Good morning…
Thanks to a friend of a friend, who is an intake worker at a dog rescue organization, we patiently found our way to our next family member. We are still settling on a name as this eight week old golden retriever/yellow lab pup settles into our home. I have not cared for a puppy or a baby for years now, so I had forgotten the power of being with a being who is freshly made by God, a being who is completely dependent upon our family for her basic needs.
Jesus could have used a puppy for his demonstration speech, but instead He called a little child and set him before them, and said, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless you repent [that is, change your inner self—your old way of thinking, live changed lives] and become like children [trusting, humble, and forgiving], you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” Matthew 18:2-3 (AMP).
We all came to earth from the kingdom of heaven, freshly made by the Creator of the universe. Trusting. Humble. Forgiving. Harmony with God, with our true self, and with others, this was our original state when we each were handed our blank slate. Yet life begins to scribble upon us worldly values, painful experiences, and competing priorities. We forget our simple state of childlike dependency, and we begin to toddle away from our Heavenly Father, venturing out on our own two feet, self-centered and stubbornly strong. Much of the pain we experience in our lives is because we have stopped living out of our original design and we have started living our daily life in our own power, apart from God.
It takes work for us to shed our cumbersome ways of coping, to return to the freedom of complete dependence. Fearful distrust. Proud self-sufficiency. Keeping track of wrongs, in ourselves and in others. Our blank slate is now laden with so much complexity. Unless we repent (in Greek the word is “metanoeo”), we will miss out on the opportunity of experiencing the kingdom of heaven on earth today.
“Metanoeo” means to undergo a complete change of heart, to stop going in one direction and start going in another, to erase the messy slate and to begin clean again. Jesus says it this way in the above text, “Change your inner self, your old way of thinking, and live changed lives.” When we return to humbly trusting God to care for our every need and we begin living in a state of forgiveness for all that is imperfect within and around us, we will enter the kingdom of heaven on earth and make our home there.
Our new puppy is completely dependent upon our family, for food and water, for shelter and safety, for being taken outside when nature calls. Our little pup does not fight the fact that she needs us as benevolent caretakers of her every need. It is like our new family member, freshly sent from heaven to earth, is whispering in my ear, “Today is a day for your own ‘metanoeo.’ Change your inner self, your old way of thinking, and return to your original state, trusting and humble, forgiving and completely dependent upon God for your every need.”
Oh, the sweet, needy power of a puppy.
…Sue…
