IT’S BETTER DOWN HERE WITH YOU - LPNI

OPENING:  Let’s talk about our pets and especially our dogs. We could talk about your cat too, but I’m going to take us to our favorite dogs. What great pets! Whether it’s your beagle, black lab, golden retriever, or that 100-pound Saint Bernard, I hope one of these dogs has enriched your life. I grew up on a farm with dogs and Holly and I have had three wonderful dogs over the years. So, while cats can be great pets also (we’ve had three cats also), but for this study, let’s talk about dogs.  

In our three-part study we’ll think about the special way that we talk to our dogs. It’s a conversation we love to have every day. We can go down to where our dogs live, away from the problems we’ve been facing. We talk first about our dogs, not ourselves. And when it’s done, when we’ve told the story of our day, we would love to have a little advice, if only our dog could talk.  

Now let’s take those three steps and turn them around. Let’s talk not to our dog, but to our God.  He invites us to meet him not on the heights but on the lowest places where our lives leave us at times.  He invites us to begin our conversation about him, again leaving behind our worries when they are too great for us. Finally, when we ask for advice, God actually can give us that wisdom that goes beyond our dog’s kind look.  So, let’s have the conversation with God that matches and surpasses what we do with our pets.

Let’s start with this idea:

How is life at your height of five or six feet?  At the end of the day, you’ve had your full share of good and bad news. You’ve talked and listened plenty. Now at the end of the day, come home and do you want more five-foot-high bad news? No, you want to go to a new place, a place where the troubles can be left behind.

You go down to the one-foot level where your dog is. Isn’t that a wonderful place to go? Maybe it’s petting your dog who has met you at the door and now is on his back so you can rub his tummy, or it’s waking him up from his nap and petting him while he finishes his dream of chasing the squirrel.  Leave behind the troubles of your five-foot-high world. Go to the one-foot world of your dog.

What is amazing is that our God meets us in the lowest place also. He could meet us only on the heights. How differently he could say our text:  Instead of saying, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He could have said, “Come to me, all who are victorious, who have overcome life and have reached the highest heights and I will give you a medal.”  But who is going to make that journey and win that prize every day?

Another attraction of meeting our dog in his one-foot life is our dog’s humility.  Our dogs have no pride. They just want to be with us from the first moment we come in the door. It’s a one-foot high invitation.

How different this is from our usual world. I work at Concordia University and professors essentially send out this message to students: “Come and study with me, for I am…” What do you expect finishes that sentence for a typical University professor: Come and study with me, for I am brilliant, I’ve written six books, speak three languages, and you’ll never meet someone like me?”  That’s about what we expect in the competitive academic world.

Finally, what an escape we have from our five-foot-high world when Jesus says, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  At the end of the day, we don’t need new to-do lists or a review of how we failed the list we already have. We need to sink down to the one-foot height of our dog and let the day be done.

So, let’s come home and find our dog waiting. He is so glad to see you! Leave those five-foot high worries and drop down to where he is. You don’t need to impress him or make promises of how well you’re going to do tomorrow.  You can connect right now, just as you are.

Dr. Daniel Paavola—Professor of Theology

Concordia University Wisconsin

Mequon, Wisconsin

July, 2021

OPENING:  Let’s admit it:  we sound a bit odd when we talk to our dogs. You come home and your dog runs to meet you. What do you say? And, more importantly, how do you say it?  It’s not your normal voice but a voice that is special to that moment. You wouldn’t use it with anyone else but it’s your just-right voice for those moments with your dog.  

Our three-part study uses our relationship with our dog as a picture of the greater relationship we have with God. We already looked at how we leave the worries of our ordinary world and gladly go down to be with our dog when we come home. What a refuge we find at the one-foot high level of our dog.  So, God finds us not on the unreachable heights of perfection and power but on the lowly place of his meeting in humility and mercy

.

Now, let’s focus on the voice we use when we meet and what we talk about when we first come home to our dogs.

When you come home, you have a special tone to your talking to your dog.  If you’re home alone, you can let yourself go.  It’s a little harder at the University when I meet one of the comfort dogs and I start petting Zoe or Sage, our two golden retriever comfort dogs. I would completely use my special, dog-only voice, but there’s always a handler standing there listening. I suppose they’ve heard it all by now, but still…

(By the way, this is my chance to apologize to all the handlers of our comfort dogs. When you come along with one of the comfort dogs, I barely saw hello to you before I’m talking to the dog. Maybe comfort dog handlers should print messages on their shoes. Something like, “I’m fine” on one shoe and “Thanks for asking” on the other shoe might work.)

Can you have a special tone in your talking with God?  I think so and it goes with our first unit’s idea of leaving your five-foot-high worries. Wouldn’t it be good to not only leave those worries for a moment, but also to become someone else for a moment? Wouldn’t it be good to go back and be the child you once were, the little girl with her dog and no worries?

Prayer is our chance to have that voice. Notice in the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer, we’re calling on our heavenly Father with the reminder that we truly are children. This isn’t a tone we take on, a voice we make up, but it is really our relationship. All day we try to be the responsible adult, the solver of the five-foot problems. But when we pray, we have a new voice that echoes who we really are, the children of the Father.

Besides the voice that’s distinctive, let’s think about what we say.  When you come home to your happy dog and you go down to scratch him behind the ears and then rub his tummy, what do you talk about?  Do you immediately tell him about how many emails you had to deal with or how bad the traffic was or how the gas pump wouldn’t take your credit card for some reason?  I doubt it. You talk about your dog! Admit it, isn’t this the time to ask about your dog’s day?

So, let’s admit we have a special voice just for our pets and that their world is a very welcome place at the end of the day. Even better, let’s admit that we can have a special voice with our Father in prayer, a voice and words that take us from our worries to his gracious world of heaven, his mercy, and all that he plans to do.

Do you have a special place and time when you can pray, being again the child of the heavenly Father and knowing that even the smallest voice reaches him in heaven?

How long can you stay there in that sheltered place of prayer before the five-foot world claims you back?  But how is the five-foot world different after your time of prayer?

Dr. Daniel Paavola—Professor of Theology

Concordia University Wisconsin

Mequon, Wisconsin

July, 2021

OPENING:  We’ve come home to our pet and gotten the best welcome ever. No one is so happy to see you as your dog!  You’ve left behind the worries of the day and used that special voice that is only for your dog. This makes sense since all you’ve been talking about with him is how he’s doing. You ask, “How was your day? Did you have a good day? Do you want me to rub your tummy? Does that feel good?”  What a relief to go to that simple world of a happy dog.

Of course, we’re talking about more than just our dog. Our three-part study uses our relationship with our dog as a picture of the greater relationship we have with God. God meets us in the lowly place beneath the burdens of our worries. He invites us to his world and our prayers have the special voice of being his loved, protected children. We don’t need to impress him or tell him what he doesn’t know. He knows it all but wants us first to focus on him, his kingdom and power and the heaven to which we truly belong. For our third study, let’s get around to facing the troubles we parked at the door.

I can imagine the conversation between you and your dog going something like this: “So, you had a good day?  Got a good nap. Watched out the window. Barked at the squirrels.  Whew, that’s a lot. Glad you got in a second nap.

“Want to know about my day?  It was really something! I never expected so much trouble over something so simple. People!  What are you going to do with them?”

After talking to your dog about his day, there comes a time to tell your story. The thing I love about talking to our dog is that he actually looks interested. I still use the same voice that I used when we started, the voice that was all about him. But now it’s time to tell my story about my day.  

The wonderful difference with God is that he absolutely knows everything and yet he is more interested in what I say than the dog is. Your dog seems to listen because he doesn’t know what you’re talking about. God truly listens even though he knows absolutely everything about you and what you’re saying. And yet, he doesn’t hurry your story or correct how you tell it.

Of course, after you get done telling your dog about your day and your troubles, you’ve got to ask what you should do?  For me, it goes something like this: “So, I don’t know what to do. I was just glad to get out of there, but I have to go back. What do you think? What should I do?”

All this time, your dog is listening—or so it seems—and giving you that patient look that says, “Keep on scratching behind the ears and a little under the chin too.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if your dog could give you actual advice? Now, your dog’s version of life advice might be that you should have a good meal, take a nap, and then play catch and fetch in the yard.  Of course, come to think of it, a good lunch, a nap, and a little catch in the yard might make life look better. But some problems need more solution than that.

What a wonderful homecoming every time you walk in and your dog meets you at the door. Go ahead and use that special voice, go down to the happy one-foot high level of your dog and ask about his day. Then, go on and tell him about your day. He’s glad to listen and those happy eyes tell you it will all be ok.

But even more is waiting for us with God.  He truly listens to every word that he already knows and he gives actual advice beyond a good meal and a nap.  His patience is endless and his wisdom unmatched.