What Dog Lovers Know About God: Book 2

By Brenda Ayres

For the cover of my first What Dog Lovers Know About God, I used a picture of Lyssie, who was my first cocker spaniel and who lived with me for nearly twenty years. In that photo, she looked as if she were listening to Jesus, and I have absolutely no doubt that she is with Him now. The picture on this sequel's cover is of Annie on the left and G

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aspire Publishing Hub, LLC
• Release date: Oct 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781962611152

Book preview

What Dog Lovers Know About God

Copyright © 2023 by Brenda Ayres

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN

978-1-962611-14-5 (Paperback)

978-1-962611-15-2 (eBook)

To

Annie Bird & Gracie Girl,

Adopted

January 15 & May 7, 2010

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Taking a Walk

Chapter 2

Anamchairde

Chapter 3

A Tale of Grace

Chapter 4

Weary to the Bone

Chapter 5

Going to the Dogs

Chapter 6

Having It Both Ways

Chapter 7

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Chapter 8

What Happens to Daffodils?

Chapter 9

Howling at the Moon

Chapter 10

How Much for a Waggily Tail?

Chapter 11

A Stitch in Time

Chapter 12

All Astonishment

Chapter 13

Beware of the Dogs

Chapter 14

The Ruff

Chapter 15

Field of Fools and Hummingbirds

Chapter 16

Puppy Love

Chapter 17

Dogs That Bite the Hand That Feeds Them

Chapter 18

Poop or Snoop

Chapter 19

Candy and Coprophagia

Chapter 20

Treats

Chapter 21

The Pill and Lollipop Christianity

Chapter 22

No More Elephant Ears

Chapter 23

Between Shibah and Beersheva; Between the Oath and the Well

Chapter 24

Skosh

Chapter 25

Talkin’ Turkey

Chapter 26

Honeybees

Chapter 27

Poopaholics

Chapter 28

Cocking Christians

Chapter 29

The Briar Patch

Chapter 30

Howling Winds

Chapter 31

Not Fit for a Dog

Chapter 32

Tripping on the Dog

Chapter 33

Semper Fi

Chapter 34

Devil’s Cake

Chapter 35

A Live Dog is Better Than a Dead Lion

Chapter 36

Play It Again, Sam

Endnotes

Preface

I adore the cover of this book, as I adored the cover of my previous dog book. In my first What Dog Lovers Know About God, I used a picture of Lyssie, who was my first cocker spaniel and who lived with me for nearly twenty years. In that photo, she looked as if she were listening to Jesus, and I have absolutely no doubt that she is with Him now. The picture on this sequel’s cover is of Annie on the left and Gracie on the right. Annie is about three, and Gracie is about eight. Here they are posed as if they just heard me saying, Okay, girls, school is ready to start. The interest in their faces is the sort that teachers long to see; it is as if my two cockers are begging to learn something. My dear friend, Kemper Meadows, down in Georgia, would say, Learn them something instead of teach them something; there is a huge difference. Teachers may teach, but there is no guarantee that the students are going to learn what is being taught. Besides, as any dog lover knows, however, dogs usually teach the owner more than the owner teaches the dogs. Through this precious relationship of dog lover and being loved by a dog, there is a lot of teaching and learning going on, and the title of the class is GOD 101: Introduction to God’s love. After all, dog is God spelled backward, so it is no small wonder there is a correlation between the two—at least that is my theory as a lover of the English language.

In the following chapters you will find vignettes of experiences that I, as a dog lover, have enjoyed with two cocker spaniels that have taught me so much about God’s love, not just for me but for all people. The chapters may be used as a devotional or as a Bible study for an individual or a group, or simply for recreational reading. Knowing the Bible is crucial for the health and security of every Christian, I want to be sure that everything in this book is grounded in the Word of God, which is the solid rock upon we are to build our faith. Thus, I have supplied scriptural references and study questions relevant to the topic at the end of each chapter that will affirm my points in the narratives but also help readers dig deeper into the Word.

After having led two different Bible study groups through the use of my dog book, I can confirm that the questions at the end of the chapters are very useful for discussion, but I also raise many questions throughout the narratives that should give all people—Christian and otherwise—ideas to ponder. They are designed to help the reader gain a greater knowledge of God and grow closer to Him. That is the purpose of the book. It is the reason that I felt to write it, and I do believe that the Holy Spirit did guide me by showing me what to write as I continued in my lovely relationship and education with God and my eager cockers, Annie and Gracie.

If you want to organize a Bible study that follows a weekly schedule, you might work through one chapter each week. There are 36 chapters, 18 for two semesters of 16 weeks each, just like a college calendar. You might arrange to have a week off for Thanksgiving, another for Christmas, and another for Easter. That would allow you a 13-week break for summer. Need to see that in a chart? Here it is, although the holidays will probably fit at different times depending upon when you start the study.

Below is a chart that you can adjust to your own use. What is important is that you let the Holy Spirit reveal God’s truth through His Word, which profusely runs through this book. Just pretend that you are a dog, always eager to spend time with the Master, always eager to consume food—especially the meaty stuff—and always eager to do what earns a pat on the head or better yet, a belly rub. Music to my cocker’s ears is Let’s go for a walk. Through this book, I invite you to get buckled on the leash and then hit the road with us.

Acknowledgments

Cockers are known for their beautiful floppy ears. Whether or not those ears are efficient for hearing is debatable if one were to judge by my dogs. I understand that spaniels were bred with long ears to remove debris and dirt, clearing the way for them to sniff out their prey. Having been blessed by being an owner of cockers for several decades now, I also know that cockers hear what they want to hear and are absolutely deaf otherwise. Cockers are also very prone to ear infections. It seems I am always cleaning and nursing my cocker’s ears, just as the Holy Spirit is employed at making sure that our ears are clear.

Still, I love my dogs’ ears. They are so cute. They’re even cuter whenever something happens to them that they don’t like—maybe they have bumped into something or maybe they have to do something they don’t want to like come inside because Mama has to leave for an appointment—and they shake their ears. They shake off the bad feeling and do what they are supposed to. This is one of many lessons that I learned from them, for I am often telling myself, Shake it off, and then I do what God wants me to do or I get rid of the debris that has dirtied my spirit or clogged my hearing.

I have learned another lesson about ears from cockers; it is such a blessing to have ears that can hear, in particular, the voice of my Master. I don’t always get it right, and I am not always able to distinguish His voice from mine or from others or from Satan. In the first verse of 1 John 4, we are told: Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Paul prays that we will have real knowledge and all discernment (Phil. 1:9). With all the fake stuff floating on the internet, tv, and printed page, we Christians must rely upon the Holy Spirit to help us discern what is real, true, and godly.

With the Holy Spirit as my translator, you would think I’d have no trouble in recognizing God’s speech, but I do. There is a Scripture that says, Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh (Matt. 12:34, KJV). For me, I would add, And out of the abundance of the heart the ear heareth, meaning that I sometimes want to hear what I want to hear and vice versa. If my heart is not exactly pure about a certain issue, I am inclined to hear Satan’s voice and mistake his lies for God’s truth. I have learned, like a cocker, that I should cock my head—I should get my spirit in the right place—to hear only from God, so that I can know His will and delight in doing it.

As for God, He has no problem with His ears. He listens to me, even if I don’t speak. Like a dog lover, He does know me, He takes care of me, He leads me, and I follow Him and love Him (John 10:27). I am so grateful that He rescued and adopted me.

It is my earnest prayer that you have the same experience of knowing God as your Master and Caretaker, growing in love and security in a similar way that dog lovers take care of their precious canine babes, and in turn, these dogs know our voice and find joy in obeying us. What I have learned and continue to learn from life spent with cocker spaniels I want to share with you because it has been a fulfillment of a promise that Jesus has made to me personally (and to all who receive it from Him), and that is life that Jesus gives is life more abundantly (John 10:10), so that we can share it with others.

My thanks then go to the Lord and to my cockers who have taught me so much on my spiritual journey of becoming more like Jesus. I also am grateful to Tanya S. Blankenship of sheaPhotography, who gave me permission to reproduce photos throughout this book, that she took of my dogs. See www.sheaPhotography319.com.

Brenda Ayres

Chapter 1

Taking a Walk

I talk to my mom on the phone nearly every day, and when it’s time to hang up, she says, That’s ’bout all I know. That’s where I was at the end of my first dog book that was titled What Dog Lovers Know About God. I figured that I had written all that God wanted me to say, and I did, at least for that book. But the lessons I was to learn through living with two cocker spaniels were not over. I was not and still am not ready to put on the cap and gown and take my walk to the tune of Pomp and Circumstance to receive my diploma in Basic Christianity. I’m not sure that the book even earned me even as much as a C in GOD 101.

If I am writing this book and you are reading this book, neither of us has the right to add credentials to our vitae that certifies our proficient knowledge of God. In reality, we will not be handed our terminal degrees until we have run with endurance the race that is set before us (Heb. 12:1), until we have finished the course and the ministry, which [we] received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God (Acts 20:24).¹ A vita is not just a long résumé; the word translates as course of life. I do hope this book—my writing it and your reading it—will help us go the distance in our individual course of life by learning how to keep pace with the Lord and head in His direction.

When I completed my first book of What Dog Lovers Know About God, Annie was barely two years old. and Gracie was seven. They were two cockers that I adopted through petfinder after my 20-year-old Lyssie had passed. Annie and Gracie had been severely abused by their breeders, and once rescued, had to undergo rehabilitation in order to become the dogs God had created them to be. Similarly, when Jesus rescues us, He heals and rehabilitates us after our having walked without Him in a world hostile toward human beings, a world that is under the control of Satan. Jesus pulls us out of Satan’s claws, and then we start over in the way described in 2 Corinthians 5:17, Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Just as Annie and Gracie transformed into new, free creatures walking with one who loved them and showed them only compassion, kindness, and protection, so we all, when we walk a new walk with Christ, metamorphose into new, free creatures who come to love the Master who walks with us.

If you have not read the prequel to this present book, that does not matter, although I hope you will want to do so after reading this one. Whether you are a kindergartner or graduate student, God always has something new to say to you and me. Walking with Him is what we have been created to do, and as long as we are alive, deliberately and conscientiously wending our way with Him has got to be even more regular and necessary than walking a dog. My two cocker spaniels would not, could not, should not know how to function if we didn’t have our regular morning and evening walks; it keeps them regular and reminds them who’s in charge—who’s on the leash that leads them. The only difference between them and us is that we should be taking the walk with God every second of the day.

It is a surprise to me that I am writing a sequel. After the first book, God started showing me things through Annie and Gracie again, and the Holy Spirit was saying, Write it down. I came to realize that the Lord had more to say to you and me through my dog books. And I was glad, honored, and humbled for such a mission. Collaborating with God is the most exciting way we can possibly live our lives and serve Him.

Do you know that there are eighty times in the Bible when someone is instructed to write something down? The last appears in Revelation 21:5 when John is told by He who sits on the throne to Write, for these words are faithful and true. The well-known eighteenth-century Bible scholar Matthew Henry explained why the Lord was so emphatic about John’s recording his visions, that he might imprint it on his own mind, and by that, Henry thought that God was exhorting John not to add or subtract from the vision (1072)² but to render in writing exactly what he heard and saw. Proverbs 30 asserts: Every word of God is tested; he is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar (5–6). This Scripture in Revelation reminded Henry of Habakkuk 2 in which God directed the prophet to Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it (2). Then Paul encouraged us to rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us as we run with endurance the race that is set before us (Heb. 12:1). Our lives are a race; we are on the run and need to be able to grasp plainly what God wants us to know and be careful that our cocker spaniel ears do not get entangled along the way as to slow us down, mislead us, or stop us altogether.

The prophet Habakkuk struck a pose that we would do well to imitate. He determined to stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved (2:1). Similarly, John would write down his visions so as to, as Henry understood, make it more clear to himself, but especially that it might be notified to those in distant places and transmitted to those in future ages (1072). Once it is written, we are supposed to read it.

God called to memory what He did for me with my three cocker spaniels and spoke about what to tell you in my first book. Annie and Gracie—as well as Lyssie (1991–2009)—were the stars of my first book. To work through my grief of losing what had been my best friend for nearly twenty years (my black cocker named Lyssie), I felt led to write about my pain and doubts. Another Bible scholar, Sir George Adam Smith, observed that Habakkuk was expressing doubt to God, with a temper patience only and a certain elevation of mind and a fixed attention and sincere willingness to be answered (138).³ The prophet was not challenging God. He was not expressing anger or bitterness. In humility, he even asked to be reproved if he were wrong to ask questions of the Almighty. His was an honest search for God and His truth, and that search was driven by an anguish similar to the one in Tennyson’s long poem, In Memoriam. It is an anguish that we all share when someone we love dies.

Tennyson was studying at Cambridge when he formed a close relationship with Arthur Henry Hallam. During a Christmas vacation, Tennyson met Hallam’s eighteen-year-old sister Emily and fell in love. He would not marry her though until he could afford to support her. When he was only 22, his beloved father died, which, besides causing much grief, also forced Tennyson to have to leave Cambridge in order to take care of his family. Then in 1833 Hallam died suddenly when a blood vessel near his brain burst. He was 22; Tennyson was 24 and so fraught with grief, he began to doubt the existence of God, and if not His existence, then His existence as a benevolent being. As I did with my first dog book, he worked through his grief and doubts through his writing. He began working on In Memoriam A.H.H., and it took him seventeen years to finish it—seventeen years of a spiritual journey that led him back to God.

As he struggled through some of the same issues that we all do when we mourn, he wrote what would become these oft-quoted lines: There lives more faith in honest doubt, / Believe me, than in half the creeds.⁴ If we are expressing our doubt to God, just as Tennyson was and just as Habakkuk was, the very act of expressing our doubt to God is an act of faith. Why would we ask God questions if we did not believe that He existed or that He wouldn’t answer?

By the way, when In Memoriam was published in 1850, which was after Tennyson was reconciled to God, His poem had become so well received, he was appointed Poet Laureate and could then afford to marry Emily. In Memoriam became Queen Victoria’s favorite poem, and when she met Tennyson in 1862 and then again in 1883, she told him how much it had comforted her after the death of her beloved Prince Albert.

Tennyson was faithful to write down that which would later bring comfort to untold numbers of people who also had to wrestle with death.

This is one reason why we Christians have to endure trials, so that we can share with others how to endure them and what we have learned and gained from them. God does comfort and strengthen us as we go through these trials. The entire process is described in 2 Corinthians 1:3‒5:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.

In his discussion of Habakkuk’s doubt, Smith pondered upon 1 Timothy 1:19: the good conscience, which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck.⁵ Paul was telling Timothy that God commands us to keep the prophecies that have been committed to us so that we will fight the good fight (18). We must not let our faith be shipwrecked when we have to endure the storms. The written Word is our mooring. In the nineteenth century (arguably when the best hymns were written), Albert Benjamin Simpson composed O Let Us Rejoice in the Lord Evermore that expresses this theme. The first verse is

O let us rejoice in the Lord

Though all things around us be trying,

Though floods of affliction like sea billows roar,

It’s better to sing than be sighing.⁶

We will rejoice if we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7) if we decide to trust in God’s Word and promises to us instead of giving into our doubts.

When Lyssie died in 2009, I needed to know that she was in heaven with Jesus. After studying Scripture and books written by Bible scholars (at that time, there were very few scholars or any other people who wrote on dogs in heaven), I arrived at a certainty that Jesus did indeed receive my Lyssie and did restore her to perfect health, and that she was romping about somewhere in heaven waiting for me.

I also lost my dear cousin Steve to cancer. Although I miss him terribly, how sweet is that peace that comes from the knowledge that he too is with Jesus. How can anyone survive the death of a loved one without such assurance?

I thought my first book would be all about dealing with death and coming to terms with the afterlife, even the afterlife for a much beloved pet. But when God takes away something dear to us, He always restores twofold (Job 42:10); that is to say that He always has a reason for taking away in the first place, and He always gives back more than He ever takes. After Lyssie’s death, I searched petfinder, and there was a picture of Annie. I was instantly smitten. She was a beautiful, albeit emaciated, blue merle cocker. Blue merles are rare cockers; they are black with marble blue and gray that run through their fur. Annie also had a white bib and a white shaped heart under her chin. Unbelievably, someone had dropped her off at a high-kill shelter to be euthanized. She was barely over a year old and had whelped. When an angel of mercy rescued her from the shelter, Annie was severely undernourished, matted, and covered with fleas and feces.

When I met her and said, Hey, sugar, she lost her bowels. She was a nervous wreck, but there was something special in her eyes. She could barely look at me, but when she did, I saw a glimmer of hope. The eyes had life in them, and they said to me, Please love me.

Besides dogs and other animals, there are many human Annies in this world with that same look. They desperately need you and me to love them and let God heal them.

Annie recovered rapidly. She and I became instantly joined at the hip. That was a God thing. Additionally, I was so delighted with the knowledge that I helped rescue a dog that deserved to live and be loved, that I felt led to do it again with another cocker. That’s when God gave me Gracie, a tan-tipped cocker whose entire life had been filled with unimaginable horrors. She was also a victim of a puppy mill having lived in a crate for more than six years of her life. Once bred out, she was discarded at a high-kill shelter like someone’s unwanted trash.

My first book consisted of the lessons I learned from these three cockers. These lessons are the fundamentals of Christian experience dealing with death, resurrection, and rehabilitation. That book was mostly about the infant years, the time after you have been born again and you have to learn to do life all over again. After dying to yourself and putting off your old man, just like Annie and Gracie in their new lives, you need to be baptized in God’s blessings and love. Then you start learning how to respond to these blessings that seem so new to you. The process is described in Ephesians 4:20‒24:

But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that in reference to your former way of life, you are to rid yourselves of the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, which is in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

At first Annie and Gracie were so grateful for any food I put their way. Now they are more discriminating, and I have had to give away bags of treats to shelters that my dogs refuse to eat. Annie’s attitude became Rawhide? Me? I beg your pardon, but mine is strictly a chicken-flavored palate. Chewing on dead cow skin is for idiots who don’t know that they aren’t really eating anything.

Just like baby Christians, my cockers grew to need different kind of food to help them grow. Likewise, we need to be discerning as to what we consume spiritually.

They—like new Christians—also had to learn new rules. Dogs may not poop and pee just wherever, even if it is natural for them to do so. It is a struggle for us Christians to battle against our own flesh and resist what seems to come natural to us as well. Paul wrote that we have to crucify our flesh and to live no more in the flesh, but to live by faith in the Son of God (Gal. 2:15–21).

What a struggle it is to fight against the flesh. It is lovely to live in a nicely air-conditioned home and snooze on a nice comfy cushion and want for nothing until Discipleship 101 commences. When you are born again, not of the flesh but of the Spirit, your new address is the Kingdom of God. When you live in His brave new world, you have to counter and redirect your instincts in order to be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom. 12:2). Although Annie and Gracie became new creations (as do we), they (we) have had to let the old things passed away and learn new things (2 Cor. 5:17).

By the time of this second book, Annie and Gracie have acclimatized well to their new home and their new relationship with me, just as I have acclimatized well with my new place in God’s Kingdom and in my new relationship with Him. Walking the walk, though, is a whole new experience. So that’s what this book is about: getting to know the master of the leash, learning what He wants to teach us on the walk, and walking in such a way that others will want to walk with us.

Below are Bible readings and prompts for group discussion or individual meditation. The treats are the Bible readings, and if you are like my cockers, you tend to gobble them up like starved dogs that live on the street, as if you are afraid you’ll never get another bite in your life. But if you are a clever dog, you will chew your treats instead; you will take the time to work through them and to really taste morsels of delight. Suck out all their nutrients and vitamins, and give yourself time to properly digest your food so that it will truly nourish your soul. After you are satiated, then take the bone and bury it deep in your soul that you can easily find the next time you need it.

Bible Treats and Bones

Chew on Hebrews 12:1:

1.What did Paul mean when he said that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses?

2.How do we lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us? Can you think of what encumbrance and sin seem to entangle you?

3.The Bible often refers to the Christian life as a race. Look up the following scriptures and think about what each has to say about the race: Jeremiah 12:5, Proverbs 6:16–19, Psalms 19:4–6 and 119:32, Nahum 2:4, 1 Corinthians 9:24, Galatians 2:2 and 5:7, Philippians 2:16 and 3:12–14, and 2 Timothy 4:7

Chew on Jeremiah 12:

1.What is Jeremiah’s complaint? Have you ever felt this way about people around you?

2.In verse 5, who are the infantrymen and how or why did they tire[] you out? As a Christian, why are you competing with horses? What is the land of peace? What might your thicket be? Why is it by the Jordan?

3.Do you have any speckled bird of prey⁷ (9) in your life? What should you do about them? Please see the endnote for additional insights.

Chew on Psalm 42:6–11 and Isaiah. 51:14–15:

1.Does Psalm 42 express some of the pain that you have felt in your life? What are some of the waves and billows that have almost shipwrecked your faith?

2.In Isaiah 51:15, how does the knowledge that the Lord causes the waves of the sea to roar give you comfort?

3.What are God’s promises in these two passages?

Savor Habakkuk 2:1: I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.

Chapter 2

Anamchairde

I wish I were a dog.

Although I myself have often said, I work like a dog, I have never understood the expression; my dogs live a life of ultimate leisure.

I certainly don’t know what people mean when they say, It’s a dog’s life, which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, came into vogue during the seventeenth century⁸ when dogs were used to perform serious labor, and not just their chasing after some wily fox. Did you know that Henry VIII sent 400 English Mastiffs to King Charles V to fight in his battles? They would lunge at the horses of the enemy and latch unto their noses.⁹ It’s bad enough that we humans can’t seem to stop warring with each other, but to draw in poor animals to fight our battles is just downright barbaric.

As for the expression, It’s a dog-eat-dog world, I realize that dogs can get rather vicious over who’s the alpha especially when there’s food involved, but it’s been my experience that people are more callously, irrationally, and unbelievably malicious and violent than any dog, and no food need be involved. When we want a flippant statement, it should be more like It’s a people-kill-people world." That people used to sic dogs on other dogs for sport just demonstrates not the depravity of dogs, but the depravity of people.

The sinfulness of humans is not my point, however. My question is have you ever met a dog that had to do any work? Okay—there are those who pull sleds in snowy areas like Canada and Alaska. Dogs also used to be attached to carts in the nineteenth century to haul heavy burdens daily like milk, blocks of ice, items for sale, trash, and even people. A horrible job was given to turnspit dogs. They were placed in a caged wheel and forced like a hamster to run so that meat could be turned over an open fire to cook. Dogs have been further cruelly exploited and abused by having to fight other dogs or bulls or other creatures while men bet on them. And of course, dogs have been used to herd sheep and cows, chase foxes, and retrieve prey. But in 2023, of the 900 million dogs worldwide, with 90 million of them in the United States,¹⁰ just how many of them have to work? My dogs sleep 98.99% of their time. Mostly we ask them to be cute and affectionate, and to be our forever children. They are cared by people—myself included—who spoil them more than they ever do or did or would or could children. It is easy to love dogs; they don’t say no and I don’t wanna, especially since we ask so little of them.

Besides, as that delightful and clever writer James Thurber has observed, Man is troubled by what might be called the Dog Wish, a strange and involved compulsion to be as happy and carefree as a dog.¹¹ So I say again, I wish I were a dog. To be more specific, I wish I were a cocker spaniel. With those sweet, woeful, trusting eyes, and those long floppy ears, and that darling curly hair; who can deny a cocker anything?

If I were a cocker spaniel, I wouldn’t have to worry about where the money was coming from to pay the bills. I wouldn’t have to try to figure out how to repair and/or replace the mailbox that someone knocked overnight last night. I wouldn’t have to face filling out my income tax forms. (Didn’t I do that, like, just yesterday?) I wouldn’t worry about grading papers day in and day out, or any other form of tedium. I wouldn’t wonder when I’m going to be able to afford to repair the ceiling downstairs that was damaged because of a leak in the lines of my icemaker in my refrigerator that sits above it which I didn’t know was running for several weeks. In short, my life would not be complicated.

Despite how worried my Annie always looks, in that she is a cocker spaniel and cocker spaniels always look worried about something and everything and nothing, she truly has nothing to worry about. Every comfort she could ever want or imagine is hers. She knows only that her food and treats come from a cupboard, and that there are good things that live inside the refrigerator. She does not lose sleep over wondering how they got there, if they will run out, or who will pay for them.

Annie. Photo by Author.

It must be nice to have someone to take care of you, and you can spend the entire day sleeping in an easy chair in the sun rays that come through the window, your belly full, your heart full of love, no worries about tomorrow, no cares about today.

Oh wait—it is nice—it is very nice—it is exactly the way we Christians should live (although sleeping in an easy chair is more metaphorical for us), for Jesus invites us: Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matt. 11:28–30).

We can have a relationship with Jesus in which He takes care of us, just as my dogs depend upon me. He wants to be our anamcara—an old Gaelic phrase for Soul Friend. You’ve heard of the expression soulmate? A fourth-century Celtic monk by the name of Pelagius wrote about the importance of having an anamchara, which, to him, was more essential than being guided, forgiven, or discipled by a priest or preacher