Monday, January 24, 2022
On the day of Pentecost all the
believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly,
there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it
filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what
looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of
them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy
Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them
this ability. Acts 2:1-4
This is our resident human manager,
Wellie. You can understand Wellie’s
language…if you’re listening. His bark
and stare are both loud and piercing. His eyes stare a laser-hole right through you;
it bellows and slashes-out messages:
· are you not
wearing your hearing aids, Russell, boy…or are you just plain dumb? I want to eat NOW…not 4 minutes from now.
· Hey, human…put
me up on that chair…NOW.
· I KNOW there are
treats in your pocket…they belong to ME!
At times Wellie “says” things with
those eyes which I don’t quite understand. He gets a little louder at those times. This past week I finally began to understand some
of what Wellie has been trying to teach me.
When he wants something, he exhibits the most persistence I’ve ever
seen. He can be irritating to an
impatient human, who would rather have quiet for his reading and study. He’s not the “cuddly” sort of hound, unless
he’s been fed (enough), and would sleep it off hanging upside-down in a
windstorm at the North Pole. Sometimes,
when he’s calm, he’ll even let you pet him, or scratch his itch under the chin…just
a little further up, and over to the left, please. Sometimes an insistent bark is not about food;
it’s a warning to get him to the outside business area before it’s too late.
We’ve had to learn a whole new set of
dog language; Wellie’s back legs don’t work much, so his needs push us in different
ways than having a pet who can fend for himself. The language of an old, partially-paralyzed
Shih Tzu has Biblical implications for the family of God.
The people that heard the disciples
speaking in tongues that first Pentecost Day didn’t get what was being said, they
simply figured the disciples were drunk.
Like humans trying to take care of a disabled Shih Tzu, they were
missing something about what God had been saying to them for ages. The message was this:
No matter the
differences between you and the next guy, the fact that I love both of you, should
tell you I want you to love each other, get along, and stop figuring-out ways to
control each other; just do what’s best for the other guy!
Wellie’s been trying to get through
to his dense caretaker for nearly 7 years now.
And while I’ve learned a lot about what he’s telling me, I realize, when
it comes to speaking in Shih Tzu language, I’ve still got much to learn. And that realization is 99% of the work of
developing patience with the differences between us.
For You Today
In the human family, we have just as
many communication-fails as when you try to understand
Shih Tzu-ese. But when you develop a
little patience with each other, the joy of the journey comes back.
[1] Title and Other Images: Russell Brownworth (own work) Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
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