Great Dog Stories (26 page)

Back in the day when our children were young, during Vacation Bible School our home and car were always full of neighborhood kids. Some would stay for lunch and play. This gave them a chance to ask questions about the stories they had heard from the Bible, and it gave me a chance to talk to them more about Jesus. One particular young man would often stay in the kitchen with me after the others went out to play. We would talk about dogs or school or the swim team, but it would always end with him asking a question about the Bible. You could say I was persistent, but I would say that he was even more persistent in his questioning. Finally, one afternoon he decided to pray and ask Jesus to forgive his wrongdoings and to rule his life. He was probably in the fifth grade at this time. Now he is a grown man with a family of his own. He loves the Lord and lives to please Him. His persistence paid off. He lives a full life here and will have eternal life in heaven.

Katie’s persistence saved the foal’s life. Steve’s and my doctor’s persistence saved mine. The young man’s persistence in seeking God brought him life eternal. These are three proofs of Jesus’s teaching and Paul’s words in Galatians 6:9: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time.

C
ARL
F.H. H
ENRY

I
love the classic Disney movie
One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
One of my favorite parts is the twilight bark. When the Dalmatian puppies go missing, their frantic doggie parents use a barking relay to search for them. News of their disappearance is woofed from one dog to another until finally, the puppies are found and eventually rescued from the villains who stole them.

Well, that particular brand of social networking was a figment of storytelling imagination. So when my dear friend Charlotte’s toy Sheltie, Tess, went missing recently, she tried a Facebook bark instead.

Charlotte lives on a farm in South Carolina. She teaches horseback riding and raises toy Shelties. She adores every puppy born in her home and has a standing policy that any dog can be returned at any time for any reason if its family can no longer keep it.

Beautiful Tess was a dog that came back. Her family adored her, but factors came into play that made them conclude, after much agonizing, that it might be best to give her up. Charlotte was not only delighted to take her back, but decided to keep her permanently.

Charlotte welcomed Tess back on a Thursday. Two days later, she had a little horse show at her farm. Tess and the other dogs were let out to play in a fully fenced yard. At some point, Charlotte discovered to her horror that Tess was gone. A telltale hole suggested she’d dug her way under the fence and taken off.

No one knows for certain why Tess escaped. A likely guess is that she still wasn’t quite sure where home was. It was a terrible time to be loose. A storm hit. Snow fell. It was freezing cold. To make matters worse, Tess had no collar or tags. Her return had been so recent that this little matter hadn’t been attended to yet.

Charlotte networks on Facebook constantly and has hundreds of friends. Many live right in her area. Charlotte posted a plea for help. She got it! Tess’s former family put up current photos of the dog. People cross-posted Tess’s plight to spread the word. Countless Facebook pages trumpeted the missing dog alert. Posts also triggered massive prayers for Tess to be safe from the storm and be found. Charlotte and friends who lived nearby put up posters and launched a physical search—but the Facebook relay got the news out much more widely.

Across the country in California, I prayed too. Monday morning came. Still no Tess. Charlotte was hoping and praying she was somewhere safe and warm with humans who had taken her in with no way to know where she belonged. I prayed again and begged God she’d be located.

Then, I saw the post that made my day—someone thought they had her!

It was true! She’d been found and spent the weekend with a local family. They’d had no idea who her owners were. Monday they’d seen a Facebook alert about Tess and realized this was probably the dog they’d been falling in love with. A grateful Charlotte profusely thanked her new human friends and welcomed the little truant back into her embrace, praising God for answered prayer.

So, what’s the moral of this story? Keep tags on your dog at all times? It’s great to have friends? Prayer makes a difference? Those are valid lessons, yes. But this tale has deeper significance for me. It makes me think of my loving Lord who weeps over those who are spiritually lost. And it makes me realize the crucial importance of spreading the gospel’s good news so they might hear and come home to Him.

In what’s famously referred to as the Great Commission, Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:18-20).

Long before Facebook and animated movies, Jesus was urging a communications relay to get out the word about Him. In the absence of modern media, God spread the gospel by spreading people. The early church in Jerusalem was scattered because of persecution, and the good news scattered right along with it. But each generation must get out the word anew.

Tess is home because people cared enough to spread the word about her plight. Are there people in your life who might come home to God if you helped to show them the way?

Happiness held is the seed;
happiness shared is the flower.

A
NONYMOUS

W
hen he was a chubby, out-of-shape 14-year-old, Dean loathed being a paper boy. The last thing he wanted to do was go outside and exercise. Why ride a bike and fling papers day in and day out for slave wages when he could be sprawled on a couch watching TV or taking a nap?

Rags, Dean’s Beagle/terrier mix, felt quite differently. His master’s paper route was the highlight of this dog’s existence. As Dean huffed and puffed along, laboriously tossing papers, Rags would romp joyfully alongside. Rags memorized the route and would dash ahead of Dean to identify the next house with all the exuberance of a bird dog pointing out the prey. For Rags, delivering papers wasn’t an exhausting, low-paying job—it was fun! He delighted in it. What was drudgery for Dean was a blast for his dog. And now, many years later, when Dean recalls his paper route he no longer sees the experience through the eyes of his teenage self, but through his joyful memories of his beloved dog. Now a trim and fit adult, Dean admits that Rags and the paper route is probably the happiest memory of his fourteenth year. Such is the power of joy.

When you live in Southern California, one of the required rites of passage is introducing your child to Disneyland—“the Happiest Place on Earth.” We first took our boy, Skye, when he was three. At his age and height—he was less than 36 inches tall—he wasn’t allowed on the adult rides I considered more fun. So we stayed mostly in Fantasy Land, going on kiddie rides I faintly recalled experiencing with my parents when I’d been Skye’s age. These were older, slower, gentler rides—less high-tech and with fewer thrills—rides I enjoyed for nostalgia’s sake but not ones I’d have chosen if my wife, Celine, and I had been on our own. But it’s not the attractions that make Disneyland so memorable—it’s the joy on your toddler’s face as he or she delights in flying over London with Peter Pan for the first time or holding on to a unicorn on a maiden spin around the merry-go-round.

When Skye was seven—old enough and tall enough to go on the adult rides—we took him to Disneyland again. While I still enjoyed riding the Matterhorn, my real kick was Skye asking if the Abominable Snowmen on the ride would be real—or the delight on his face when we got soaking wet on Splash Mountain and he wanted to go right back and do it all over again.

Rags and Skye both give examples of how the innocent joy of a dog or a child can transform the familiar, the mundane, even the dismal into a pleasant and positive memory. So, if a Beagle/terrier mix and a little boy have such power, how might we as children of God be able to transform the world around us?

Many people perceive the world they live in as familiar, mundane, and even dismal. If we who know the Lord were truly a delight and joy to be around, how might this affect their experience? If, in the face of negativity, we lived out the fruits of the Spirit, how might it turn their worldview upside down? If we delighted and rejoiced in the Lord, how might it transform their lives?

I once had a student tell me how much I’d impacted his life—based on a brief meeting we’d had on campus that I could barely remember. I was surprised when he said that. He saw our half hour together as a key moment, but I saw it as just hanging out with him. Perhaps I tossed out a nugget of wisdom or said an encouraging word or two. I can’t recall. But like Rags and Skye weren’t consciously trying to pump joy and positive vibes into their world, neither was I. Like Dean’s dog and my son, I was just being.

It is the highest blessing in the universe to be children of God. As His children, we are urged in Psalm 37:4 to delight ourselves in Him. If we continually delight in the One who dwells in our innermost hearts, we cannot help but spread His joy and transform the world around us.