Fourteen months ago, we found our household in the unenviable state of canine deficit. The dog kind. Not because we didn’t have any. We did. Two females. Delilah and Fiona. A lab hound mix and a registered malamute. Five years separate their ages. I won’t try to do the math in dog years. It isn’t important. It doesn’t matter to them. They are besties. They love one another with that special bond dogs have. The teeth licking, face sniffing, nose kissing bond. The one humans can’t truly comprehend. Their age gap and significantly different health situations make no difference. They are pals. If one goes somewhere, the other feels she must also go. Even the vet. It’s that kind of love.
At ten, Delilah is riddled with arthritis. Her ACL’s have both been replaced. Her gait is stiff. Her brain doesn’t seem to function at full capacity. And, although her spirit is willing to play, her flesh isn’t truly able. Fiona, the malamute, is five. She substantially outweighs her friend. She is agile and nimble and energetic. She loves to play. She likes to run. She still gets the zoomies. She digs like there’s treasure buried in our yard. She is always interested in jumping, wrestling, and body slamming her friends. She’s never mean. Never aggressive. Never intentionally harmful. She just has more energy, less pain, no stiffness, and a longer battery life. Fiona can play for a long time. In any kind of weather. When it is cold and snowy. When it is hot and muggy. As long as she has a playmate, Fiona will play.
Delilah is not that playmate. She can’t be. Her bones are brittle. Her joints are stiff. We fear one good body slam would damage her beyond repair. Understanding Fiona’s need for someone less fragile to play with (and our constant desire to keep our house full of canine babies), we went in search of another malamute. A male, this time. A dog that could match Fiona in size and energy. Maybe in attitude, too! Someone who wouldn’t allow her shenanigans to keep them down. Someone she wouldn’t accidentally break when her overexuberance got the best of her. Someone whose personality would be the perfect foil to hers. The search was not the difficult part. That would come later. After the search, the choice, the pickup, the arrival at home. It would come in the daily grind of training, midnight outies, and indoor messes. We knew this going in, yet still we determined the adventure to be worth it.
Like most registered breeds, malamutes aren’t cheap. They aren’t easy, either. There’s a whole new level of stubbornness, independence, and strong will hidden behind that soft, floofy fur and those beautiful, manipulative eyes. They love hard, pull harder. In their own direction. House training, kennel training, leash training, and learning general doggie manners are all their own individual journeys–marathons, actually–each achieved only through rigorous effort and patient endurance. None of that was a surprise. We expected it all. When we went to purchase another malamute puppy, our eyes were wide open. We knew exactly what we were getting. A fluffy ball of infinite love who was more stubborn than he had a right to be, more independent than was good for him, and brimming with shenanigans and mischief. The vet bills would increase. Our patience would sometimes be threadbare. Some days we would have to force ourselves to stay the course and not let him run the house, even when it felt like the progress was non-existent. We knew it all before we ever left home to meet him. Yet, knowing all of that, we were still captivated by the soft brown eyes peering up at us through copious amounts of caramel and white fur, and we chose to make Finnigan part of our family.
One year later, Finn has settled in nicely. He’s not perfect. Has a long way to go, in fact. But he is better than he was. He can do some doggie tricks now. Normally comes when called. Walks decently on a leash. Unless there’s a scent. Scents cancel his ability to obey. All of it. So do sticks. We are working on it. His personality is not as sassy as Fiona’s. Thank goodness! He’s a little shy. Suspicious of people he doesn’t know. Oddly possessive of his collection of lambchop toys, but not his chew bones. They are a great combination. Equally resplendent in mischief. Too cute for their own good. Opinionated. Strong-willed. Always ready to push boundaries, make me repeat commands, or force me to get out the trusty spray bottle. They love as hard as they play. Sleep like bears. Hog the bed and steal the couch. Clog my vacuum with fur and paint my floors with mud. But they are worth it. Every penny we paid. Every minute we spend training. Every hour of mopping. Every worry, concern, and emergency vet visit. Knowing all we know about raising puppies and owning dogs, we would do it all again. Because to us, they are worth it.
Last week, as I sat at my desk writing the words to the blog post, “Even If You Didn’t Listen,” Finnigan lay sprawled on his side behind my chair, fast asleep. His morning nap time. Distracted by his presence, or more likely, considering his distaste for listening, I looked down at his softly snoring self and smiled. My mind flashed back through all the things he’s put us through this past year. The car sickness, the emergency vet visits for tummy troubles, the mischief, the shenanigans, the disobedience, the monetary price we paid to bring him home, and without thinking, I audibly whispered, “You were worth it.” With my next breath, I found myself wondering if God finds himself in the same situation as He looks at us.
Before you began growing beneath your mother’s heart, God knew you. From your first inhale to your last exhale, God saw the timeline of your life. His loving thoughts toward you began before you could form a single thought on your own. He made it His business to know you. All of you. Your temperament. Your personality. Your strengths. Your weaknesses. Your hopes. Your dreams. Your fears. He knew who and what you would become. He knew the choices you would make. Those that included Him. Those that excluded Him. He knew how stubborn you would be. He knew how hard He would have to work, how much effort He would need to put in to reconcile you to Himself. He knew how often you would need His loving correction. He realized how much you would need to feel His accepting love. He knew you would run from Him, reject Him, refuse Him. He knew your life would take you down alleys and through valleys you wouldn’t know how to escape. He also knew He would never stop trying to reach you. To save you. To bring you into His family. He knew you would need a Savior. Someone to save you from yourself, from sin, from eternal death. And, because He loved you before you even began to be formed, because He deeply desired for you to be part of His family, God deemed it worth it to make a plan for that very thing. (Psalm 139:1-18)
Imagine the squeeze of God’s heart as He prepared Himself to send Jesus, His only Son, Heaven’s perfect Child, to sin-filled, hate-drenched earth. As a helpless infant. Sin would surround Him. Hate would encircle Him. He would grow up in a world brimming with evil. He would live among humanity, brush shoulders with the dregs of society. Pretentious hypocrites. Humiliated prostitutes. Brazen thieves. Self-righteous sinners. Some would listen as He taught. They would learn. They would follow. They would obey. Some of them. Not everyone. Others would choose to scoff and scorn. They would mock Him. Hate Him. Decry, deny, and defy Him. Eventually, they would crucify Him. (Isaiah 53)
As horrifying as it would be, Jesus’ death would not be permanent. It would be redeeming. For all people. From His final breath until the end of time. Jesus’ sacrificial death would pave the road to eternal life for all humanity. The only road. No bulls or rams or goats to sacrifice. No wheat to gather. No oil to bring. No special mixtures or methodical butchering. Not anymore. With Jesus’ final cry, the veil in the temple would tear down the middle, giving all humanity direct access to the Father. They can come boldly, directly to Him with their sins, their burdens, their cares. The great love of the Father for worthless humanity compels Him to make this all possible, no matter the price. No matter what He knows about them. Because He knew it all. And even in the knowing, He believed the sacrifice, the cost, the pain, the suffering, the separation was worth it. Knowing our ridiculous shenanigans wouldn’t stop. Realizing our deep penchant for disobedience wouldn’t end. Understanding our stubbornness, our arrogance, our moral bankruptcy, and ethical corruption. Fully aware that we would sometimes get distracted, fall away, and stray from the paths of righteousness. Completely cognizant that we would follow the siren song of the world more quickly than we would follow Him. Acknowledging the risk He was taking by making such a sacrifice, yet still allowing humanity to freely choose to accept or reject Him. God still deemed the cause worth it. Worth His Son. Dying. For people then. For us now. For you. For me. When we were still ensnared, entrenched, embedded in our sins–and loving it. God sent Jesus to die for us, determining the redemption of our souls to be worth it. (Leviticus 1-7; John 14:6; Matthew 27-28; Hebrews 4:16; Psalm 49:8; Romans 5:8)
In the Book of Revelation, John classifies those who refuse to follow Jesus and live according to His commands as dogs. Not the cute, fluffy, loving kind I have. No. The scraggly, aggressive, diseased, terrifying kind. The kind who haven’t been washed and cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. The ones who haven’t accepted their reserved place at His table. Those who refuse to listen, to learn, to change. Those who choose to stay in their rebellion, their immorality, their lies, their idolatry. Given the opportunity to step into a new role as a beloved, redeemed child of the Heavenly Father, they have refused, choosing instead to revel in their sin. Outside the city of God. Outside of Heaven. Outside of eternal life. Unworthy dogs. A place we have all been at one point in our lives. A place you don’t have to stay. (Revelation 21: 8, 27; 22:15; Philippians 3:2; I Corinthians 6:9-10)
Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross means you don’t have to remain a scraggly dog on the outskirts of the kingdom. Haunted by sin. Hunted by fear. Hate-filled and hell-bent. You can be a family member. Washed. Cleansed. Forgiven. Redeemed. Saved from sin to eternal life through Jesus Christ. No matter who you are, where you have been, or what you have done. Because God, in His unfathomably vast love for you, deemed you worth saving. Bringing you into His family, holding near to His heart. God knew in the end, your redemption would be worth the cost. So He paid it. Willingly. Offering forgiveness and reconciliation to all of us unworthy dogs, making us worthy pups. Worthy to bear His name. Worthy to stand in His presence. Worthy to approach His throne. Worthy to sit, eternally, at the overflowing table of His grace. (I Corinthians 6:11; Romans 6:23; Ephesians 1:7; 2:4-6; 3:12; Colossians 1:22; II Thessalonians 1:11)