaiah 6:5 , Luke 5:8 to see what Isaiah and Simon Peter thought at first about hearing from God.
Find, The Freedom Diaries, by Mark Holloway and materials about dreams at: http://www.cwgministries.org/store/freedom-diaries
Fantastic post, love this. I learned so much about God’s love from my Dad’s old dog…we can learn so much about God’s love from dogs. Thanks for this post.
Thanks for your encouragement and enthusiasm, James. You’re right, dogs are wonderful!
For us, our Brownie was Fozzie Bear, a char pei and long-haired shepherd mix. Thank you for sharing such a heart-felt moment.
Bob, I was thinking about you when I read the other comments. Thanks for saying such nice things about my blogs.
It’s hard to witness more unconditional love than that of a dog! It’s a great lesson for all of us.
Dear Tammy Dearen (how many times have you heard that,) Thank you for your comment about dogs. We don’t have one right now, but we do have two cats we enjoy very much. Thanks so much for commenting.
There is a lot of discussion in the world these days about emotional intelligence and how dogs’ intelligence may be as great as ours, but in different ways. Maybe dogs have much more “emotional intelligence” than most humans do.
I hadn’t heard that particular study, how interesting. I always say if you want to be loved have a dog, if you want to love, have a cat. To me the ideal would be to have both.
Sometimes I forget that lesson as well. God is always here and speaking to us even when we aren’t paying a lick of attention and are so into what we are about that we can’t see the trees for the forest.
Your story about the puppy dream made me cry. I had a cat like that when I was kid. She would comfort me when I cried and one time saved me from a copperhead! I had her for 18 years. Pets can teach us so much about love.
Thank you for your heartfelt comment. I’m happy that you were touched as much as I was. Cats are marvelous too.
I have found God speaks to me in the quiet. When I take a break from life and meditate on Him, He reveals what He wants me to do. And get ready, because when we ask, He answers and it is never anything we can accomplish on our own.
And it’s true. We don’t have to be perfect to be used by Him. He loves us no matter what we’ve done. Unconditional love is a misnomer in our society and I’m thankful to have it from the One and Only.
Thank you for this post. It is a great reminder for me to stay plugged in and ready for the call.
Right now I’m listening more to God than I have in a while. He really is full of wondrous surprises, isn’t He?