Tuesday, May 30, 2023

In unexpected and surprising ways, Charlie, our 4-month-old beagle, teaches me of the ways of the Kingdom of God through mundane, everyday occurrences. Charlie is a nose and stomach on legs, but he wears his heart on his sleeve. He needs to be fed, cleaned up after, walked, played with, bathed, petted, and loved 24/7. Each time we bring him back home from a walk outside, he needs his paws wiped, lest he leave a muddy trail all through the house. It’s a lot of work, it seems, for a little puppy. Our house, which used to be picture-postcard clean, now usually has puddles at every other corner where he has relieved himself, with dirt-ridden paw prints connecting one puddle to the other! Our best efforts to exercise patience with his house training end up with us giving him a good piece of our minds, when at the end of some days, our homegrown herbs are eaten up, the newspaper’s shredded, and the house itself is his litter box! In our frustration, we reprimand him and convey our expectations to the little fella in human language, as he cowers down and finds the farthest corner to go hide, stealing looks at us with guilt-ridden eyes. Yet, in the very next few minutes, he’ll be right by our side, waiting to cuddle up as close as he can get, a look of pure devotion in his eyes! He doesn’t harbor the faintest grudge against us, nor a trace of anger, nor fear, nor guilt, as he comes running right up to me or my husband, lays his head on our feet, and goes off to sleep. Is that something we can do as humans? Forget the past and love once again so quickly? Also, isn’t that what our heavenly Father wants of us, to seek Him, to desire to be with Him, and run back to Him even though we’ve sinned, every time we’ve sinned? In some Indian cultures, dogs are reared for the sole purpose of security and kept strictly outside the house, being considered unclean. They aren’t considered part of the family or given the love they yearn for. True, our house may never be clean again, but as we receive Charlie’s unconditional love and understand the pure heart of this little creature, we realize many times that ironically, he’s the bigger “man.” And as we clean up after him, feed him, and wipe his feet, we are only learning every day to be a little more like Christ, in whose Kingdom, the last are truly first and the first are last.

My Haggai Leader Experience challenged me to aim higher, work harder, be more disciplined, to be more focused on our mission of ending Gospel poverty, and to invest time and resources in discipling new believers.