Caspar the Friendly Westie

This is Caspar (hi Caspar!).  Why can't you see his front legs, you ask?  Because they waved furiously at me in greeting, enthusiasm, or possibly, desperation, each time I reached for his kennel run door to let him out.

It was adorable.  Caspar was a happy dog, and even though he'd never been here before, he seemed relatively at ease and was the ideal canine good citizen while he was here.  When he wanted to play with Tilly's toy ball, he backed off when she growled her protection over it.  He didn't argue about it, just went away peacefully.

"True love does not envy."

But I found that I was terrible envious of having a dog that was well-behaved, good natured, and was generally civilized.  Because this is what I've got:

She's sweet and she's happy, but she has no interest in behaving like a decent pet dog.

But if I'm envying another dog's behavior, it probably means I'm not loving my dog's very much.  But Tilly is what I have.  I picked her out and adopted her.  She's made me pretty nuts since I brought her home.  She thinks her name is "No-Tilly-No!"

Perfect love.......is satisfied with what is there.  And Who.  And Right Now.

This month I am considering what it means to "not envy" and what it means for how I love and how God loves me.  After all, I'm pretty imperfect myself.  I don't do life the "right" way all the time and I step on people's toes too much.  But God loves me anyway.  It's good to know He's not busy comparing me to His Son Jesus who was, you know, perfect.  But through that Son's sacrifice, my sins are no longer counted against me. 

Perhaps I need to look at the perfect dogs and admire their finer traits.  At the same time, I can look at Tilly and remember that her annoyance is not unlike my own.  And be grateful that all the land at the foot of the cross is even ground.