A Lap filled with A Promise

Today’s Reading: Isaiah 10:12-13:22

First I feel the need to apologize for my lack of a post yesterday and then I will explain to you that the reason there was no post is because I was so busy playing with our new dog Skippy!

He is a five year old miniature Dauschund (dox-in) that we adopted from the Kokomo Humane Society.

This process has been so special for me because I couldn’t help but bask in the similarities and think of how God adopted us as sons and daughters. (Romans 8:15, 23, Galatians 4:5 & Ephesians 1:5 Hallelujah!) How we started out in a kennel-like place where we were given food and water and a little bit of love but mostly it was simply a holding place. But then God walked through the door and everything changed.

HE chose US, He came and looked us over with a commanding gaze that melted us in His presence, pointing out our skinny little frames and dark complexions only to have Him respond “I choose YOU!”

The first time the kids and I went to visit Skippy at the shelter we knew that he was ours, but we couldn’t take him home right away, we still had to talk to Daddy about getting a dog. Three days later I was on my way back to the shelter, solo this time, to go pick up the dog… but I still didn’t get to bring him home with me. The shelter’s policy is to fix the animals after they have been adopted, and then have the adoptive parent pick up the animal from the vet’s office. So, while I had paid for Skippy on Friday I had to wait three whole days before I could pick him up! Sound familiar? On Good Friday Jesus paid for our sins and claimed us as His own, but it wasn’t until three days later when He rose from the dead that we were fixed and He was able to pick us up and take us home with Him. J Skippy is skinny as a rail, maybe because his previous owners were not able to cater to his somewhat picky tastes. But we have no problem spoiling and fattening this little dog up! He’s been through enough at this point he deserves a bit of time in the lap of luxury. And that’s where I keep getting quivery with the Spirit.

You see I have wanted a dog, any dog, for a very long time. And about a year ago I thought I had found the dog I was supposed to have. But he wasn’t the dog that God had picked out for me, Skippy was. And when I had come to the point of praying about last year’s dog and saying “If this dog is not my Isaac dog I don’t want him Lord” God told me that He had a dog for me. And while I can’t remember exactly how the conversation went, dogs quickly became a very big sign to me, like a rainbow reminding me of God’s promises to me every time I saw a dog it was special to me. They reminded me that God loves me and that He will hold true on His promises to me, no matter how impossible they might seem to me at the time. As I sat here in our recliner yesterday with my dog in my lap rather than my computer, watching a recorded sermon on TV rather than writing the blog a realization hit me. A fulfilled promise was sitting right there in my lap! In that moment I had a lap filled with a promise, laying there as contented as could be. He was so happy to have a house filled with people who absolutely adore him and was laying in his Master’s lap resting in peace because he was finally home.

It was such a beautiful moment when I realized how much of a picture of grace the two of us were sitting there together. Because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross we have been paid for, we have been justified, we have been redeemed, we have been adopted and are now members of the family of God where we live in a house filled with people who absolutely adore us and we can lay in the Master’s lap and rest in peace because we are home! No, we’re not in our heavenly home yet, however to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord! We are with Him in prayer, we are with Him in praise, and we are with Him in conversation throughout the day! And all we have to do is close our eyes, breathe His Holy Spirit in deeply and we’re there. Home. In the Master’s lap, curled up and resting peacefully because He is our home.

I’ve gotta throw in some fun pictures too, because I can’t leave you with the impression that Skippy is serious all the time. 😉