It had been my dream, and my husband’s, to some day give our boys a puppy, and when Molly Brown Dog came to our family she was welcomed with gusto. At first I was amazed, even delighted, with the shenanigans she got into.
Forget that she’d consume what had fallen out of the baby’s diaper, and then try to lick my face. Or chewing up things we’d spent good money on – like the new garden hose. Or the horrible worming project she put us through. She was just a baby, after all.
“As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly” (Proverbs 26:11 NIV).
A few years later we took Molly on a fishing trip, and she obediently stayed in the back of our station wagon. But for some reason, Molly didn’t process information like I thought she would after all our time spent enjoying and training her. She ran off, found a pile of rotting fish on the riverbank, and proceeded to roll in the nastiness.
At first, she came toward me when I called her.
Then she stopped.
She looked longingly at me, then longingly back at the mess, and rejected me in favor of the stink. I was livid! I thought of slimy, smelly fish guts getting spread around the interior of my car, and I decreed to all heaven and nature OUT LOUD, “You. are. not. my. dog.”
And I walked away.
Jerry and I later forgave her, of course, and he cleaned her up. I was still seriously upset. That’s when I decided to thank God I was not a dog.
Proverbs 26 compares many things to a person who is foolish, but the image of my dog “returning to her vomit” stays with me.
“Do you see a person wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for them” (verse 12).
PRAYER: Thank you, Lord, that you’ve given me the ability to reject foolishness and learn wisdom. I appreciate the animals you’ve made, wild and domestic. But I’m so happy you’ve made me one of your dear children, and you take the time to teach me. I love you with all that I am. Amen.
by Kathy Sheldon Davis
kathysheldondavis.com 